Murray The bottom line is that everyone wants a choice, and ideally everyone wants to send their child to a neighborhood school that is a good school and that is funded equally and appropriately.” —Gloria Murray, dean of the School of Education, IU Southeast

Gloria Murray, dean of IU Southeast’s School of Education program, has plunged into the fray of the “de-seg/re-seg” legal battles in Louisville’s public schools and is looking for answers. The Harvard study, incidentally, found Kentucky to be “the most integrated state for African Americans,” based on data from 2001.

“My original case study was on Central High School (in Louisville) and the issues surrounding the African-American parents’ lawsuit that resulted in ending the 1975 desegregation order, but now I have a much broader focus,” she said. “I’m looking at the history of desegregation and, now, re-segregation in Louisville schools in general.”

“The ending of the 1975 desegregation order is a unique case in the history of school integration, in that, it was the first time in history that black parents had sued to end a desegregation plan,” Murray explained. “The Central case is an example of a school district trying to please one group of people who want school choice while, at the same time, complying with a desegregation order. The result was a managed choice plan using magnet schools and a desegregation plan using racial percentages.”

The 1975 desegregation plan—which was modified in 1984, 1991 and 1996 because of state and local changes—required that Central, a magnet school located in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, admit a certain percentage of African- American students and a certain percentage of white students. The Student Assignment Plan for Central was “no less than 15 percent and no more than 50 percent African-American students.” Once all the spots for African-American students were filled, the remaining African-American students had to go to school elsewhere, even if it meant traveling considerable distances from their homes. Although the enrollment of white students at Central was down, the 1975 law prohibited those vacant spots from being filled with African-American students.

When six African-American parents of the students denied admission to Central sued the Jefferson County (Ky.) Public Schools in 1998 and won, the percentage system was revoked, thus allowing more African-American students to attend Central and several other magnet high and elementary schools.

Murray pointed out that currently there is a suit by white parents who maintain their children were denied admission to a “traditional magnet elementary school” because they are white, and the school had to meet its percentage of black students, thus denying their children admission. Their goal is to end the Student Assignment Plan completely.

Murray has been conducting extensive research through oral interviews with students and teachers. She is now surveying pre-service teachers about knowledge and perceptions of desegregation and the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

“We have a whole new crop of educators,” she said. “Have they even heard of Brown v. Board of Education?” Although she is not yet certain how her research will ultimately be applied, Murray is moving forward.

“The bottom line is that everyone wants a choice, and, ideally, everyone wants to send their child to a neighborhood school that is a good school and that is funded equally and appropriately,” she said. “At the crux of the issue, however, is the fact that housing is not integrated. Therefore, neighborhood schools are not going to be without government intervention. The situation in Louisville schools is a textbook case of what happens when this imbalance plays itself out.”