Equal Educational Opportunity and the Courts

It is typically American that the most significant modem attempt to achieve racial equality, Brown v. Board of Education,' involved the schools. Americans insist that education offered on some equitable basis will permit the economically and culturally deprived to improve their lot and to claim their fair share of society's status and income rewards.' They see fundamental political, social, and economic changes in educational terms. Education-or more precisely schooling-will resolve conflicts, change attitudes, and diminish inequalitiesY Teachins, driver training, and black studies courses hold the key to salvation. As one commentator has noted, "in other countries, when there is a profound social problem there is an uprising; in the United States, we organize a course."4