Foreword: Separate but Equal: The Status of America's Public Schools Symposium

Abstract

“I wasn’t supposed to make it. I was supposed to be pulled in by the drugs on my streets, the liquor stores on every corner, the poverty in the neighborhoods. I was supposed to have failed at the underfunded and mismanaged schools I attended by default.” —Donny Gonzalez, Maya Angelou Public Charter School This Symposium, convened by the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, was designed to address many of the issues raised in the above comment by Donny Gonzalez, a student at a Washington, D.C. high school. Bringing together a diverse group of speakers and attracting a broad cross-section of the university and Ann Arbor communities, the Separate but Unequal Symposium addressed a range of issues, including: the ongoing relevance of integration, the role of charter schools and other alternative programs, and promising strategies for achieving greater educational equality. A theme linking these various topics was the question of what students could do to end separate and unequal schools in America.