Race and School Redistricting
Photograph: A school bus with mostly white and a few black students, traveling from the suburbs to a city school in Charlotte, North Carolina, on February 21, 1973. Photo credit: Warren K. Leffler | Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons. In response, many white families made efforts to secede from existing school districts, especially since the Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley (1974) declared that racial integration across school districts was not required by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Introduction
This page spotlights efforts to secede from poorer school districts and form new, wealthier ones.
Messages and Resources on Race and Schooling
Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa, The Myth of Meritocracy in Schooling, Part 1
The Anastasis Center Blog, Nov 12, 2018. A 10 minute read. This post highlights the impact of resource inequality on educational outcomes and student experience. As background, see also the two posts about racial segregation in housing: The Myth of Meritocracy in Housing, Part 1 (blog, Nov 3, 2018), and The Myth of Meritocracy in Housing, Part 2 (blog, Nov 5, 2018)
Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa, The Myth of Meritocracy in Schooling, Part 2
The Anastasis Center Blog, Nov 19, 2018. A 10 minute read. This post highlights the impact of resource inequality and racial-cultural dynamics on disciplinary outcomes and student experience.
A small group discussion guide to a few major issues in public schooling, and how church communities can partner with local schools. Topics include: school financing; residential segregation; whether charter schools should be able to fire students; the school-to-prison pipeline; and the honoring of teachers.
A summary of the remarkable dignity that Christians perceived in children, who had no inherent dignity or status in pagan Greco-Roman cultures. This impacted views on infanticide, abortion, social welfare, and education. Based on outstanding research by O.M. Bakke, When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.
Christian Restorative Justice: Beyond Charity - God's Restorative Justice for Children and Families
A presentation glancing at how Christians have historically supported children and their livelihood and development
Other Resources on School Redistricting
Wikipedia, Piedmont, CA (Wikipedia article) 1907 city of millionaires
Wikipedia, Hedwig Village, TX (Wikipedia article) 1954 aka Spring Branch
Daniel Engber, How To Start Your Own Town. Slate, Nov 17, 2005.
Gary Orfield & Chungmei Lee, Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies. Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA, Aug 2007.
Larry Copeland, Georgia Scraps Over Creation of New, Mostly White Cities. USA Today, Jul 30, 2012. incorporating 6 cities outside Atlanta to redistrict taxes and schools, also covered favorably by John T. Bennett, Suburbs Secede from Atlanta. World News Daily, Mar 10, 2013. citing the DeKalb corruption scandal, calling Atlanta the "Detroit of the South" and The Economist, Here's How To Do It. The Economist, Jul 28, 2012.
Carolyn Renee Dupont, Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945 - 1975. NYU Press | Amazon page, 2013. andreview by Matthew Tuininga. Reformation 21, July 2015.
Shadee Ashtari, Richer White People In Greater Baton Rouge Seek To Secede From Poorer Black Neighbors. Huffington Post, Dec 3, 2013.
Susan Eaton, How a ‘New Secessionist’ Movement Is Threatening to Worsen School Segregation and Widen Inequalities. The Nation, May 15, 2014. Gardendale, Alabama next to Jefferson County; St. George, Louisiana next to Baton Rouge; six suburbs in Memphis, Tennessee which broke away after school district integration
Richard Rothstein, The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles. Economic Policy Institute, Oct 15, 2014.
Maureen Downey, Opinion: We Cannot Allow Georgia Cities to Create Their Own School Districts. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jul 20, 2015.
Roshan Nebhrajani, Miami-Dade May Get a Few New Cities. The New Tropic, Apr 3, 2016.
Archie Ingersoll, Officials in North Dakota Town See No Way to Block White Supremacist Cobb from Buying Old Church. Bismark Tribune, Feb 5, 2017. another example of incorporating cities; he hoped to draw white nationalists from across the country to the town and eventually take over the incorporated town
Jenee Desmond-Harris, The Racist Panic Over Ruby Bridges is Not Just History - It's Our Political Present. Vox, Feb 17, 2017.
