[3] In the early 20th century, opinions on Native American schools began to change and in the ‘20s the Department of the Interior conducted a survey, with the results published in The Meriam Report in 1928.
[4] The report noted that overcrowding in the schools and lack of financial resources was causing the spread of infectious disease and producing physically weak students who were underfed and overworked.
[4] In response to this report, the number of American Indian children enrolled in U.S. public schools grew, but it was a slow process.
[8][9] The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case of 1954 made it illegal to segregate schools based on race.
Backlash against the Brown v. Board decision continues to play a part in the amount of “racial separation” in schools today.
The practice of tracking, or grouping students based on their abilities and perceived educational and occupational potential, began in the U.S. in the late 19th century and, in some schools, continues today.
[14] Some believe this creates a lack of diversity in the classroom and limits racial minorities’ access to quality educational resources.
[14] Some experts[weasel words] believe that race-conscious or ethnocentric approaches to diversity in the classroom are harmful and that alternative methods, such as magnet schools and open enrollment, are more productive.
[15] They perceive little correlation between racial diversity in the classroom and the performance of minority students in schools in existing data.
[15] Historian and affirmative action opponent Stephan Thernstrom says mandatory racial diversity can cause harm, including immoral use of race-based student assignments and white flight in public schools.
[15] Other researchers[weasel words] believe that racial and ethnic diversity in schools fosters understanding of new cultures and belief systems and dispels stereotypes, which instills empathy in students.
[17][18] In 1978, the Supreme Court ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke held that saving spaces in the school for black students based solely on their race was unconstitutional.
[18] Some people assert that affirmative action policies do not look at wealth or socioeconomic class, meaning they may not be helping the most disadvantaged minority students.
A significant academic study found that Duke University gave major advantages in admissions to wealthy families, and only 12% of students there are on Pell Grants, compared to a much higher national average.
[26] In Minneapolis, a program called “Choice is Yours” buses low-income, Black students to schools in affluent, mostly white suburbs.
[27] Many conservatives and working-class whites oppose busing, however, because of the required intrusion of the government and racial minorities into their communities and schools.
In many other parts of the world, patterns of settlement in cultures with a dominant ethnic majority (e.g., China, France), or class or caste systems (the U.K., India), militated against diversity in schools.