Delaware has had successes with desegregation; still work to be done
Secret meetings, threats of violence, striking teachers and courtroom battles — Delaware’s fight over school desegregation sounds like a new drama series streamed to millions.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the Evans v. Buchanan case, which originally ordered the state of Delaware to appropriately implement the Brown v. Board of Education decision that rendered school segregation unconstitutional. In 1971, the American Civil Liberties Union and several Wilmington School District parents claimed in federal court that the state had never desegregated the city’s schools, that several schools that had served almost only minority students at the time of Brown still were almost all minority. Their suit argued that there were many state actions that maintained the segregation of schools in Wilmington, most significantly the 1968 Educational Advancement Act. This act gave authority to the state board of education to reorganize the vast majority of the numerous school districts in Delaware but had excluded this possibility for the city district’s schools.
In 2019, however, the Delaware school desegregation conflict did, in fact, become television drama in the first Democratic presidential debate, when then-candidate Kamala Harris blasted Delaware’s home state favorite, Joe Biden, for opposing busing as a solution to school segregation: “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. … But Vice President Biden, … do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America?” Then-Sen. Harris stunned many viewers that night, but few of them had any knowledge of what actually happened in the Delaware school desegregation fight so many years ago.
For those who do not know our state’s history, there are some seemingly inexplicable aspects of the schools of New Castle County. There is no Wilmington School District. The Christina School District consists of part of the city of Wilmington and Newark and the surrounding area — but these sections are not even attached by I-95. The four pie-shaped school districts comprising almost all of the county are not named after local towns but rather after four local waterways — Christina, Red Clay, Colonial and Brandywine.
As Delaware Committee on the School Decision (DCSD) executive director, expert witness, researcher, author, teacher and parent, I witnessed much of the drama firsthand — in the rooms where it happened. My personal involvement began in November 1974, when I was asked to serve as staff for DCSD — ultimately, a 50-member, widely diverse committee appointed by the New Castle County executive, the mayor of Wilmington and the governor to inform and prepare the community for a possible metropolitan school desegregation order. In 1994, the four districts that resulted from the federal court order implemented in 1978 joined the state of Delaware in requesting that the court judge the desegregation plan successfully implemented and, thus, no longer be required to follow the specifics of the court order. The court agreed.
What we see in our nation today, in many ways, invokes the history of desegregation. Back then, emotions ran high, as suburban and Wilmington parents worried about their children being ordered by federal courts to hostile environments. The threat of violence was lurking throughout. Politicians either wanted to avoid the issue or “do something,” even if their actions would have no impact on a federal court order. City residents and suburban residents, Blacks and Whites, differed strongly on what should be done. “We/they” divisions dominated the words of many, as some charged elites would escape busing, but others would not be able to flee.
While the conflict level was high and many issues about school segregation remain, in 1978, Delaware implemented the court order with high praise. Newspapers ran headlines such as “Desegregation Begins Quietly, Peacefully” and “School Opening Draws High Marks.” I remember people in Los Angeles speaking on television, saying that Delaware was a national model. In 2014, the Civil Rights Project at UCLA concluded, “The mandated plan, in place for almost two decades, made Delaware one of the two most integrated states in the U.S.”
Unfortunately, subsequent forces such as school choice and charter schools, the Neighborhood Schools Act and demographic change have led to city school resegregation, albeit de facto not de jure.
In the 1970s, Delaware’s democracy worked. There were many reasons for the peaceful and orderly implementation of the federal court order, including the success of the coalition of nonprofit, governmental, religious and business organizations working together. Opposition to busing led to political action, not demonstrations at schools. Police and government officials were prepared for possible disruption and violence. Let’s hope our current conflicts also come to a civil conclusion.
Dr. Jeff Raffel currently chairs the board of Common Cause Delaware. He spent his career as a public administration professor at the University of Delaware, including 10 years as the director of what is now the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration.
Editor’s note: Dr. Raffell will present “School Desegregation in Delaware: Scenes from the Rooms Where It Happened,” on Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. Sponsored by Common Cause Delaware, the Zoom event is free and open to the public but requires registration.
