law. Rising affluence in the South from Brown to the present day supports Clotfelter’s
evidence of access to private schools for white families. Through extensive data collection
and careful empirical analysis, Clotfelter concluded that private academies and their high
enrollment of white students have a role in the racial segregation in the South today.
176
Until roughly 1971, lower courts issued desegregation orders with little direction or
guidance from the Supreme Court. Before Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education, this failure made it incredibly difficult for lower courts to rule on these cases,
especially involving “freedom-of-choice” plans.
177
Choice plans allowed blacks to go to
white schools, or transfer, and whites to go to black schools.
178
In Swann, the Supreme Court
struck down the school district’s plan for integration and ruled that school districts could not
exclude pupils on account of race. A couple years before, in 1968, Green v. New Kent County
School Board determined seven factors that states must follow in order to comply with
desegregation. Located in Virginia, this case of “Green factors” helped further define Brown.
The factors include,
“(a) students of all races receive the same quality education, (b) administrator
and teacher assignments be race neutral, (c) student assignments be race
neutral, (d) all students be given equal access to the school transportation
system, (e) all schools receive equitable allocations of resources, (f) school
buildings and facilities be of equal quality, and (g) all students be given equal
access to extracurricular activities.”
179
These two cases helped pave the way for future desegregation cases, such as Parents
Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson
County Board of Education, both brought to the Court in 2007. Argued in 1991, Board of
176
Clotfelter, "Private Schools, Segregation, and the Southern States," 90. !
177
Philip T. K. Daniel, "Accountability and Desegregation: Brown and Its Legacy," The Journal of Negro
Education 73, no. 3 (2004): 255-67. Here 262.
178
Daniel, "Accountability and Desegregation,” 262. !
179
Daniel, "Accountability and Desegregation,” 262.