Increasing Segregation?

Segregation Through the Amendments

According to Harry Truman, one of the greatest responsibilities of the supreme court is to protect the civil rights of the American people. One amendment that relates to this and has been constantly under review throughout history by the supreme court is amendment fourteen. Amendment fourteen guarantees privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process, and equal protection. One of the biggest tests of the fourteenth amendment is "Separate but equal" and many supreme court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. This case involved challenges to segregate schools that were equalized. Linda Brown, a black student, had to be bused across town to attend a black school, even though near her house was a white school. Civil Rights lawyers argued that school segregation led to black schools being badly unfunded, and also denied black students the freedom of amendment fourteen.

Another case that is a test of the fourteenth amendment was the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896. In this case, Plessy concerned not only schools but the state laws requiring equal but separate facilities for white and colored students.

" The Object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature if things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either." - Plessy v. Ferguson Case

Realizing Our Actions
All of these cases regarding separation of colored and white relate back to today because there are still many different opinions on it today, and although we may not realize it, segregation is still a problem today. In 2002, an article was written about segregation today within schools. This article states that 1/3 of white teachers who teach at schools predominately black in Georgia will leave the school to teach at a school that is predominantly white. In my classmate Luke's blog, he posted a video showing segregation through schools in the present day. In this video, it shows how segregation was in the past, and how it improved, and then as time progresses, segregation is " back sliding in a disturbing pace, segregating by class, language and race." The most interesting thing I found from this video was the statistics they showed supporting how segregation is appearing more in schools. It said that in 1968, black students attending white high schools was 23%, and then it increased in 1988 to 37%, and in 2005 it decreased to 27%. It astonishes me how we can let segregation like this happen.



Resources:

1. "Background Summary." Brown vs. Board of Education. 30 Sep. 2008 .
2. "FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment." FindLaw: Cases and Codes. 3 Oct. 2008 .
3. Heffner, Richard D.. A Documentary History of the United States: (Seventh Revised Edition). New York: Signet, 2002.
4. Scafidi, Ben . "White Teachers Are Leaving Predominately Black Schools In Georgia." Georgia State University . 27 Sep. 2008 .
5. "Segregation Returns to America." YouTube. 2 Oct. 2007. 30 Sep. 2008 .
6. Treanor, Nick. The Civil Rights Movement. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2003.
7. "Truman Library - To Secure These Rights, Chapter III." Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. 2 Oct. 2008 .