This paper provides a review of the history of school desegregation efforts in the courts from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. Early cases at both state and federal levels sanctioned the notion of "separate but equal" education. During the first half of the twentieth century the Supreme Court held that the existence of separate but equal higher education facilities did not ensure plaintiffs equal educational opportunities. In the 1954 Brown decision the Supreme Court found segregation unconstitutional and ordered dismantling of dual school systems "with all deliberate speed." Attempts by southern states to delay desegregation brought a second round of federal action, and in 1964 the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act. In northern states, desegregation efforts focused on distinctions between de facto and de jure segregation and on attempts to include suburban areas in urban desegregation planning. The acceptability of the magnet school as a desegregation tool has not yet been decided. The paper concludes with brief analyses of the efforts of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations to further school desegregation. (Author/PGD)