Blog Posts: Education

59 Years after Brown vs. Board of Ed, the Spectrum of Segregation Persists

Halifax community members at a rally for education equality

SAVE THE DATES! Two-Part "Race and Civil Rights" conference

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the UNC Center for Civil Rights are hosting a two-part conference this summer and fall designed to engage the nation's leading civil rights and racial justice advocates.

Community-Based Accountability: Best Practices for School Officials

Center Education Fellow Taiyyaba Qureshi, with Jason Langberg, Director of Legal Aid NC's Push Out Prevention Project, and Eldrin Deas, PhD Candidate at UNC SChool of Education, authored an article in this month's Poverty and Race Research Action Council Journal on the need for education officials to be accountable through meaningful engagement with education stakeholders. The full article is available in the March/April PRRAC Journal.

Accountability in education must include the idea that school systems have certain obligations to their stakeholders. Traditional notions of accountability are mostly focused on measuring performance outputs of students, teachers and principals, and fail to identify metrics by which elected and appointed policymakers can be held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, this trend has become even more prevalent as so-called market-based reforms (e.g., expanded high-stakes testing, merit pay, privitization) are adopted on the federal, state and local levels. These policy changes in fact “de-form” democratic principles of good governance and fairness, which require that school system leaders be held accountable to the community. Over the past four years, education policymakers and community advocates in Wake County, North Carolina demonstrated that such accountability is essential to creating a healthy relationship between the school district and the community it serves and to producing high-quality, equitable outcomes for students.

Center calls on US DOE to prioritize diversity in i3 grants

CCR Staff, UNC Law Professors perform Fisher vs. TX arguments

In a recent "Race and the Law" series, Center staff and UNC Law School professors reenacted excerpts from the oral arguments in the Fisher v. University of Texas. The case was heard at the US Supreme Court on October 10, 2012. UNC School of Law Dean Jack Boger. CCR Attorneys Mark Dorosin and Elizabeth Haddix, and the UNC Office of University Counsel filed an an amicus brief on behalf of the University of North Carolina in this case.

Center Deputy Director Charles Daye played the role of Chief Justice Roberts. Center attorneys Mark Dorosin and Elizabeth Haddix and UNC Law professors Eric Muller, Erika Wilson, Al Brophy, and Catherine Kim played other Justices. Community Inclusion Fellow Bethan Eynon read the position of Petitioner Fisher, Education Fellow Taiyyaba Qureshi took the part of Respondent University of Texas, and Equal Justice Works Fellow Peter Gilbert acted as US Solicitor General.

Watch the video below:

Center urges Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools to prioritize diversity in new assignment plan

On December 18, Managing Attorney Mark Dorosin submitted a letter to Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board regarding the upcoming 2012-2013 student reassignment plan.

"Racial or socio-economic isolation is a known barrier to securing the prerequisites to a quality education . . . Moreover, the idea of “community schools” not only ignores the continuing legacy of residential racial and socio-economic segregation in housing opportunities, but also takes a shortsighted and narrow view of what constitutes a community."

Fisher Amici speak on Constitution Day Panel at UNC Law School

CCR attorneys Mark Dorosin and Elizabeth Haddix, and UNC School of Law Dean Jack Boger, together with the Office of University Counsel filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (“UNC”) in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on October 10, and a ruling is expected next spring.

On Constitution Day, September 17, Center attorneys Dorosin and Haddix, Center Deputy Director Charles Daye, and Dean Boger joined Steve Farmer, UNC Vice Provost for Admissions, on a panel at UNC Law School to discuss Fisher v. Texas and the continuing need for race-conscious and diversity-promoting higher education admission policies.  Steve Farmer also wrote an op-ed that was published in The Hill on October 8, entitled Fisher v. Texas: It's wrong to curb diversity.

Watch the video of the panel:

Fisher v. University of Texas, Constitution Day 2012 Discussion from UNC School of Law on Vimeo.

Center files Extraordinary Writ to Fourth Circuit

On October 9, the Center for Civil Rights, on behalf of Plaintiffs in the Everett v. Pitt County Schools desegregation case, petitioned to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for a Writ of Mandamus ordering the District Court in Greenville, NC to comply with the appellate court’s May 2012 ruling regarding the county’s 2011-2012 student assignment plan.

More about the history of this case.
Read the Petition for Writ of Mandamus.

Halifax advocates mark anniversary of Center's report, continue struggle for education equity

Education advocates gather in Halifax, NC to mark the one-year anniversary of the Center's report and the county's renewed struggle for education equity

This summer marked the one-year anniversary of the UNC Center for Civil Rights’ report, “Unless Our Children Begin to Learn Together: The State of Education in Halifax County.” To commemorate this milestone, education advocates in the community held a press conference at the Old Halifax County Courthouse, where the report was first presented, to review what had been accomplished in the year and the challenges that remain to bring high-quality, equitable education to Halifax County.

At the press conference, CEES Vice President Gary Grant, speaking on behalf of the Coalition, called upon county and school elected officials, parents, teachers, and students to continue the struggle for equity: “We bear witness to the fact that the problems of poor and barely mediocre student performance at the three public school systems has not been addressed. Nor has the root cause, the continuing extreme racial segregation among the three school districts in Halifax County. The quality of education has been undermined on a county-wide basis for much too long at too great a cost to too many of our children.”

Foreseeable Failure: Wake County’s first week

Wake County’s first week of school has been an overwhelming fiasco. Despite the administration’s repeated protestations to the contrary, the root of the school opening debacle is the school board’s insistence on adopting a student assignment plan so focused on eliminating diversity that other important values were eliminated too: transparency, community engagement, attention to legitimate public concerns, and efficient resource management. Subverting these core values to prioritize so-called “neighborhood schools” and “choice” has left Wake County students behind.