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Post Central High School
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Central High School
More than 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division and a federalized Arkansas National Guard protect nine black students integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. -
Cooper V. Aaron
The Supreme Court rules that fear of social unrest or violence, whether real or constructed by those wishing to oppose integration, does not excuse state governments from complying with Brown. -
Orchard Villa School
Miami-Dade County’s schools admitted the first group of African Americans to Orchard Villa Elementary School, which had been all white. Seven-year-old Gary Range and three other black students broke barriers when they walked onto the grounds of the Liberty City school. White students left the school, black students and faculty were transferred in, and by the summer of 1960, only one white student remained. -
Prince Edward County School Closure
Prince Edward County, Va., officials close their public schools rather than integrate them. White students attend private academies; black students do not head back to class until 1963, when the Ford Foundation funds private black schools. The Supreme Court orders the county to reopen its schools on a desegregated basis in 1964. -
William Frantz Elementary
In New Orleans, federal marshals shielded Ruby Bridges, Gail St. Etienne, Leona Tate and Tessie Prevost from angry crowds as they enrolled in school. -
University of Georgia
A federal district court orders the University of Georgia to admit African American students Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. After a riot on campus, the two are suspended. A court later reinstates them. -
James Meredith
A federal appeals court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, an African American student. Upon his arival, a mob of more than 2,000 white people riots. -
University of Alabama
Two African American students, Vivian Malone and James A. Hood, successfully register at the University of Alabama despite George Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" — but only after President Kennedy federalizes the Alabama National Guard. -
Chicago School Boycotts
More than 100,000 African-American students violated the injunction by staying home June 10-11, 1965, to protest the renewal of a four-year contract for Dr. Benjamin Willis, the white school superintendent. The school boycott marked the beginning of a sustained protest movement, the Chicago Freedom Movement of 1965-1966, that culminated in the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's arrival in Chicago to lead the struggle for equal opportunities in education and housing. -
New York City School Boycotts
In one of the largest demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement, hundreds of thousands of parents, students and civil rights advocates took part in a citywide boycott of the New York City public school system to demonstrate their support for the full integration of the city's public schools and an end to de facto segregation. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is adopted. Title IV of the Act authorizes the federal government to file school desegregation cases. Title VI of the Act prohibits discrimination in programs and activities, including schools, receiving federal financial assistance. -
Green V. County School Board of New Kent County
The Supreme Court orders states to dismantle segregated school systems "root and branch." The Court identifies five factors — facilities, staff, faculty, extracurricular activities and transportation — to be used to gauge a school system's compliance with the mandate of Brown. -
Alexander V. Holmes County Board of Education
The Supreme Court declares the "all deliberate speed" standard is no longer constitutionally permissible and orders the immediate desegregation of Mississippi schools. -
Swann V. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
The Court approves busing, magnet schools, compensatory education and other tools as appropriate remedies to overcome the role of residential segregation in perpetuating racially segregated schools. -
Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia; United States v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education
The Supreme Court refuses to allow public school systems to avoid desegregation by creating new, mostly or all-white "splinter districts." -
Title IX
Brown's legacy extends to gender. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is passed prohibiting sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial assistance. -
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
The Supreme Court rules that education is not a "fundamental right" and that the Constitution does not require equal education expenditures within a state. The ruling has the effect of locking minority and poor children who live in low-income areas into inferior schools. -
Milliken v. Bradley
The Supreme Court blocks metropolitan-wide desegregation plans as a means to desegregate urban schools with high minority populations. As a result, Brown will not have a substantial impact on many racially isolated urban districts. -
Ogden School District
Utah opened its public schools to children of all races in 1895, but in 1970 the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare determined that Ogden's schools were racially imbalanced. The school district quietly redrew the existing district boundaries and consolidated several elementary schools. Parents were largely unaware that the changes were made for the purposes of desegregation, and in 1976 the students were integrated without organized opposition. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
A fractured Supreme Court declares the affirmative action admissions program for the University of California Davis Medical School unconstitutional because it set aside a specific number of seats for black and Latino students. The Court rules that race can be a factor in university admissions, but it cannot be the deciding factor. -
Seattle Busing
In response to several lawsuits against the school district, Seattle schools began mandatory busing to desegregate its public schools in the 1970s. The program continued for more than twenty years, but gradually lost public support and resulted in "white flight" as nore white families moved to the suburbs. In 1999, the school board decided to allow any student in the district to attend any school of their choice nad the busing program was dismantled. -
Riddick v. School Board of the City of Norfolk, Virginia
For the first time, a federal court finds that once a school district meets the Green factors, it can be released from its desegregation plan and returned to local control. -
Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell)
Emphasizing that court orders are not intended "to operate in perpetuity," the Supreme Court makes it easier for formerly segregated school systems to fulfill their obligations under desegregation decrees. After being released from a court order, the Oklahoma City school system abandons its desegregation efforts and returns to neighborhood schools. -
Freeman v. Pitts
The Supreme Court further speeds the end of desegregation cases, ruling that school systems can fulfill their obligations in an incremental fashion. -
Hopwood v. Texas
A federal appeals court prohibits the use of race in college and university admissions, ending affirmative action in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. -
Harvard Civil Rights Study
A study by Harvard's Civil Rights Project finds that schools were more segregated in 2000 than in 1970 when busing for desegregation began.