In Brown's Wake: Legacies of America's Educational Landmark

ISBN-13: 9780199932009 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 320 str.

Martha Minow

Opis

What is the legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education? While it is well known for establishing racial equality as a central commitment of American schools, the case also inspired social movements for equality in education across all lines of difference, including language, gender, disability, immigration status, socio-economic status, religion, and sexual orientation. Yet more than a half century after Brown, American schools are more racially separated than before, and educators, parents and policy makers still debate whether the ruling requires all-inclusive classrooms in terms of race, gender, disability, and other differences.

In Brown's Wake examines the reverberations of Brown in American schools, including efforts to promote equal opportunities for all kinds of students. School choice, once a strategy for avoiding Brown, has emerged as a tool to promote integration and opportunities, even as charter schools and private school voucher programs enable new forms of self-separation by language, gender, disability, and ethnicity.

Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law School, argues that the criteria placed on such initiatives carry serious consequences for both the character of American education and civil society itself. Although the original promise of Brown remains more symbolic than effective, Minow demonstrates the power of its vision in the struggles for equal education regardless of students' social identity, not only in the United States but also in many countries around the world. Further, she urges renewed commitment to the project of social integration even while acknowledging the complex obstacles that must be overcome. An elegant and concise overview of Brown and its aftermath, In Brown's Wake explores the broad-ranging and often surprising impact of one of the century's most important Supreme Court decisions.

O autorze

Martha Minow is Dean and Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught since 1981. She is an expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities, women, children, and persons with disabilities. Her prior books include Government by Contract; Just Schools; Breaking the Cycles of Hatred; Partners, Not Rivals; Between Vengeance and Forgiveness; Not Only for Myself; and Making All the Difference.