The expansion of desegregation ended 25 years ago, when the Court blocked city-suburban desegregation. Then, in the l990s, a conservative Supreme Court handed down important decisions ending desegregation, some federal courts forbidding even voluntary desegregation efforts. Under Brown , the South had the most integrated schools in the U.S. for more than a quarter-century. Some of the most desegregated southern states, however, are now moving rapidly backward. The percent of black students in majority white schools in the South fell from a peak of 44 percent in 1988 to 35 percent in 1996, a clear and consistent eight-year decline.
National trends show increasing racial segregation for black and Hispanic students.
Hispanic segregation has grown steadily for the past 28 years. In 1970 the average Hispanic student attended a school with 56 percent non-white students. By 1996, the average Hispanic student was in a 70 percent non-white school. This article is based on a 1999 study, Resegregation in American Schools, by Gary Orfield and John T.Yun. The study was conducted by The Civil Rights Project, a Harvard-based think tank dedicated to issues of racial equity.