The Way We Learn Separate and Unequal in Metropolitan Detroit Schools

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The Way We LearnSeparate and Unequal in
Metropolitan Detroit Schools
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Brown v. Board of Education

• May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court
  declared that "separate educational facilities
  are inherently unequal."

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• Excerpts from Brown v. Board of Education
• Does segregation of children in public schools
  solely on the basis of race, even though the
  physical facilities and other "tangible" factors
  may be equal, deprive the children of the
  minority group of equal educational
  opportunities? We believe that it does.
• We conclude that, in the field of public
  education, the doctrine of "separate but equal"
  has no place. Separate educational facilities are
  inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
  plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom
  the actions have been brought are, by reason of
  the segregation complained of, deprived of the
  equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the
  Fourteenth Amendment.

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• Metro Detroit is the greatest center of school
  segregation in the nation.

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Segregation in Metro Detroit

• The Detroit school district is 91 black and
  3.7 white (2003).

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• Metro Detroit by Race
• white black other
• Detroit 12.3 81.6 6.2
• Grosse Pointe Township 93.9 0.6 5.5
• West Bloomfield Township 84.2 5.2 10.6
• Bloomfield Hills 90.7 1.6 7.7
• Farmington Hills 82.9 6.9 10.1
• Birmingham 96.1 0.9 3.0

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• The schools that say separate but equal is the
  most extensive social experiment in the United
  States history. Weve tried it in thousands of
  places for many generations. It never worked
  anywhere as far as I can tellThere never was a
  separate but equal school system
• a suburban teacher would call me and say, you
  know, weve read your study, we decided to
  actually go in and see what the same exact class
  looked like in a counter-part school in
  Chicagoit was like a different planet, a
  different society.
• From the testimony of Gary Orfield, witness for
  United for Equality and Affirmative Action (UEAA)
  in Grutter v. Bollinger

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• Exteriors

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• Northern High School,
• Detroit, MI

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• Marquette Middle School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Grosse Pointe South High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Farmington High School
• Farmington, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Interiors/Halls

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Marquette Middle School
• Detroit, MI

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• Northern High School,
• Detroit, MI

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• Northern High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Northern High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Classrooms

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Harrison High School
• Farmington Hills, MI

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• Libraries

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• Northern High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Roeper High School
• Birmingham, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Point, MI

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• Cafeterias

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Pointe, MI

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• Bathrooms

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Cass Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Northern High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Northern High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Roeper High School
• Birmingham, MI

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• Athletic Facilities

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• Marquette Middle School
• Detroit, MI

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• Crockett Technical High School
• Detroit, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Point, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Point, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Point, MI

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• Grosse Pointe North High School
• Grosse Point, MI

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• Metro Detroit is the greatest center of school
  segregation in the nation.

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• Over one quarter of black students in the
  Northeast and Midwest attend 99-100 minority
  schools. (2003)

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• 62.5 of black students in Michigan go to
  schools that are 90-100 minority. This is the
  highest rate in the nation. (2003)

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• 25 of Latino students in the Midwest are in
  schools that are 90-100 minority. (2003)

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• Nationally, almost half of all schools have less
  than 10 black and Latino students by contrast,
  one-tenth of all schools were 90-100 black and
  Latino. (2003)

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• 115 of the 185 cities and townships in the
  six-county Detroit region are more than 95
  white. (Detroit News 1/14/02)

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Segregated Magnet Schools

• Excerpt from Testimony of Gary Orfield, witness
  for United for Equality and Affirmative Action
  (UEAA) in Grutter v. Bollinger
• Let me ask you about a slightly different
  category of schools, a school thats somewhat
  more privileged but its still a segregated
  school, maybe like Cass Tech or like a segregated
  suburban school with an overwhelmingly black or
  Latino population?
• Yes.

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• What are the implications for college, first
  access, and second achievement GPA for students
  from schools like that?
• Well, I have a special interest in magnet
  schools, magnet from out of desegregation plans
  and I have studied them in Chicago and all other
  places.
• Magnet schools give you a chance, but even
  though it may look like a very elite school
  inside the city, it really looks like a very
  average or low average school in suburban terms.

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• So, my own children went to a school that was a
  magnet school in Chicago Public Schools which was
  predominately African American, and had some
  wonderful teachers and programs in it.
• And that school was recruited, the colleges do
  recruit from schools like that pretty
  intensively. There are students who do make it,
  but theyre not nearly as well prepared as they
  should be.
• Basically that school as best I could tell, was
  equivalent to a lower level of suburban school.
  That school had the only debate team that was
  left out of 65 Chicago high schools at that time.

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• When the debate team went off to a suburban
  school, they would see paid staff person working
  with them, hey would see a library, and they see
  kids going to debate camp, they see this and that
  and the other thing. And this school had none of
  those things there.
• They had a volunteer, they had no materials,
  they had no room, they didnt have a media center
  to support them, they had nothing. And they were
  the only ones in the city who could even amount a
  debate team at that point.
• So you have these inequalities even in the elite
  schools. We found that magnet schools really on
  average offered a lot better set of opportunities
  and teachers and background and so forth than the
  non-magnet schools. But they were not
  competitive with good suburban schools in terms
  of the offerings. They had a lot of remarkable
  and talented young people in them though.

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• 2000-2001 School Statistics (Detroit News)
• Drop Out ACT Student/ Per
• Rate Score Teacher Ratio Student
• Detroit 18.4 16.6 19.6 6.584
• Grosse Pointe 1.0 23.3 17.9 9,394
• Farmington 2.7 22.7 18.4 9,568
• West Bloomfield 2.3 23.6 18.4 8,386
• Birmingham 1.2 23.9 16.5
  11,378

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• Realize the promise of Brown v. Board of
  Education!

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• Integration Now!

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• April 1st, 2003 Supreme Court hearing of Grutter
  v. Bollinger

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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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• Shanta Driver, BAMN National Spokesperson
• Speaking at 40 year anniversary of the 1963 March
  on Washington

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• Join the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action
  Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means
  Necessary (BAMN)
• www.bamn.com

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• Photographers
• Maricruz Lopez, Edward Cole, Liana Mulholland,
  Attie Pollard, Ebony Ross (L-R)