In the 1954 landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in schools based on race was unconstitutional. This ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and the “separate but equal” precedent, and was known as a turning point for equal opportunity in education.
Although this goal was intended to continue throughout time, there are still apparent disparities within the public education system. One of them is unequal education quality and access influenced by neighborhood and socioeconomic status.
Part of education funds come from property taxes, therefore, low-income neighborhood schools receive less money and high-income neighborhood schools receive more money. In addition to this, according to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS), African Americans are more likely to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, and experience lower quality of life with limited access to healthcare, jobs, healthy foods, and more.
This socioeconomic inequity goes back for almost a century because of redlining.
Redlining is the illegal practice of financial institiutions refusing money or service for certain neighborhoods, primarily based on race. It is called redlining because banks, firms, and lenders would literally draw a red line on a map to mark hazardous neighborhoods.
Historically, this act was used by mortgage lenders who would deny mortgages and loans to prevent minorities from housing opportunities. This often occurred even if the resident was eligible. Therefore, if an individual saved up and earned a high income, one could still be denied because of the area they live in, and essentially their race.
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made this discriminatory practice illegal. However, redlining hindered economic development of low-income neighborhoods and the disparity is still evident today. This led to certain neighborhoods falling behind others, where property prices grew. A study shows that 74% of neighborhoods that were labeled hazardous in the past are low-to-moderate income today, and 64% of those are also minority neighborhoods. They are socioeconomically isolated, and therefore, racially isolated.
Systemic racism continues to manifest itself, and this is one clear example of how. This shows that making education equitable is not as easy as solely considering specific schools. The broken system goes far into the past and requires examining the surrounding communities, especially when housing policies largely reflect the quality and accessibility of education. It is unjust for low-income and/or minority communities to suffer from these discrepancies because of unethical practices such as redlining. These outdated policies should not be as impactful as they are today, harming low-income communities and people of color.
This topic was one that is extremely interesting and this is something I have never even heard of before. Even though I have never heard of this before it still does not surprise me that people are still finding away to negatively affect people just because of their skin color or the area that they live in is deemed as “dangerous”. It will never make sense to me how even those these things are illegal that people still will due it anyway just because they are racist.
Woah, seeing Brown v Board truly just took me back to AP Gov. I think this is such an amazing blog as it looks deeper into our education system that really powers the future of all thinkers. Can’t wait to hear more!