curious case of Missouri v. Jenkins: The end of the road for court-ordered desegregation?, The

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 1997 by J John Harris III, Charles J Russo, Frank Brown

Justice Thomas's lengthy concurrence opened with a criticism of the lower courts' decisions to integrate predominantly Black schools without even addressing whether the racial composition of the schools was the product of segregative laws: "It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominately black must be inferior" (p. 2061). Moreover, he stated that as he reflected on the overall course of Jenkins III and the scope of judicially created remedies, he found it increasingly necessary to review the extent of the Constitutional violation and the remedial authority of the federal courts. He went on to caution the federal courts to be mindful of the limits on their powers, especially as they relate to the actions of state governments.

The Dissenting Opinions

Justice Souter authored a lengthy dissent that reflected his concerns about the Court's willingness to address the scope of the remedy when it had avoided doing so five years earlier. In his view, the trial court had not issued an interdistrict remedy, and it had stayed within its authority in ordering the salary increases. He further held that the Eighth Circuit had never mandated a preordained level of student achievement that would have allowed the KCMSD to be released from the desegregation plan.

Beginning with a reference to King Louis XIV of France, Justice Ginsburg's one-page dissent briefly traced the history of segregation from 18th-century Europe to the American Civil War and the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case. The gist of her argument was that because de jure segregation had been in effect for so long, the seven-year-old court order should have been allowed more time to take effect.

DISCUSSION

As the Jenkins case reveals, desegregation continues to be a source of local and national concern, particularly as the United States experiences demographic changes that compel legislators, educators, and the courts to continually examine the need to ensure both educational excellence and equity. After two generations of litigation, children of color in this midwestern urban school district have yet to achieve educational equality as reflected in their educational outcomes. Yet, the Supreme Court's ruling in Jenkins III appears to be a harbinger of an era of increased judicial indifference to ensuring desegregation. Clearly, a distinct shift has occurred in direction and focus of school desegregation litigation in the four decades since Brown.

A review of the literature on the educational achievement of students of color indicates that the desegregation initiative has thus far produced mixed results (Dawkins & Braddock, 1994; Epps, 1978; Irvine, 1990; Orfield, 1993; Rist, 1979; Thomas & Brown, 1982; Vergon, 1994). Positive outcomes include these students' greater access to the educational opportunity structure, and increased appreciation for and more acceptance of diversity on the part of the majority group. Negative effects include persistent in-school segregation, even amid apparent desegregation; the inability of students of color to match national norms on standardized measures (Ford & Harris, 1992; Pine & Hilliard, 1990); and the overrepresentation of students of color in special education, lower-ability groups, and vocational tracks, coupled with the underrepresentation of these same groups in gifted education (Ford & Harris, 1992; Ford, Harris, Webb, & Jones, 1994; Ford & Webb, 1994; Harris & Ford, 1991; Harris, Ford, Brown, & Carter, 1989). Additionally, desegregation has contributed to an unwanted and unfortunate decrease in the number of teachers of color, who frequently are displaced by White colleagues, particularly in southern school districts (Braddock, Dawkins, & Trent, 1994; Hudson & Holmes, 1994).