This chapter is adapted from the address that inaugurated the American Educational Research Association annual lecture series commemorating the anniversary of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case "Brown v. Board of Education." The authors begin this chapter by paying tribute to Kenneth Bancroft Clark, who led the distinguished group of…

This article presents the author's response to Edmund Gordon and Beatrice Bridglall's paper titled "The Affirmative Development of Academic Ability: In Pursuit of Social Justice." Placing her comments in a historical context, the author states that Gordon and Bridglall point out that the "Brown v. Board of Education" case was the result of decades…

"Brown v. Board of Education" reminds this author, a linguist, of the linguistic diversity among black Americans, be they descendants of enslaved Africans--as he is proud to be--or Africans who escaped slavery. There is as much linguistic diversity among their race as among any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. When the Supreme…

For scholars of literacy and educational linguistics, the years 2004 and beyond have given them cause to not only revisit racial issues 50 years after "Brown v. Board of Education," but also to revisit 25 years of language and racial politics since "the Martin Luther King Black English case." This chapter discusses what needs to happen now--with…

According to Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield, segregation for black students declined substantially after the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education," reaching its lowest point 30 years later. By comparison, Latino students have experienced "steadily rising segregation since the 1960s." Unlike black students who have…

This chapter attempts to begin a conversation about how so many of people in the educational and academic communities have come to believe that educational equity could be mediated by legal measures and federal and local reforms without transformation of the historical practices and ideologies that preserve supremacy and "White innocence"--a…

This chapter presents the author's response to Bernard Gifford and Guadalupe Valdes's article "The Linguistic Isolation of Hispanic Students in California's Public Schools: The Challenge of Reintegration." In their article, Gifford and Valdes consult the historical record concerning English-speaking Anglo contact with Spanish-speaking…

In examining the university structure, this chapter raises questions as to how institutional protocols can and should be put in place that will ensure that the commitment to urban education is being met, specifically in teacher preparation. In responding to Gutierrez and Jaramillo, these authors do two things. First, they attempt to characterize…

The parallels between South Africa and the United States run deep. For the United States, that moment of transition, at least as far as education is concerned, was the landmark ruling of 1954, described in the shorthand, "Brown v. Board of Education"; for South Africa, that moment came 40 years later when every citizen could, for the first time,…

In his critique of academic writing about and public consumption of government policy and law, Jonathan Jansen uses his argument of the symbolic functions of education law and education policy as a basis for explaining the lack of progress in achieving equity and justice under "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) in the United States and the lack…

Although this author knew very little about the details of "Brown v. Board of Education" as a legal matter when he read about it as a young second-year student at the University of Cape Town in 1954, the Court's verdict had a direct influence on his political perspectives and on his aspirations as a would-be teacher for the rest of his life. In…

This chapter argues that a detailed, grounded understanding of classroom literacy practices as well as of learners' writing is crucial to begin to change the ongoing and patently unequal educational outcomes that schools often produce. It is impossible to intervene realistically and effectively in an evidential vacuum. The 1955 "Brown v. Board of…

The last few years (2004-05) have been filled with commemoration, reflection, and scholarship around the landmark Supreme Court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954). It was right and proper to take a 50-year retrospective at one of the more significant court rulings of the 20th century. It was also important to look at the decision in…

Gloria Ladson-Billings explains in her chapter that, in part, the promise of "Brown v. Board of Education" has not been realized because it was premised on black inferiority. She elaborates that "instead of addressing the underlying pathology of the defendant--White supremacy"--the evidence, case, and accordant ruling "pathologized the plaintiff."…

The visionary social struggle that resulted in the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision did not take into account the ways ideologically distorted knowledge sustains societal injustice, particularly academic and school knowledge about black history and culture. This delimited vision of equal justice raises a number of questions of concern…