Long before she was chosen as his vice-presidential running mate, Kamala Harris was trying to drive a rhetorical stake into the heart of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. As the June 27th Democratic primary debate turned to the issue of race, Harris pounced and attacked Biden for his past comments praising segregationist senate colleagues and his record of opposition to federally enforced desegregation through busing.
“It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris said. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. She was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.”
Harris and Biden would go on to make amends and join forces on the Democratic presidential ticket, this spat over desegregation fading away as little more than a useful talking point. When queried about her comments, Harris exclaimed to late-night host Stephen Colbert that “It was a debate!”
But the reality is that the failure of American schools and cities to destroy racial segregation “root and branch” has contributed to massive gaps in education, income, wealth and health between racial groups. Biden’s campaign platform pledged to fight discriminatory housing practices and eliminate funding gaps in education but fell short of committing to finishing the fight for integration that began almost 70 years ago. Desegregation and integration are words used rarely by any mainstream politician, but a committed assortment of scholars, journalists and activists are keeping the fight alive.
Journalism about segregation has found an audience
The most prominent desegregation advocate of the last five years is New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has written and reported extensively on housing and education, including blockbuster stories on New York Public Schools and segregation in Ferguson, Missouri. Hannah-Jones has profiled school districts and cities that have both failed and succeeded in desegregating for the Times, ProPublica, This American Life, and others. Her work is vital, and a great introduction to the current state of segregation in America.
Another journalist—also from the Times—who has reported extensively on racial inequities in education is Chana Joffe-Walt, a longtime public radio reporter who created the podcast Nice White Parents. Joffe-Walt’s show chronicles her deep dive into how schools in New York City have consistently served white parents above everyone else, resulting in less integration and fewer resources and opportunities for black and brown students.
Outside of the two Times reporters, essential work on housing and school segregation can be found in publications like ProPublica and The American Prospect, while local newspapers that have stayed afloat often produce some of the most incisive coverage of education and neighborhood inequities.
Scholars start to see a breakthrough, with plenty of research to make their arguments
Behind any serious journalistic effort on sticky policy and sociological issues, there is always a file cabinet’s worth of research and analysis assembled by academics and think tank scholars. Two of the most well-known researchers in the fields of education and housing inequality are Sean Reardon of Stanford and Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute.
Reardon is a prolific scholar who has innovated statistical measures of segregation and achievement gaps. Reardon’s work has shown the influence of poverty, early childhood education and segregation in determining the intellectual and academic success of children, while also evaluating the success and failure of court-ordered desegregation mandates. Reardon has written that while poverty appears to be the main driver of achievement gaps between students, concentrated poverty is more likely in segregated schools, and integration would help to close such gaps.
Rothstein is most famous for his 2017 book “The Color of Law,” a history of residential segregation in which he argues that intentional policy choices from the federal government to the local level are responsible for segregation. The book’s main intent is to dispel the myth that integration failed due to free choices made by whites and nonwhites alike, but because of policy. Rothstein’s book exposes the forgotten history of residential segregation in America, a key to understanding the necessity of proactive policies in finally achieving integration.
Other important academics researching and writing about segregation are Penn State professors Ericka Weathers and Erica Frankenberg, both professors in the university’s College of Education, both with extensive research experience on how segregation works and its impacts on people. Patrick Sharkey, of Princeton, is an expert on residential issues related to segregation and has written articles about urban inequality for The Atlantic. On the West Coast, scholars like Gary Orfield (of UCLA’s Civil Rights Project), Ann Owens (USC), and Prudence Carter and Rucker Johnson (both at UC Berkeley) have all published reams of important research on the perils of segregation and the promise of integration in public schools.
National energy is sparse, but local groups fight for idealistic reforms
Along with the people who read and write for a living, a small handful of activists and advocacy groups are also still fighting the good fight. Some of the most effective and inspiring ones include Integrate NYC, a student-led group fighting for what they call “real integration.” The group defines integration—which many scholars and advocates see as a step beyond simple demographic desegregation—by five Rs: race and enrollment, resources, relationships across group identities, restorative justice, and representation of school faculty. These students don’t just want the right demographics; they are also demanding a nurturing learning environment for students who aren’t white.
Another group fighting against separate but equal is Integrated Schools, an organization of parents pushing for integration and choosing to enroll their children in schools where white and wealthy students are not the majority. Integrated Schools hopes to advocate for change at both the individual and social level; the latter will come through the leadership of parents, activists, and intellectuals.
While Congress has been largely uninterested in segregation for quite some time, in 2019, Rep. Marcia L. Fudge introduced the Strength in Diversity Act, a bill that would direct Department of Education grants to school systems that developed policies to increase diversity or “reduce or eliminate racial or socioeconomic isolation.” The bill passed the House and could be made into law with the support of a Democratic Senate and president. It would be a small step, but a step nonetheless—one that integration advocates would be happy to begin building on immediately.
