There’s something to be gained from turning an eye to the Black
history moments that directly influence every aspect of our
lives today. In that spirit, we’re examining the legacy of
integration in America, especially as it relates to our
education system. Today, we ask the question: A full 58 years
after Oliver Brown et al v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas, how has school desegregation affected the Black
community? We went to the people who are on the front lines to
discuss this issue. On the pro school segregation side, we spoke
to Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a research associate for The Civil
Rights Project at UCLA’s Initiative on School Integration. On
the other side of the discussion—that is, the side that
maintains that there are some definite drawbacks to integrating
our education system—we tapped Richard T. Ford, George E.
Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the author
of Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for
Equality. How did school desegregation following 1954’s Bro