Richard Liebson, Edgemont Incorporation Meetings Set This Week. lohud, Mar 28, 2017. Edgemont, NY to become the newest, wealthiest town in Greenburgh, NY which could lose a projected $17.5 million in tax revenues should Edgemont become a separate village
Sam Rosen, Atlanta's Controversial Cityhood Movement. The Atlantic, Apr 28, 2017.
Emma Brown, Judge: Mostly White Southern City May Secede from School District Despite Racial Motive. Washington Post, Apr 27, 2017.
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright | Amazon page, May 2, 2017. and review by David Oshinky
Valerie Strauss, Back to the Future: A New School District Secession Movement is Gaining Steam. Washington Post, May 2, 2017. details the political and media strategies that these communities employ
Lauren Camera, The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions. US News & World Report, May 5, 2017. since 1986, 47 school districts have splintered off to create new whiter and wealthier districts
Alvin Chang, School Segregation Didn't Go Away. It Just Evolved. Vox, Jul 27, 2017.
Carly Sitrin, The Weeds: The Quiet Comeback of School Segregation. Vox, Aug 2, 2017.
Alvin Chang, The Data Proves That School Segregation Is Getting Worse. Vox, Mar 5, 2018.
Brentin Mock, Atlanta: A Tale of New Cities. CityLab, Mar 10, 2018.
Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski, Elizabeth Warren’s First Law Review Article Blasted an Anti-Busing Court Ruling. CNN, Jul 6, 2019. re: Milliken v. Bradley (1974) in Michigan, which defanged Brown v. Board by allowing States to escape responsibility for white flight across, and into new, school districts. Brown v. Board only addressed racial disparities within a school district.
Brett Pulley and Brentin Mock, Atlanta’s Wealthiest and Whitest District Wants to Secede. Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct 1, 2021. “Some residents are pushing to make Buckhead its own city, the latest in a series of political ruptures by race and class across the metro area.”
Johnny Harris and Binyamin Applebaum, Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How. New York Times Opinion, Nov 9, 2021. Harris looks at blue states (CA, WA, NY, IL) and the failure to act on housing, taxes, and education. Harris examines Palo Alto, CA as an example of NIMBYism and rezoning for lower density neighborhoods.
Chelsea Brasted, New Wealthy, White City in Louisiana Just Became One of State's Largest Towns. Axios, May 2, 2024.
Race and Schooling: Topics:
This section on Race and Schooling includes School Inequalities; political efforts of Redistricting; and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. See those pages or our section featuring general issues in Christian Restorative Justice and Education.
Race: Topics:
This section on Race contains the following: Slavery examines the intersections of religious beliefs and slavery, both in the U.S. and elsewhere during colonialism. Land and Housing explores Native American land seizure, white supremacy in housing, and gentrification. Banks and Finance spotlights racial discrimination in access to capital. Criminal Justice highlights historical racism not only in disparities but practices like convict-leasing, lynching, and hate crimes. Employment lists forms of discrimination in the workplace, hiring, labor unionizing and participation. Eugenics traces the history of eugenics in white American and elsewhere. Schooling examines disparities in the educational system and racial impacts of funding and administration. Politics and Power examines the use of race in political campaigns, the procedural justice wrongs such as voting rights denied and gerrymandering, substantive justice wrongs like education, health, and welfare, and racial fascism in the U.S. Immigration examines the moral, economic, and political challenges of immigration, along with the political manipulation of immigration as an issue. Child Development highlights racial implications in emotional development and psychological awareness. Health Disparities examines the significance of race on epigenetic factors, environmental factors, medical treatment, and health care politics. Beauty examines how race impacts notions of beauty and professionalism. Race is part of our critique of the political Right and Left in the U.S.
Church and Empire: Topics:
The following topics are also listed under the “Church and Empire” section of our website. They are offered here to remind us what Christian faith was like prior to colonialism, and in resistance to colonialism, to show that Christianity is not “a white man’s religion.”
