"Discretionary Equality" traces the history of the school desegregation enforcement efforts of the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (Ed-OCR). This study begins with a discussion of the historical factors leading to the inconsistent application of the equal educational policy. Very shortly after the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was established in 1953, a significant court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education, " ordered the desegregation of the nation's schools. From the Brown decision in 1954 to 1981, equal education policy was inconsistently enforced at the...