Using a Critical Race Theory framework, this manuscript examines the scholarly literature on the intersection of tracking and its historical use as a method for establishing and maintaining racial segregation in American public schools. I begin by exploring accounts of tracking in American public educational institutions as researched by historians of education. Then, I examine contemporary manifestations of tracking in American public schools beginning in the 20th century by sociologists of education. Within the discussion of contemporary tracking, I explore the use of tracking through magnet schools in order to circumvent federal legislation aimed at desegregating American public schools. Overall, the intersection of these bodies of literature argues that the problematic roots of tracking continue to maintain historical racial and ethnic segregation in American public schools.

Ethnic and gendered employment gaps are mainly explained by individual characteristics, while less attention is paid to occupational structures. Drawing on administrative data, this article analyses the impact of occupational characteristics on top of individual attributes in the urban labour market of Vienna. Both set of variables can explain observed employment gaps to a large extent, but persistent gaps remain, in particular among females. The article's main finding is that the occupational structure appears to have gendered effects. While men tend to benefit from ethnic segregation, women face difficulties when looking for jobs with high shares of immigrant workers. Looking for jobs in occupations that recruit from relatively few educational backgrounds (credentials) is beneficial for both sexes at the outset unemployment, but among females this competitive advantage diminishes over time. The article concludes by discussing potential strategies to avoid the traps of occupational segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a historical analysis of the past century of progressive education, within the general socio-political context of schooling within the US. The purpose of this review is to create a social, historical and philosophical context for understanding the current narrative of progressive education that exists in educational policy discussions today. Major scholarly works related to progressive education are situated within the political climate of the times of their publication. Over the course of this discussion an argument is presented that shows how progressive education has been related to the education and emancipation of disadvantaged children at different points according to the societal emphasis of the time. The final section of the paper proposes a radical form of emancipatory teaching that requires a wide range of abilities among teachers and is matched to elements of the moments in history when progressive education was most effective for poor children.

The desegregation of schools between Black and White students in the 1970s and 1980s led to a surge in diversity among both public and private institutions across the U.S. An emerging trend, however, shows the number of Black students in schools with a majority of White students is quickly moving backward toward levels of segregation not seen since the 1960s. Data points to how this could have a generationally negative impact on education equity in the country.

According to data collected in a new report from The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, the average proportion of Black students in majority White schools in the U.S. was roughly 19 percent in 2018 – down from a high of around 35 percent in 1991. Schools in the South and Border regions of the U.S. have seen even steeper declines. In 1991, the average proportion of Black students in majority White Southern schools was 40 percent; in 2018, it had fallen to roughly 18 percent. For Black students in majority White Border schools found in states like Delaware, D.C., Kentucky and others, the average proportion fell from 41 percent in 1991 to 21 percent in 2018.

Cape Town has enjoyed an academic and popular reputation for being the most relaxed of South African cities in terms of `race' relations. Part of this reputation is based on the belief that there was much less segregation in Cape Town than elsewhere in southern Africa before Apartheid. This article reviews this contention. Attention is drawn to the extent of segregation that did exist in the city by the early twentieth century. In particular, an explanation is offered for its non-residential forms, a hitherto neglected exercise in South African urban historiography. But the limits of segregation in Cape Town, the features that have contributed to its reputation for uniqueness, are also examined and explained. These include the existence of considerable `miscegenation', an enduring non-racial political tradition and the fact that social segregation was far from comprehensive. The task of explaining these occurrences necessarily involves exploring Cape Town as a place, and thus needs to be a work of urban history. Using Paul Maylam's terminology, it needs to be a `history-of-the city', not just the `history-in-the city' that has been the dominant form in South African historiography.

"Research demonstrates that current trends of racial segregation in public education rival rates that preceded the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The social and economic consequences of segregation are profound. Although these consequences are well known, little has been done to dismantle school segregation. While federal courts have espoused support for eradicating school segregation, they have invalidated the very race-conscious approaches that are capable of doing so. This practice is what this article terms "performative school desegregation." Rather than helping to foster integrated schools, this "colorblind" approach only exacerbates school segregation. This article asserts that efforts to advance racially integrated education primarily through reliance on federal courts have been largely unsuccessful due to the inability of federal courts to recognize contemporary forms of racial discrimination. "Performative school desegregation" overlooks the ways that policies and systems collude to maintain a system of racial hierarchy that subordinates Black people and other people of color. Although segregated education is at crisis levels, this article asserts that it is not intractable. Furthermore, remedying it does not require new interventions. The federal government can play a pivotal role in dismantling segregated education. For a short time, all three branches of the federal government collaborated in support of school desegregation with profoundly positive results. Although this collaboration was short-lived, this article asserts that it provides a blueprint for how the federal government can act to remedy school segregation. Proponents of localism and limited federal government resist this proposition. However, a strategic and proactive federal role in education - not an expanded one - holds the promise of moving beyond "performative school desegregation" to finally eliminating separate and unequal education." (from abstract)

