Brown v. Board of Education was heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1954. Unanimously decided, Brown is a landmark case, because it struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine which had allowed the United States to maintain racially segregated schools since 1896, as set out in Plessy v. Ferguson. To reach this decision, the court relied heavily upon “psychological knowledge and social science evidence,” to conclude that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” In striking down the legality of race-based segregation, Brown mandated schools across the nation to implement desegregation efforts. This essay will situate the Brown decision in the context of St. Louis, Missouri. This is because many scholars have regarded
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Board of Education decision, Superintendent Phillip J. Hickey of the St. Louis school board offered a voluntary three-step desegregation plan, slated to begin implementation in September of 1954. This plan entailed: “(a) integration of colleges and of special schools and classes; (b) integration of all high schools and integration of the adult education program and (c) integration of the two technical high schools and all regular elementary schools..” The fundamental mechanism St. Louis adopted for accomplishing these goals, was to reconceptualise its “neighborhood school concept.” This entailed redrawing school attendance zones so that any student residing within the same attendance zone, simply attended their nearest school. St. Louis prided itself on the adoption of this concept, claiming it to be “colour …show more content…
Louis, I will utilize an approach similar to that proposed by Farley, Richards and Wurdock. This approach is a regression analysis, and measures levels of white flight by establishing a baseline trend, which is the average urban white loss in the years prior to school desegregation. Then, urban white loss is measured in the years immediately following de jure school desegregation. Deviations are comparatively appraised against the baseline to determine if white withdrawals are resultant of desegregation. Black urban influx is included in this analysis to demonstrate the holistic nature of white flight. This measure was chosen because it independently isolates the variables of white flight and school desegregation, establishing a causal
Board of Education decision, Superintendent Phillip J. Hickey of the St. Louis school board offered a voluntary three-step desegregation plan, slated to begin implementation in September of 1954. This plan entailed: “(a) integration of colleges and of special schools and classes; (b) integration of all high schools and integration of the adult education program and (c) integration of the two technical high schools and all regular elementary schools..” The fundamental mechanism St. Louis adopted for accomplishing these goals, was to reconceptualise its “neighborhood school concept.” This entailed redrawing school attendance zones so that any student residing within the same attendance zone, simply attended their nearest school. St. Louis prided itself on the adoption of this concept, claiming it to be “colour …show more content…
Louis, I will utilize an approach similar to that proposed by Farley, Richards and Wurdock. This approach is a regression analysis, and measures levels of white flight by establishing a baseline trend, which is the average urban white loss in the years prior to school desegregation. Then, urban white loss is measured in the years immediately following de jure school desegregation. Deviations are comparatively appraised against the baseline to determine if white withdrawals are resultant of desegregation. Black urban influx is included in this analysis to demonstrate the holistic nature of white flight. This measure was chosen because it independently isolates the variables of white flight and school desegregation, establishing a causal