About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

14 Mich. J. Race & L. 61 (2008-2009)
From Pedagogical Sociology to Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning of Desegregation in Social Science Research and Law

handle is hein.journals/mjrl14 and id is 63 raw text is: FROM PEDAGOGICAL SOCIOLOGY TO CONSTITUTIONAL ADJUDICATION: THE MEANING OF DESEGREGATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND LAW Anne Richardson Oakes* In the United States following the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) federal judges with responsibility for public school desegregation but no expertise in education or schools management appointed experts fron the social sciences to act as court advisors. In Boston, MA, educational sociologists helped Judge W. Arthur Garrity design a plan with educational enhancement at its heart, but the educational outcomes were marginalized by a desegregation jurisprudence conceptualized in terms of race rather than education. This Article explores the frustration of outcomes in Boston by reference to the differing conceptualizations of desegregation in law and social science. It argues that whereas social scientists see desegregation in terms of social change requiring integration, for lawyers desegregation is a remedy the content of which is shaped by the nature of the litigation. The imperatives of law and social science have in the past coincided in a jurisprudence of afirmative action but the recent school assignment cases demonstrate the extent to which they have now diverged. This divergence underlies the indeterminacy of the desegregation mandate and provides an analytical framework for a theory of the role of the court expert in schools desegregation. INTRODUCTION:THE PARADOX OF DESEGREGATION JURISPRUDENCE ....................... 62 I. LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS DESEGREGATION ........... 69 A. The Differing Imperatives of Social Science and Law ............ 71 B. Resegregation and Race-Conscious Policies ..................... 75 II. LOBBYING THE SUPREME COURT: THE HARM-BENEFIT THESIS AS LITIGATION STRATEGY ............................................. 76 A. The Topeka Brief and the Harm of Segregation ................ 77 B. Social Science and Desegregating the North: The Columbus Brief and The Web of Institutional Discriminations .................................... 82 C. The Harm-Benefit Thesis and Unitary Status: The Freeman and Jenkins Briefs ................................. 85 D. Does the Court Take Note? The Harm-Benefit Thesis and a Public Law Remedial Model .............................. 87 E. Pedagogical Sociology and Judicial Activism: The Search for Legitimacy ......................................... 91 * Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Birmingham City University.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most