Restrictive land use regulation has thwarted the upward mobility of many Americans, particularly Americans of color. Local restrictions imposed by affluent municipalities have limited access to safe neighborhoods, better housing, and good schools. Racism and economic self-interest have both played a role in exclusionary practices which have contributed to high housing costs that place a strain on the entire economy. Fair Housing Act litigation has been one weapon in the fight against these practices. Despite the Supreme Court's decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., disparate impact litigation faces significant obstacles that limit its value as a tool to fight exclusionary zoning. First, because restrictive zoning ordinances have such widespread economic effect, it will generally be difficult to prove that their impact on members of protected classes is disparate. Second, municipalities are likely to have successful defenses against disparate impact claims arising from restrictive zoning--including the "business necessity" defense that zoning restrictions are necessary to minimize the tax burden on local residents. Third, litigation sets up an adversarial dynamic that leads municipalities to resist housing initiatives rather than embracing them. By contrast, incentives are better calculated to induce local cooperation in the development of fair housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development made some use of incentives during the Obama Administration, but those efforts were not ideally designed to promote buy-in by recalcitrant municipalities and were abandoned during the Trump Administration. States, however, are well positioned to use the real property tax system to create substantial incentives for municipalities to abandon exclusionary practices. Using tax incentives rather than mandates would enlist municipal self-interest as a weapon against exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this time of high racial tensions, it is worth revisiting the debate over de facto housing segregation. For more than half a century, from the Fair Housing Act of 1968 through the recent Supreme Court decision in Inclusive Communities, law has ostensibly set a goal of housing integration. How can we assess this goal in an age when most Americans live in expanding suburbs? This Article analyzes the traditional assumptions about segregation and concludes that: (1) the longstanding perception that Black Americans are trapped inside central cities is no longer true, as most Black Americans now live in suburbs; and (2) today's re-emergence of racial segregation in the suburbs appears to be significantly the result of private ordering. The conclusions are based on demographic, sociological, and economic sources (with a special focus on the Washington, D.C., area), which are used to develop a simple model of how small preferences can lead to widespread suburban segregation. These conclusions may be discomforting for both progressive and conservative viewpoints of race relations. But the Article also concludes that the old legal goal of integration of minority races into a majority-White culture may, today, be seen as both naïve and patronizing. De facto segregation may be inevitable and may hold some surprising benefits for minority persons in a rapidly diversifying twenty-first century America.

"A half century after the Fair Housing Act, despite ongoing transformations of the geography of privilege and poverty, residential segregation by race and income continues to shape urban and suburban neighborhoods in the United States. Why do people live where they do? What explains segregation's persistence? And why is addressing segregation so complicated?The Dream Revisited brings together a range of expert viewpoints on the causes and consequences of the nation's separate and unequal living patterns. Leading scholars and practitioners, including civil rights advocates, affordable housing developers, elected officials, and fair housing lawyers, discuss the nature of and policy responses to residential segregation. Essays scrutinize the factors that sustain segregation, including persistent barriers to mobility and complex neighborhood preferences, and its consequences from health to home finance and from policing to politics. They debate how actively and in what ways the government should intervene in housing markets to foster integration. The book features timely analyses of issues such as school integration, mixed income housing, and responses to gentrification from a diversity of viewpoints. A probing examination of a deeply rooted problem, The Dream Revisited offers pressing insights into the changing face of urban inequality."

"Despite the material consequences and symbolic meaning of maintaining predominantly white school districts, a limited amount of scholarship addresses racial segregation in schools from the vantage point of white students. This Article fills that void in the school-desegregation legal literature. It analyzes white-student segregation through a sociological framework called social closure, a process of subordination whereby one group monopolizes advantages by closing off opportunities to other groups. This Article argues that the laws surrounding school district boundary lines enable white students in racially diverse metropolitan areas to engage in social closure and to monopolize high-quality schools."

