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Comparative Analysis of the Eight Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

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Our purpose in this concluding analysis is to point up the various patterns which seem to emerge in these case studies. We are well aware that eight cities represent a small sample. They were selected more with reference to scholarly access than representativeness. As a result, all of the cities have universities in them. In the three cities which emerge as “most successful,” universities play a significant role—if not a dominant one—in the life of the community. Although direct participation of these universities, as such, is not emphasized in the case studies, their indirect influence may have been extremely significant in producing atypical results. Clearly we cannot hope to present any final and ultimate conclusions, but it is nevertheless possible to make a number of suggestive observations about why the school boards in some cities were able to respond to the problem of de facto school segregation more successfully and effectively than others. While there is, of course, virtually no invulnerable or uncontroversial method for measuring the relative success and failure of school boards confronted with racial imbalance in their schools, three possible yardsticks come to mind. First, do the statistics show either a decrease in the racial imbalance in some or all of a city's schools or a decrease in the trend toward increasing racial imbalance? Second, has the school system actually implemented some sort of desegregation program? Third, did the school boards (or superintendents) resolve conflict by satisfying or placating the various disputants?

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , November 1967 , pp. 89 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 by the Law and Society Association

References

1. This latter possibility is suggested in R. Crain et al., School Desegregation in the North (1967).

2. This, incidentally, agrees with Raymond Mack's observation, based on another set of case-studies:

“Small towns and medium-sized cities, North and South, are desegregating their schools, at least to a token extent . . .

“Huge metropolitan areas, North and South, are resegregating their schools; the trend is toward more rather than less segregated educational facilities.”

R. W. Mack (ed.), Desegregation and Education (mimeo ms. p. 10). (See review elsewhere in this issue.)

3. Other cities also had thorough studies conducted, but for instance in Chicago and San Francisco it was only after an initial stormy controversy.

4. R. Crain, et al., supra note 1.

5. R. Crain, et al., supra note 1.

6. Eventually the St. Louis Board took a strong public stand for integration.

7. Jackson v. Board of Education, 59 Cal. 2d 876, 877.

8. Tometz v. Waukegan City School District, Docket No. 40292, Agenda 237.

9. Jackson v. Board of Education, 59 Cal. 2d 876 (1963).

10. Hobson v. Hansen, opinion of J. Skelly Wright, D.C.D.C.

11. Illinois School Code (Armstrong Act), §10–21.3.

12. Tometz v. Waukegan City School District, Docket No. 40292, Agenda 237.

13. This has the effect of maintaining the segregated status quo.

14. Statute, court order, or administrative directive—probably in that order of effectiveness.

15. Perhaps the best illustration of this type effect of the law was seen after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It gave proponents grounds for arguing for implementation, as well as provided a rationale for capitulation on the part of some opponents, who for a variety of “political reasons” had in the past opposed integration (e.g., “We don't like it, but have no choice but to comply with the law”).