‘Educate, Don’t Segregate’
Twenty legal and legislative milestones in higher education
This timeline reflects some of the most significant legal and legislative milestones that have influenced higher education almost as long as Black Issues In Higher Education has been in print. The ongoing legal battles have primarily involved the further desegregation of schools and the use of race and gender in scholarships and university admissions. Most recently, in 2003, a year away from commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the use of race in college admissions survived — legally — when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of universities to consider race in admissions procedures in order to achieve a diverse student body. In two lawsuits challenging the University of Michigan’s admissions policies, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of the university’s law school and, by a vote of 6-3, struck down the university’s undergraduate policy, which used a point-based system, while still allowing for the consideration of race in admissions. What legal challenges will the higher education community face 20 years from now? We will have to wait and see.
1984: The first edition of Black Issues In Higher Education is published.
1986: Title III in the Higher Education Act is amended to include Part B — the amendment to be known as the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Act — substantially increasing Title III funding to HBCUs.
1989: A federal appeals court revives the Adams desegregation case, requiring the U.S. Education Department to monitor the desegregation of public colleges in all states that had a legally mandated segregated system of higher education. In 1987, a federal judge dismissed the case, which for nearly 15 years forced the Southern and border states to submit plans to desegregate their colleges.
1990: Michael Williams, head of the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the George H. W. Bush administration, announces that it is illegal for colleges to restrict scholarships based on race or ethnicity. Following protests from colleges, the administration re-examines the issue, yet later adopts a policy to restrict such scholarships.
1992: U.S. Supreme Court rules in Ayers v. Mississippi that Mississippi has not done enough to eliminate segregation in its public universities. The lawsuit was filed in 1975 by the late Jake Ayers, the father of a Black college student, who accused the state of neglecting its three historically Black colleges and universities. The court orders a new trial in the case to produce another desegregation plan. The lawsuit continues as Ayers v. Fordice.
