{"product_id":"the-crucible-of-desegregation-9780226825526","title":"The Crucible of Desegregation","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExamines the patchwork evolution of school desegregation policy.    In 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Educationestablishing the right to attend a desegregated school as a national constitutional rightbut 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 examines the evolution of federal school desegregation policy from 1954 through the termination of desegregation orders in the first decades of the twenty-first century, combining legal analysis with a focus on institutional relations, particularly the interactions between federal judges and administrators. Melnick argues that years of ambiguous, inconsistent, and meandering Court decisions left lower court judges adrift, forced to apply contradictory Supreme Court precedents in a wide variety of h\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Melnick’s even-handed approach to the school desegregation era offers insights into what went right and what went wrong on a very important set of policies. . .readers can take important lessons about how policymakers today can forge a better future that redeems the promise of Brown.\" * Education Next *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Crucible of Desegregation\u003c\/i\u003e offers a patchwork view of desegregation policy, revealing how administrators and judges in lower courts played a pivotal role, with remarkable achievements and setbacks alike. The book is a valuable and pragmatic resource for those interested in learning more about this history of desegregation and the court system in the US.\" * LSE Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\"Melnick provides exhaustive evidence of American desegregation policy’s many shortcomings. . . Melnick is clear and convincing when showing how Southern \u003ci\u003ede jure\u003c\/i\u003e segregation was taken down only by a breathtaking rearrangement of institutional roles that disregarded the Constitution’s separation of powers.\" * The Claremont Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"The Crucible of Desegregation\u003c\/i\u003e is tour-de-force analysis of the rise and fall of desegregation and integration. This is well-trodden terrain, but if you think you know everything worth knowing about the topic, think again. This meticulously researched, elegantly written, scrupulously fair-minded account achieves the rarity feat of reshaping our understanding of one of the epochal constitutional and social issues of our time.\" -- David Kirp | University of California-Berkeley | author of \"Improbable Scholars\"\u003cbr\u003e\"The Supreme Court is often praised for the clarity of its vision in \u003ci\u003eBrown v. Board of Education,\u003c\/i\u003e but its subsequent decisions are clouded with ambiguity. We still do not know whether the Constitution is color blind or conscientiously seeks to perfect the racial composition of the nation’s schools. Without guidance from above, lower courts wander in a maze, and the race question, rather than resolving itself, acquires ever more political intensity. Melnick narrates this story succinctly yet with felicity, balance, and appropriate irony.\" -- Paul Peterson | Harvard Kennedy School\u003cbr\u003e\"This magisterial yet compelling and thoroughly readable volume by an eminent scholar unpacks the tangled, touchy saga of U.S. school 'desegregation' with all its confusion over goals and uncertainty concerning benchmarks.\" -- Chester E. Finn | Thomas B. Fordham Institute\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e 1 Why Desegregation Still Matters\u003cbr\u003e 2 The Great Debate\u003cbr\u003e 3 Critical Junctures\u003cbr\u003e 4 Breakthrough: The Reconstruction of Southern Education\u003cbr\u003e 5 Supreme Abdication\u003cbr\u003e 6 Left Adrift: Desegregation in the Lower Courts\u003cbr\u003e 7 Varieties of Desegregation Experiences\u003cbr\u003e 8 Termination without End\u003cbr\u003e 9 Looking Beyond Courts: ESEA and Title VI\u003cbr\u003e 10 What Have We Learned?\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e  ","brand":"The University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400133615959,"sku":"9780226825526","price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780226825526.jpg?v=1730469837","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-crucible-of-desegregation-9780226825526","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}