Steve Suitts lifts the veil on the dirty little secret that undercut the intent and subsequent efforts to achieve meaningful school integration—that those of wealth, power, and political strength could benefit from loopholes and end-runs that feed on the instincts of people to resegregate by race and class. His explanations in Overturning Brown are instructive for present and future policymakers as they strive for genuine education equity and for parents and the public at large who need to understand what is at stake.
Overturning Brown is required reading for anyone interested in the current education debate and the history of public education in the United States.
Steve Suitts gives us a powerful, succinct history of how public policy and public funds have been used to circumvent desegregation of the nation’s public schools. This book is a must-read for policymakers, educators, and members of the public who wish to understand how massive resistance to school desegregation in the 1950s and '60s in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education has morphed into today’s vouchers and charter school movements clothed in civil rights rhetoric. Without effective oversight by responsible federal agencies, so-called schools of choice will continue to deprive African American students and other students of color of real desegregated schools and equal educational opportunities.
It’s simply not possible after reading Overturning Brown to deny that private-school vouchers emerged from the primordial ooze of Jim Crow racism. Suitts provides a detailed and compelling critique of those deep-rooted connections between school choice and resistance to Brown. It’s all here, laid out in history from 50–60 years ago — those familiar voucher rationales of individual choice, beneficial competition, increased quality, freedom of association, and religious liberty — all offered as justification for the public funding of private segregation academies. We even see the rationale of better serving students with special needs, as well as the rhetorical tactic of branding vouchers as “scholarships.” The avowed bigots who dreamed up these facially race-neutral rationalizations soon lost most of their court battles, but they seem to be winning the war. While Jim Crow as a particular variety of racism is thankfully dead, prejudices around race and class are still awfully alive, as is the very real segregation of students in our public and private schools and the stratification of educational opportunities. Overturning Brown cautions us to remember that history and to be wary of stratifying policies wrapped in attractive rhetorical packages.
Steve Suitts's important new book, Overcoming Brown , shines a spotlight on the exodus of white middle-class families from our city schools to lily-white suburbs and private schools nationally, leaving urban school systems resegregated due to white flight after the forced busing of the 1960s and '70s. City exam schools and some charter schools further deplete urban schools of talent and racial diversity. By likening today's segregated school systems to the rise of white academies in the South post-Brown v. Board of Education, Suitts brings to light the scandalous divide of today's public schools education system.
author of Standards Matter - Katherine Scheidler
In this slim but heavily researched volume, Suitts shows the parallels between the current school choice movement and the segregationists of the not-so-distant past. The echoes are striking, and perhaps not as well known as they should be… Segregation in public schools continues to be a problem; school choice has made it worse. Suitts's work reminds us that the language and policies of choice have lent themselves to enshrining segregation rather than fighting it.
Overturning Brown is perfectly timed to this dangerous moment when a misguided president and a malicious secretary of education are trying to impose a new era of racial inequality on American schools. Through his work at the ACLU and the Southern Regional Council, Steve Suitts has served for decades on the battlefront for progressive change in the South. No one can speak with greater authority about the dangers of Southern-style de facto segregation as a revitalized threat for the entire nation as well as the New South that Suitts has nurtured through a distinguished career as a writer, administrator, and public intellectual.
former executive editor of the New York Times, author of My Soul Is Rested - Howell Raines
A frightening exposé, a passionate warning, and a much-needed call-to-arms for all those who are concerned about the current status of education in the United States. Suitts has both the credentials as well as the credibility to raise the alarm; we need to be paying attention. Highly recommended.
Steve Suitts’s succinct, incisive review of the rhetoric and objectives of the current school choice movement leaves no doubt that it is a direct descendant of the Old South Massive Resistance to desegregation. Those pushing these misguided policies hate to be reminded of their origins, but the history does not lie.
With painstaking research and a controlled but passionate pen, Steve Suitts brilliantly exposes the ties that link the current “school choice” movement with its segregationist origins. Advocates of charter schools and taxpayer vouchers use the language of social justice, but Overturning Brown documents the depressing reality: “School choice” has become the twenty-first-century version of the “freedom of choice” plans used by whites to subvert school desegregation efforts in the 1950s and '60s. It is also a sobering reminder that the struggle for racial and economic justice must be renewed with each succeeding generation.
A masterful, highly readable account of an American tragedy.
