On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision outlawed segregation in public schools, making it illegal for districts to turn away African American children because of their race.
A new report finds cracks in that ruling have continued to persist over the seventy years following that decision. “The Broken Promise of Brown vs Board of Ed” report from nonprofit organizations Available to All and Bellwether Education uncovered loopholes that still create discrimination for low-income students, students with disabilities, and others.
“Seven decades after Brown, low-income children—many of them children of color—are still systematically excluded from the very best public schools. The brutal truth is this: In 2024, Linda Brown wouldn’t be turned away from a coveted public school because of her race, but it’s likely she would still be turned away. And it’s all perfectly legal,” wrote authors of the report.
According to the report, a vast majority of public schools still use exclusionary maps to determine what schools students are eligible to enroll in based on their address. These maps come from an age where discriminatory practices such as redlining, which is a practice where federal agencies drew lines around neighborhoods that denied minority communities equal access to loans and building opportunities, were the norm.
The report also states that nationwide, many coveted magnet schools give preference to wealthy families and that it’s perfectly legal to turn away students for disability.
Issues like these continue to slip through the cracks due to a lack of oversight.
“This is a failure of the law. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1954, had promised that henceforth the public schools would be “available to all on equal terms.” But, in the years after Brown, the courts got tangled up in the very real and urgent problem of eradicating explicit racial segregation, especially in the Southern states. They never came back around to provide substantive and procedural protections that would have fulfilled the original promise of that ruling,” wrote authors of the report.
The report found Tennessee is no exception to these educational barriers for low and middle-income families, with some neighborhoods that are still labeled as “hazardous” for real estate.
Public school assignments in Tennessee are based on geographical zones and the report found Tennessee’s constitution does not indicate that education is a fundamental right, nor does it say that the state has a duty to protect an individual student’s right to access education.
There are also no general state statutes that govern admissions for all public schools, including magnet schools. Additionally, Tennessee state law requires the local school boards to determine the specific schools students get assigned to without stating how they must be assigned.
“These gaps in the law represent a significant violation of the terms of our social contract. Reform is urgently needed so that the public schools can finally fulfill their sacred mission of being equally open to all families, giving all children equal access to the American dream,” wrote the authors of the report.
Despite these challenges, the report did credit Tennessee for taking steps to remove educational barriers for students.
The state offers an appeal process for families unhappy with their traditional public school assignment and districts are required to identify each school that has the space available to serve additional students prior to the start of the school year. During this time, parents can submit applications for a different school in their districts.
Schools must conduct a lottery if there are more applications than seats available and that includes Tennessee’s public charter schools.
“There is no utopian solution to the problem of public school admissions, and every possible enrollment system will pose the risk of abuse and difficult issues of implementation. That’s why the law is so important: to establish the standard of equal access to the public schools and to provide for the enforcement of that standard. American families should have legal protections that safeguard their access to the public schools,” wrote the authors of the report. “The laws should be robust and consistent, so that all schools play by the same set of rules. And the courts should be actively engaged in ensuring that the public schools remain open to all. But none of this is true right now.”
