ABSTRACT
The changes begun by the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, however, are now coming undone. Latino students, who will soon be the largest minority group in American public schools, were granted the right to desegregated education by the Supreme Court in 1973, but new data show they now are significantly more segregated than black students, with clear evidence of increasing isolation across the nation. Desegregation is not just sitting next to someone of another race. Economic class and family and community educational background are also critically important for educational opportunity. During the 1980s, the courts rejected efforts to terminate school desegregation, and the level of desegregation actually increased, although the Reagan and Bush administrations advocated reversals. In 1954 the Supreme Court began the process of desegregating American public education in its landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.
