Learning for Justice helps connect 鈥楤rown鈥� decision to education justice today
Seventy years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on . The 1954 decision struck down the notion of 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� within public education. It declared that school segregation violated the , which provides equal protection under the country鈥檚 laws.
Yet lessons about Brown too often focus on the inspirational while failing to address the complexities of the Civil Rights Movement, the opposition to desegregation and the intense pushback to equality that we face today.聽The simple, inspirational story fails to recognize the persistent efforts to derail Brown鈥檚 efficacy, such as the explosion of private 鈥渨hites only鈥� schools in its wake, attempts to slash public education spending or siphon those tax dollars 鈥� and students 鈥� to private schools with vouchers.
article and toolkit, , provides a resource for effectively exploring the decision, its impact on schooling for Black and Brown children and its relevance today. Perhaps, most importantly, it encourages us to 鈥渞esist telling the simple story鈥� of Brown. Read the article .
In a photo from August 1958, Thurgood Marshall, then chief legal counsel for the NAACP, sits on the U.S. Supreme Court steps with students from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, after appealing a court order to delay integration at their school. (Credit: Associated Press)
