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7 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (1972)
School Segregation in the North: There Is but One Constitution

handle is hein.journals/hcrcl7 and id is 9 raw text is: Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Volume 7, Number 1 January, 1972 SCHOOL SEGREGATION IN THE NORTH: THERE IS BUT ONE CONSTITUTION by Paul R. Dimond* In the seventeen years since Brown, one thing has become clear: racial segregation in public schools is not just a Southern problem. Unless the Constitution is to become a regional document, a new fourteenth amendment analysis must be found to squarely face the challenge of segregation as maintained in schools throughout our country. In this article, the author - an advocate in the recent Detroit litigation - proposes and explores the implications of a national standard of equal protection as applied to the modes of state action which establish school segregation in the North, and the often proferred justifications for school policies which perpetuate such segregation. I.INTRODUCTION: THE PROSPECTS FOR NATIONAL APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION TO SCHOOL SEGREGATION The time has come to scrutinize closely public school segregation everywhere. No longer can an accusing finger be pointed at the South under some regional doctrine of original sin. School segregation is pervasive in all regions of this country, in big cities and small, in suburban and rural areas.' Since Brown v. Board of Education,2 it has been clear *B.A., Amherst College, 1966; JD., University of Michigan, 1969; Staff Attorney at the Harvard Center for Law and Education; Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education. The author wishes to express his appreciation to J. Harold Flannery, Robert Pressman, Norman Chachkin, Louis R. Lucas, William Caldwell, Peter Rousselot, who as able advocates have presented compelling cases of discrimination in public education, and to David Kirp, for his helpful comments. The views expressed in this Article, however, are those of the author alone. 11n the continental United States, 68.0% of all blacks attended schools with student populations 80 to 100% black in 1966; in 1970 the figure had dropped to 49.4%. But in the thirty-two Northern and Western states, 57.4% of all blacks attended 80 to 100% such minority-race schools in 1968; and in 1970 it was still 57.6%. U.S. Dep't of Health, Educ. & Welfare, News Release, June 18, 1971 (table 2-A). The large urban areas in these states have even greater segregation. Only in the South, under pressure from many sides and a possible break in the solid line of resistance, is school segregation on the decline.

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