Minow - In Browns wake: legacies of Americas educational landmark

IN BROWNS WAKE

LAW AND CURRENT EVENTS MASTERS

David Kairys, Series Editor

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Legacies of Americas Educational Landmark

MARTHA MINOW

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Minow, Martha, 1954
In Browns wake: legacies of Americas educational landmark / Martha Minow.
p. cm.(Law and current events masters)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-517152-5
1. Discrimination in educationLaw and legislationUnited StatesHistory.
2. Segregation in educationLaw and legislationUnited States. I. Title.
KF4155.M56 2010
344.730798dc22 2009050141

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

To Josephine and Newton Minow

This book has been in the works for some time. Decades ago, Joseph Featherstone and Walter McCann at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and John Simon, Robert Cover, and Owen Fiss at the Yale Law School offered encouragement and tough questions; so did Judge David Bazelon and Justice Thurgood Marshall who also gave me the chance to help them work on judicial decisions directly and indirectly flowing from Brown v. Board of Education.

The book as it stands reflects enormous contributions of students and colleagues at the Harvard Law School. I hope it also manifests at least some of the crucial support and advice offered by Lani Guinier. Elena Kagans encouragement of this workand her challenges to elements of its analysisproved invaluable; as dean, she insisted that I take the research leave that allowed me to write the lion share of the chapters. I am grateful for the inspiration and engagement of Mort Horwitz, Frank Michelman, and Larry Tribe. When Randy Kennedy and Ken Mack offered their expertise and close readings of several chapters, they sharpened my focus and improved the analysis. The parallel and complementary efforts of Susan Cole, Charles Ogletree, and David Wilkins make their generous assistance to mine all the more special. When I was first conceiving of the books themes, research by Shelli Calland, Alexandra ORourke, Ben Apatoff, Laura Blum-Smith, Natalie Wagner, and Rachel Singer made a huge difference. Talia Milgrim-Elcott and Deborah Gordon Klehr, once my students, are now my teachers and guides on the terrain of thoughtful school reform. I am also grateful for the creative assistance of Janet Katz of the Harvard Law School Library.

I became a dean in the midst of completing this book. Kerri Burridge, Veronica Ortega, and Catherine Claypoole made it possible for me to manage my new duties while finding me time to write and edit. I know I could never have reached the end without the comments and research help of Mario Apreotesi, Lena Konanova, Toby Merrill, Jennifer Siegel, Jenna Statfield, and the incomparable Jude Volek. Kristin Flowers extraordinary management of the entire editorial process leaves me in awe; that she did all this while taking on new administrative duties confirms my long-standing suspicion: she is a magician. Kristin, along with Toby and Mario, coordinated the superb work of a team of dedicated and terrific students who worked around the clock to check the citations and develop feedback on the manuscript. I thank the marvelous team of Danielle Tenner, James Bickford, Marianna Jackson, Christopher Kulawik, Marissa McKeever, Allison Ray, Sunny Lee, Michelle Wu, Jeremy Haber, Mark Stanisz, Amanda Klemas, and Adriana Zimova. As for the specific comments and research by students and former students over many yearsIshan Bhabha, James Bickford, Zoila Hinson, Colleen Roh, Mark Stanisz, Amanda Klemas, Sridhar Prasad, Previn Warren, Brian Alexander, Zachary Elsea, Julia Choe, Emily Matthews, Catherine Fischl, Danielle Purifoy, Mike Addis, Benjamin Saltzman, Janelle Wein-stock, Jeff Howard, and Adriana Zimova, I hope the finished book is worthy of the gift of your insights and expertise.

Communities outside Harvard Law School nurtured this project. Adam and Miriam Szubin and Vicky Spelman offered memorable and useful questions at pivotal times. The members of the Pentimento lunch group, Larry Blum, Mary Casey, and Rick Weissbourd, offered close readings, psychological and philosophical insights, and their own invigorating passions for equal educational opportunities and moral engagement.

The connections and tensions between equal opportunity for individuals and equal treatment of groups crystallized for me in crucial conversations with Richard Shweder and Hazel Markus as we worked together on the book, Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference (2008). Participants in our Law and Culture working group, supported by the Social Science Research Council and the Russell Sage Foundation, and especially Claude Steele, John Bowen, Austin Sarat, and James Banks challenged and deepened my understanding of the pursuit of justice through schooling in societies with diverse populations and histories of social division and hierarchy. I give deep thanks to my coeditors and fellow working group members for the chance to try out my ideas in my chapter Were All for Equality, in U.S. School Reforms: But What Does It Mean? and to Margot Strom, Adam Strom, and other friends at Facing History and Ourselves for the superb New York University conference on Just Schools and for many conversations about schooling and justice. Audiences at Boston Colleges Boise Center for Religion and American Public Life and at Brandeis University also helped as I developed this work.

Dean Avi Soifers invitation to the University of Hawaiis William S. Richardson School of Law and the warm welcome of faculty, students, and community membersespecially Avi, Marlene Booth, and Eric Yamamotoshowed me a model of inclusion while teaching me a great deal about education for Native Hawaiians. I thank Dean Bob Klonoff at Lewis and Clark Law School and the firm of Stoel Rives for hosting me in a rich and productive series of discussions about Brown and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I also thank Liz Schneider and Stephanie Wild-man for inviting me to write about the Vorchheimer case. Kate Bartlett, Judge Sandra Lynch, Emily Martin, Mike Klarman, Jim Ryan, Kimberly Jenkins Robinson and Zanita Fenton kindly shared their knowledge and wisdom about civil rights and education reform. Thanks, too, to Nancy Cott and Barbara Grosz for thoughtful exchanges on single-sex schools.