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[Psychologist]

Dear K. Engel,

Ah, I believe Bloom's posts are parodies. At least, I surely hope so.

Thank you to Publius for responding to one of the issues raised in this discussion: the effects of Brown on HBCUs. I am quite ignorant about the history and current status of HBCUs and I was interested to see what folks had to say on the issue.

It seems to me that another impediment to equal opportunity in education is the persistent de facto segregation in neighborhoods. My daughter's public school is integrated: about 1/3 white, 1/3 African American, and 1/3 Latino and Asian (which breakdown, BTW, leaves out one of the fastest growing racial categories in California: mixed race children). Few of the African American and Latino students actually live in our neighborhood, though, which sets up an odd social environment for everyone involved. Other schools in the area, in particular the private schools, are much more exclusively white.  This "residential segregation" interacts with disparities in economic resources available to schools to produce markedly different educational experiences for children.

Brown was critical, but as Engel points out, it was only the necessary starting point in a long and contentious process of overcoming entrenched social and economic barriers.

[Bob Wheeler, SUNY Buffalo]

“It seems to me that another impediment to equal opportunity in education is the persistent de facto segregation in neighborhoods.”

I don’t how something that results from a socio-economic system such as ours can be considered “de facto” when the very design of the system is such that economic rewards define class choices. It implies intended or unanticipated class and racial boundaries but segregation has always been a deliberate and conscious effort to separate races by legal means. Can you accuse whites of racism and segregation because they move to the suburbs to escape the city? If middle class black families move to the suburbs are they racist too? What is racist is that part of our system that fails to provide the resources for a quality education in all communities. As I alluded to in my previous post, the problem is systemic and complex. There is a racial, cultural and economic component involved. If Black Americans are trapped in inner-city or rural communities that are suffering from a dwindling tax base, there is little hope of providing a quality education for their children.

As to HBCUs, in my opinion, these institutions were drained of talent for a couple of reasons. First of all, with Brown provided expanded opportunity for Black students, it also provided the same opportunity for Black professors and intellectuals. Secondly, these same brilliant minds discovered expanded opportunities in the private sector in business and industry. As a result of so many opportunities being available, the HBCUs have been hard pressed to attract talented intellectuals that are being courted by more affluent institutions. Again, this is a by-product of our economic system.

[Mina]

Molly, the notion that kids have rights isn't limited to the radical left.  Plenty of centrists and right-wingers *also* believe that kids have rights - which is why it's illegal to pull an immigrant 9-year-old out of school, beat her up, scrape off half her genitals, and/or marry her.  Or would you defend that abuse too, to make sure nobody get the impression you think that kid has rights?

[Lisa Caravacci]

I don't believe that the desegregation laws have impacted private black colleges either way.  

Historically, Howard University and other African American elite private Universities were established in this country because blacks were not allowed into white schools.  However, the students were from the higher socio-economic status within the black community.  As more opportunites arose for blacks, there was shift in the schools they could attend however the black private colleges did not lose their core student body because they are a high reputable institution of higher learning.