The Crucible of Desegregation

Examines the patchwork evolution of school desegregation policy. In 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education —establishing the right to attend a desegregated school as a national constitutional right—but the decision contained fundamental ambiguities. The Supreme Court has never offered a clear definition of what desegregation means or laid out a framework for evaluating competing interpretations. In The Crucible of Desegregation , R. Shep Melnick ex