Recently, the Justice Department lifted a consent decree in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, thus ending a school desegregation order that had existed since the mid-1960s. Though some “officials called [the order’s] continued existence a ‘historical wrong’ and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered,” those concerned with civil rights think differently about the import of continued desegregation orders given school segregation today.Footnote ¹ An ABC News article published in September 2024 reported, “…between 2022 and 2023, among 100,000 public schools across the country, about 83% of all Black public school students and 82% of all Latino students attended a majority non-white school. At the same time, 75% of all white public school students were enrolled in a majority-white school.”Footnote ² Because of this reality and the educational inequality that Black- and Brown-majority schools contend with, the dismantling of the Department of Education, which heretofore has worked in conjunction with the Department of Justice to help protect students’ civil rights and increase racial diversity in schools, will certainly stymie school desegregation and most likely catalyze more violations of students’ civil rights with regard to educational access and opportunity. Though the implementation of desegregation and the reality of students’ experiences in desegregated schools are fraught with challenges, more robust school desegregation can help pave the way for the realization of educational equity.Footnote ³

The absence of a cabinet-level education department from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century was significant and left educational law and policies to the Supreme Court and individual states. School segregation was catalyzed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and fully enacted by the Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899) ruling. Despite the horrors of the Jim Crow South, Black Americans, who had been the first in the South to push for universal education following the Civil War, advocated for Black children’s schooling; contributed their time, talent, and treasure to advancing educational opportunity; and became teachers and school leaders who nurtured children holistically.Footnote ⁴ A Black educational world was created out of necessity as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund launched an attack on Plessy. Footnote ⁵ While southern segregated Black schools may have been unequal in physical resources and materials (but not always), Black teachers and principals provided Black students academic preparation and “institutional care.”Footnote ⁶

A combination of milestones and efforts– the Brown v. Board Education decision (1954), which overturned Plessy and legal segregation in schools; the civil rights movement, civil rights legislation, and the War on Poverty; and the continual filing of school desegregation court cases by Black Americans– solidified federal oversight of school desegregation, which was necessary given the national resistance to it. Even with white flight and persistent notions of Black cultural deprivation, some measure of school desegregation was achieved in the 1970s, especially in the South, and modest progress continued after the Department of Education was established in 1979. Since the 1990s, however, legal decisions have helped to undermine the advancement of school desegregation. Nevertheless, some presidential administrations continued to rely on the tandem of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to enforce school desegregation orders and to ensure students’ civil rights. In 2007, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, many districts interpreted the ruling to mean that race could not be considered in student assignments. However, as George and Darling-Hammond point out, “the Departments of Justice and Education under the Obama administration issued voluntary guidance to help districts achieve diversity and avoid racial isolation in ways consistent with existing law.”Footnote ⁷ Such measures were repealed during President Trump’s first administration.

Now, with the Department of Education on the verge of being shuttered, one of our greatest national challenges could once again be relegated to states, including those that opposed legal decisions and policies and have been under federal desegregation orders. Desegregation has certainly produced mixed results, including the denigration of segregated Black education and unequal and trauma-inducing treatment of many students of color in integrated schools, but social science research has shown that desegregation provides many benefits to students of color, white students, and the broader polity.Footnote ⁸ Losing the full relationship between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice lessens any chance to achieve full school desegregation and thus educational equity, access, and opportunity for all students.