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12 Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol'y 1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/dukpup12 and id is 1 raw text is: LEE V. MACON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION: THE POSSIBILITIES OF FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT OF EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY BRIAN K. LANDSBERGt ABSTRACT Lee v. Macon County Board of Education shows the evolution of the role of the three branches in enforcing the equal protection clause in public education in Alabama. All three branches initially acquiesced in the separate but equal doctrine. The executive and the judicial branches rejected the doctrine in Brown, but the legislative branch remained silent until 1964. Despite Congress' failure to authorize a federal role in desegregation, the Department ofJustice was an active participant in Lee beginning in 1963. When Congress finally did act in 1964 to authorize such suits, it encumbered the authorization with severe limitations. Congress also created a parallel enforcement mechanism, in Title VI of the 1964 Act. In later years, Congress and the executive have emphasized general reform of education as the answer, in legislation such as No Child Left Behind. My paper explores the role of the federal government in the statewide desegregation of Alabama's public schools. Federal court litigation in Lee v. Macon County Board of Education led to an extraordinary remedy and illustrates the potential for the Departments of Justice and Education to play a key role in reviving the quest for equal educational opportunity through desegregation. Copyright @ 2016 Brian K. Landsberg. *Professor Emeritus, Pacific McGeorge School of Law. Thanks to Stephen Pollak and Dorothy Landsberg and participants in the Duke Law School Conference on The Present and Future of Civil Rights Movements: Race and Reform in 21 Century America, for their helpful comments. Thanks also to able research assistants, Robert Mayville, Ryan Matthews, Aman Grewal, and Michelle Aharonovitz; and the editors of the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy.

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