Federal Judiciary

Podcast: The Court’s role in re-segregated schools

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

In the podcast below, Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, discusses segregation in American public schools today for our Race and the Supreme Court program, focusing on recent Court rulings he believes have contributed to re-segregation since the 1970s.  Dean Chemerinsky is a constitutional law expert and has argued multiple cases before the Supreme Court.

Here is the link to the podcast and a road map of highlights:

• 0:00?Statistics on the current segregation of Latino and black students in public schools
• 2:51?Disparities in spending among majority-white vs. majority-black or -Latino public schools
• 4:50?The Supreme Court’s “large role” in these statistics: three sets of cases
• 5:20?Case set I, the 1970s:
  • 5:24?San Antonio Board of Education v. Rodriguez: Disparities in school funding do not violate equal protection
  • 6:57?Milliken v. Bradley: Inter-district remedies struck down unless all districts intentionally violated the Constitution
• 9:45?Case set II, the 1990s: Effective desegregation remedies could be ended even if the result is re-segregation
• 14:15?Case set III: Parents Involved in Community Schools ends voluntary racial integration in Seattle and Louisville school districts
• 15:46?Conclusion: “The results of all of this are tragic…American public schools are separate and unequal”

Subscribe to the SCOTUSblog feed on iTunes to receive our latest podcasts automatically.  Dean Chemerinsky’s should be available by this evening.

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).