Steve Suitts's important new book, Overcoming Brown , shines a spotlight on the exodus of white middle-class families from our city schools to lily-white suburbs and private schools nationally, leaving urban school systems resegregated due to white flight after the forced busing of the 1960s and '70s. City exam schools and some charter schools further deplete urban schools of talent and racial diversity. By likening today's segregated school systems to the rise of white academies in the South post-Brown v. Board of Education , Suitts brings to light the scandalous divide of today's public schools education system. — Katherine Scheidler , author, Standards Matter , professor, Framingham State University, MassachusettsBooklist Overturning Brown is required reading for anyone interested in the current education debate and the history of public education in the United States. — The Progressive Forbes Brown v. Board of Education barely put a dent in unequal public schooling. Indeed, writes the author, more than half of American states now use vouchers to support private schools with public funds, making it likely that inequality will continue for a long time to come. — Kirkus Reviews Overturning Brown documents the depressing reality: “School choice” has become the twenty-first-century version of the “freedom of choice” plans used by whites to subvert school desegregation efforts in the 1950s and '60s. It is also a sobering reminder that the struggle for racial and economic justice must be renewed with each succeeding generation. — Dan Carter , Educational Foundation, professor emeritus, University of South CarolinaPublishers Weekly Overturning Brown to deny that private-school vouchers emerged from the primordial ooze of Jim Crow racism. Suitts provides a detailed and compelling critique of those deep-rooted connections between school choice and resistance to Brown . It’s all here, laid out in history from 50–60 years ago — those familiar voucher rationales of individual choice, beneficial competition, increased quality, freedom of association, and religious liberty — all offered as justification for the public funding of private segregation academies. We even see the rationale of better serving students with special needs, as well as the rhetorical tactic of branding vouchers as “scholarships.” The avowed bigots who dreamed up these facially race-neutral rationalizations soon lost most of their court battles, but they seem to be winning the war. While Jim Crow as a particular variety of racism is thankfully dead, prejudices around race and class are still awfully alive, as is the very real segregation of students in our public and private schools and the stratification of educational opportunities. Overturning Brown cautions us to remember that history and to be wary of stratifying policies wrapped in attractive rhetorical packages. — Kevin Welner , professor, University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, and director of the National Education Policy CenterOverturning Brown are instructive for present and future policymakers as they strive for genuine education equity and for parents and the public at large who need to understand what is at stake. — Glenn Koocher , executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School CommitteesDiane Ravitch , historian, New York UniversityBowling Green Daily News Brown v. Board of Education has morphed into today’s vouchers and charter school movements clothed in civil rights rhetoric. Without effective oversight by responsible federal agencies, so-called schools of choice will continue to deprive African American students and other students of color of real desegregated schools and equal educational opportunities. — Judith A. Winston , former undersecretary and general counsel of the U.S. Department of EducationOverturning Brown is perfectly timed to this dangerous moment when a misguided president and a malicious secretary of education are trying to impose a new era of racial inequality on American schools. Through his work at the ACLU and the Southern Regional Council, Steve Suitts has served for decades on the battlefront for progressive change in the South. No one can speak with greater authority about the dangers of Southern-style de facto segregation as a revitalized threat for the entire nation as well as the New South that Suitts has nurtured through a distinguished career as a writer, administrator, and public intellectual. — Howell Raines , former executive editor of the New York Times , and author of My Soul Is Rested
Steve Suitts lifts the veil on the dirty little secret that undercut the intent and subsequent efforts to achieve meaningful school integration—that those of wealth, power, and political strength could benefit from loopholes and end-runs that feed on the instincts of people to resegregate by race and class. His explanations in Overturning Brown are instructive for present and future policymakers as they strive for genuine education equity and for parents and the public at large who need to understand what is at stake. — Glenn Koocher , executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees
01/01/2020
"School choice"—the idea that the federal government should make it possible for students to attend alternatives to K-12 public schools—is often hailed as a way to make education more equitable, but Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama ) argues that the phenomenon is rooted in a history of white supremacy. In the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education (1954)—in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public school segregation was illegal—white parents sought a segregated alternative for their children and private school enrollment exploded across the South. In response, Southern states began to experiment with strategies to redirect public funds toward private schools in the name of "freedom of choice." Suitts illustrates how school choice has been used to systematically drain funding and support away from public schools, delivering on segregationists' promise of preserving white supremacy by educating their children at white-majority and white-controlled institutions. VERDICT This brief treatment will likely seem cursory to scholars of race, racism, and education in U.S. history, but those unfamiliar with the topic will emerge with a new understanding of how indelibly racism has shaped our collective attitudes and policies regarding the public provision of education for all.—Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc., Boston
2019-11-25Brown v. Board of Education barely put a dent in unequal public schooling.
As Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution , 2005), the founding director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union, notes, the Deep South was the epicenter of resistance to school desegregation in the 1950s and '60s. Politicians such as Orval Faubus, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace may have stood in schoolhouse doors and filed flurries of lawsuits, but, in the end, more sophisticated adherents to the segregationist cause found a subtle workaround: They would create a parallel system of private schools that could maintain racial separation while also benefiting from public dollars in the form of tax credits, vouchers, and even direct payments. There were countless faux declarations of "freedom of choice," so long as black parents did not choose to send their children to white schools, while at the same time eliminating "any suggestion from the state constitution that there is a right of education or an obligation of the state to fund public schoolchildren." Those schemes have since spread nationwide and are now ardently promoted by the likes of Betsy DeVos, the sitting secretary of education, part of whose considerable fortune comes from investments in private schools. "Freedom of choice" was subsequently enshrined by the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, whose utterances are held sacred by the right. As Suitts shows, although the cast of segregationist leaders of the past has been narrowed to "a small rogues' gallery," their legacy is widespread and their followers are legion while "contemporary private school patterns and practices…appear for what they are: legacies of class-based southern segregation used to evade Brown and multi-dimensional segregation of non-southern states before Brown ." Indeed, writes the author, more than half of American states now use vouchers to support private schools with public funds, making it likely that inequality will continue for a long time to come.
A powerful argument against the "virtual segregation" of schoolchildren enabled by vouchers, credits, and other instruments.