"This essay traces the history and development of the concept of the Rule of Law from ancient times through the present. It describes the elements of the Rule of Law and its importance to the protection of human rights in a variety of contexts, including under domestic and international law. From ancient Greece and Rome to the Enlightenment, and from the American and French Revolutions to modern times, the Rule of Law has played a key role in societies around the world. The essay discusses definitions of the Rule of Law, its origins, and its development over time, including in Europe, America's founding period, and the post-World War II era. In particular, the essay discusses the intellectual contributions of historical figures such as the Italian criminal-law theorist Cesare Beccaria, the French jurist, Baron de Montesquieu, and American revolutionaries who played major roles in laying the now centuries-old foundation for the development of the modern-day Rule of Law concept (i.e., in drafting early American constitutions and laws, including the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights). The essay explores a wide range of topics, from the creation of the United Nations and the ratification of international conventions and human rights treaties, to the adoption of South Africa's post-apartheid constitution, to Donald Trump's continuous and systematic assault on the Rule of Law, human rights, and democratic institutions and norms. The essay also highlights the Rule of Law's symbiotic relationship to the protection of fundamental human rights such as the rights to equality, to vote, and to be free from discrimination, cruelty and torture. Arguing that various Trump Administration acts and policies (e.g., separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and the death penalty's use) and the outrageous and brazen efforts of Donald Trump and his campaign and allies to discriminate against and disenfranchise voters violate core Rule of Law principles, the essay concludes by emphasizing the Rule of Law's continuing and critical importance to the protection of civil liberties and fundamental human rights in the twenty-first century."

Our homes are racially segregated, and not by accident. Jessica Trounstine finds that cities actively created segregation through zoning and urban renewal, worsening their public services. As soon as segregation was threatened, white homeowners fled to the suburbs. Chloe Thurston finds that the federal government decided to subsidize the private mortgage market, rather than focus on public housing. But advocacy groups for racial minorities, women, and the poor did make some progress addressing discrimination behind the scenes. Local and federal policy produced our unique American housing market, including pitfalls that are still with us today.

The revival of the argument over school busing illuminates a continuing predicament for Democrats and proponents of racial equality.
Integration works, but how do we get it to fly in the face of white intransigence?
There is a large body of evidence that shows that African-American children perform better when they move out of high-poverty areas into more middle class, less segregated neighborhoods. Academic achievement improves, college completion rates go up, arrests go down, unwed parenthood declines and employment rates go up, with better pay.

Offering timely planning and policy recommendations based in this history, A Haven and a Hell provides a powerful new understanding of urban black communities at a time when the future of many inner-city neighborhoods appears uncertain.

National fair housing legislation opened up higher opportunity neighborhoods to multitudes of middle-class African Americans. In actuality, the FHA offered much less to the millions of poor, Black residents in inner cities than it did to the Black middle class. Partly in response to the FHA's inability to provide quality housing for low-income blacks, Congress has pursued various mobility strategies designed to facilitate the integration of low-income Blacks into high-opportunity neighborhoods as a resolution to the persistent dilemma of the ghetto. These efforts, too, have had limited success. Now, just over fifty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act and the Housing Choice Voucher Program (commonly known as Section 8), large numbers of African Americans throughout the country remain geographically isolated in urban ghettos. America's neighborhoods are deeply segregated and Blacks have been relegated to the worst of them. This isolation has been likened to colonialism of an urban kind. To combat the housing conditions experienced by low-income Blacks, in recent years, housing advocates have reignited a campaign to add "source of income" protection to the federal Fair Housing Act as a means to open up highopportunity neighborhoods to low-income people of color. This Article offers a critique of overreliance on integration and mobility programs to remedy urban colonialism. Integration's ineffectiveness as a tool to achieve quality housing for masses of economically-subordinated Blacks has been revealed both in the historically White suburbs and the recently gentrified inner city. Low-income Blacks are welcome in neither place. Thus, this Article argues that, focusing modern fair housing policy on the relatively small number of Black people for whom mobility is an option (either through high incomes or federal programs) is shortsighted, given the breadth of need for quality housing in economically-subordinated inner-city communities. As an alternative, this Article proposes, especially in the newly wealthy gentrified cities, that fair housing advocates, led by Black tenants, insist that state and local governments direct significant resources to economically depressed majority-minority neighborhoods and house residents equitably. This process of equitable distribution of local government resources across an entire jurisdiction, including in majority-minority neighborhoods, may be a critical step towards urban decolonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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