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50 Years Pass, Yet School Inequality Persists
Cheryl Brown Henderson, a plaintiff in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that desegregated the nation's public schools 50 years ago, has a message for today's students.
It's not over.
Brown Henderson, who runs an educational foundation with her sister, Linda Brown Thompson, another plaintiff in the case, says the progress made by Brown and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the University of Michigan admissions cases are part of the nation's struggle with race relations.
The Brown sisters will bring that message to U-M on Monday to a campus forum, where they will discuss what it was like to be at the center of one of the nation's most important Supreme Court decisions. Their appearance is part of a U-M theme semester devoted to the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Brown decision.
"Young people need to understand that nothing has happened in this country with respect to racism and discrimination by accident," Brown Henderson said Wednesday in a telephone interview from her office in Topeka, Kan. "The very moment you sit back, relax and think, 'OK, my parents' generation has resolved this on my behalf,' that's the very time the clock will start rolling."
The Brown sisters were one of the 13 families who sued the Topeka Board of Education in 1951 challenging segregated schools. Black children were forced to travel miles away from their neighborhood schools to attend all-black schools. By the time the Brown case reached the Supreme Court, it had been combined with four other school desegregation cases in South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Delaware brought by the NAACP.
On May 17, 1954, the high court ruled unanimously that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
On June 23, the high court ruled in the U-M admissions cases that race could be used in admissions to further campus diversity. But the court struck down a system that awarded extra points to minority applicants in the undergraduate system.
Although Brown Henderson said she was pleased with the U-M decision, she said it does not settle the question of race in education.
"The decision shows that race matters," she said. "Nothing in our past indicates this issue is going to be passe. The reason Brown v. Board is so significant is because African Americans have always placed a very high value on education. Education is the foundation of democracy. So to be denied access to quality education is clearly a purposeful move to deny access to full participation in the country's entities and organizations."
Brown Henderson, who is participating in numerous events to mark the 50th anniversary of the decision, said it provides the nation a focal point to discuss unfinished business, including adequate funding of public schools and closing the achievement gap.
"When we talk about failing and underfunded schools, that means we have failed in our ability to figure out a way to equitably fund public education," said Brown Henderson, who has worked as a classroom teacher. "The racial issue is a nonissue. It shouldn't matter that you're living in a segregated community. What matters is preparation so that children from that district are ready to be accepted to schools such as the University of Michigan.
"What would race have to do with it, if the children were prepared?"
Brown Henderson said it is a cruel irony that although Detroit public schools are only 45 miles from U-M, so many students lack the academic preparation to qualify for admission.
"The very place that could offer the type of hope and opportunity that inner-city youth would need is a place where they are often not equipped to attend by virtue of lack of preparation in what we're calling failing and under-performing schools," she said.
Public education is caught in a maze of politics that creates chaos for educators, she said. With key educational appointees changing every four to eight years, it's hard to achieve continuity in educational programs.
"We know how to teach children. It's not rocket science," she said. "What we seem to be lacking is the political will. We know small class sizes are effective, and particularly when students come to school inadequately prepared.
"What frustrates me is that we continue to blame the recipients of this flawed system, the students themselves. And we blame them along color lines. We should be working on resolutions to what we already know the problems are."
To preserve the legacy and the lessons of the Brown decision, Brown Henderson established the Brown Foundation in 1988, which provides scholarships and sponsors educational research and programs.
In 1992, the Monroe School in Topeka, one of the schools involved in the famous case, was declared a National Historic site. Linda Brown Thompson and her sister, Terry, attended the school. Cheryl Brown Henderson taught at the school from 1972-74.
On May 17, the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, the school will open as an interpretive center run by the National Park Service. Visitors will be able to view exhibits and see programs about the famous case.
Quinn Evans Architects of Ann Arbor, which specializes in historic preservation, is working on the building renovation.
Steve Jones, the architect for the project, credits Brown Henderson with saving the school.
"This was one of the critical schools for the case," Jones said. "It had not been used for years, and Cheryl rescued it when it was on the open market."
— Maryanne George
50 years pass, yet school inequality persists
Detroit Free Press
2004-01-08
http://www.freep.com/news/education/brown8_20040108.htm
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