Collegiate Desegregation as Progenitor and Progeny of Brown v. Board of Education: The Forgotten Role of Postsecondary Litigation, 1908-1990.

The year 2004 has been filled with commemorations, celebrations, retrospectives, and re-analyses of the importance, impact, and implications of the Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka (1954) case on its 50th anniversary. Absent from this re-visitation of desegregation in the primary and secondary educational settings are an acknowledgment and investigation of the role of colleges and universities in the quest for educational equity. The legal history of attempts to dismantle dual systems of higher education is the parent from which mass desegregation was born and the offspring that efforts to integrate K-12 schools have produced. The postsecondary cases that predate Brown provide the doctrines, principles, and jurisprudence that undergird the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision. Likewise, continuing litigations to redress inequality in public higher education are the primary banner carriers for the legal movement that required "all deliberate speed. " The literature on desegregation has fascinated scholars and students for more than a generation. The novice must confront hundreds of books and journal articles on the subject, representing myriad theoretical perspectives and positions. Most explanations of desegregation focus on the social, cultural, and moral reasons and guidelines for the various initiatives (Adair, 1984; Bell, 1987; Brown, 1995; Brown, 1999; Freer, 1982; Wiggins, 1966; Williams, 1988). Others even look at the impact that desegregation will have on the culture of institutions, and/or the cost-benefit of following the federal mandate to desegregate (Browning & Williams, 1978; Institute for the Study of Educational Policy, 1980; Myers, 1989; Smith, 1981). However, scant attention is given to the legal history of higher education desegregation and its relationship to the famous Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka (1954) case. The Supreme Court ruling in the Brown case is book-ended by a corpus of court cases related to access to colleges and universities. In a very real sense, the advent of desegregated elementary and secondary schools emerged from the integration of colleges and universities. Concomitantly, the desegregation of colleges and universities emerged from the integration of elementary and secondary schools. The pages that follow chronicle the often forgotten legal history that both immediately precedes and subsequently follows Brown v. Board of Education. HISTORY OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION Americans of African descent and their European counterparts have generally had dissimilar experiences regarding the acquisition of higher education. From slavery through Jim Crow, African Americans were categorically excluded from collegiate participation save at a few northern liberal arts colleges such as Berea and Oberlin. In fact, during slavery educating chattel or their offspring was a criminal offense (Klingberg, 1941). In some states these "ignorance" laws included emancipated slaves. Despite the existing laws, punishments and hardships, a small percentage of southern Blacks still desired knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Although "clandestine schools" and Christian education provided slaves with an opportunity to read, memorize, and recite biblical passages (Woodson, 1968), when the Civil War commenced less than 5% of the 4.5 million Americans of African descent were literate; even fewer knew the 3Rs-"reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic" (Fleming, 1981). Only 28 Blacks had received baccalaureate degrees from American colleges or universities before the Civil War (Roebuck & Murty, 1993). The aftermath of the Civil War brought a proliferation of Black-founded, operated and populated institutions. More than 200 Black educational institutions were founded in the South during the interval between 1865 and 1890 (Jencks & Reisman, 1968). By and large these institutions were established and funded by the Freedman's Bureau, Black churches, local communities, private philanthropists, and northern missionaries. …