School Desegregation - Milliken Prompted by Ede Warner's recent post on edebate we've been looking at Supeme Court cases that deal with school desegregation. There are many cases over the past 30+ years that have diluted Brown v. Board.

Right now it looks like Milliken v. Bradley (1974) is the best candidate to include in the topic. Milliken made it very difficult for lower federal courts to order inter-district integration strategies. The result, over time, was reinforcement of white flight to the suburbs, and stigmatizing of integration itself.

Including this case in our topic would certainly access the broader debate about the wisdom and efficacy of Brown v. Board, and legal strategies in general in solving school segregation.

There are also many counterplans in the literature. One interesting suggestion, by Erwin Chemerinsky writing in 2003, is the abolition of private and parochial schools. He argues that once rich white people have to send their children to large metropolitan public schools the schools will become cathedrals of excellence. There are also counterplans regarding other SC decisions that could be reversed. Obviously the negative could counterplan with greater funding for public schools - which goes along with Derrick Bell's critique of Brown, that maybe we shouldn't have faught for desegregation as much as adequately fund minority-populated schools.

I've posted a bare sample of evidence about Milliken on this blog. 

posted by Steve Mancuso at 5/25/2006 05:36:00 PM ¶