School Desegregation in the 1980's: Why Isn’t Anybody Laughing?

Abstract

Few could have anticipated at the time of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that the legitimacy of school desegregation would still be a subject of profound national debate over thirty years later. Yet public controversy continues largely unabated over questions that go to the very heart of the desegregation process. Does desegregation have any educational justification? Is busing an acceptable desegregation technique under any circumstances? Are the social and economic costs associated with desegregation so great as to justify abandoning the enterprise altogether? Given the complexity of such issues, all sides of the debate have been able to find at least some plausible scholarly and anecdotal support for their arguments.