Aug
15
2011
Anyabwile v. Wake
Protesters took over a Wake County Public School board meeting in Raleigh, N.C., during a protest of the school board's decision to eliminate a busing policy focused on diversity.
You’ve heard of Brown v. The Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case that began the dismantling of “separate but equal” in public education. Well, it seems that the gains of the Civil Rights movement are imperiled in at least one jurisdiction, Wake County, North Carolina.
My wife served in a Wake County high school for three years as a history teacher. I coached junior varsity and varsity basketball in the same system. In North Carolina, Wake County schools were the gem of the state. And with good reason. The system managed an integration policy that to some extent ameliorated some of the wide income and resource gaps between various neighborhoods in the system. It was a busing strategy that had some challenges (many of our students were bused past three or four high schools in order to attend school, leaving home sometimes as early as 6:30am). But on the whole, the system worked to give greater opportunity to all.
Thanks to the backing of sibling billionaires, what was once widely regarded an effective system for ending both segregation and class disadvantage may now be dismantled. Black Voices, an internet newspaper associated with The Huffington Post, reports on the community’s response to the election of five school board members bankrolled by Charles and David Koch (not N.C. residents), the Tea Party, and State libertarians. Those school board members received millions in support from the Kochs on a platform to end the school district’s policy of diversifying student bodies and returning the district to neighborhood schools.
Following Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the state national guard to deny the "Little Rock Nine" entry to Little Rock's Central High school. President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to escort them into the building.
Critics rightly understand this to be a return to segregation along ethnic and class lines. Neighborhood and class segregation remains a stubborn reality in most places around the country. Poverty concentrates, and so does wealth. And while neighborhood segregation no longer holds sway in the country as a matter of law, we’re nowhere near the level of meaningful social interaction we might like to see across class and ethnic lines. The new proposal for neighborhood schools just might be a giant step back to the 1940s.
Do we really want that? Do we really want armed soldiers escorting students into schools? Do we really want to strategically limit opportunities by zip code, skin color, and income? Surely the lessons of Jim Crow are not already fading from public memory and conscience.
Don’t make me dust off my red, black, and green!