Social Scientists on the Stand

...Should white students be redistributed so that no school has more than 25-30 per cent...

...Facing the reality of the percentages, all sides have come to realize there is little point in moving black children from one predominantly black school to another, and by now busing has been steadily diminishing in Detroit Trial And Error reminds us that desegregation once meant open access to public facilities without regard to race...

...Today, it means (to some) the presence of a white majority, and (to others) the necessity of a racially balanced enrollment The role of social scientists in changing the definition of desegregation is a major theme of this book Eleanor Wolfs study brings into the open important questions that deserve the thoughtful consideration of social scientists, lawyers, educators, and laymen...

...Should a school that is half white-half black be considered segregated...

...Social Scientists on the Stand Trial And Error: The Detroit School Segregation Case By Eleanor P Wolf Wayne State 372 pp $19 95 Reviewed by Diane Ravitch Associate Professor of History, Teachers College, Columbia, author, "The Great School Wars New YorkCitv, 1805-1973" ELEANOR P. WOLF'S study should be read as a mystery story How is it that the Detroit school system, known in the 1960s as one of the nation's most liberal and strongly prointegration, was found guilty of following a conscious and deliberate policy of racial segregation in 19717 The characters include a school superintendent and school board president who had been honored bv the local NAACP for their efforts on behalf of integration, a deputv superintendent (responsible for student assignments and school boundary changes, the source ot the segregation complaints) who was a tormer director ot the Detroit NAACP, and a school board that was avowedlv in favor ot maximizing integration The defendant, the Detroit School Board, had so successtulh recruited minontv employes that bv 1970 the city had a greater percentage of black teachers (42 per cent) and black administrators (38 per cent) than any other municipality in the country Furthermore, the board had throughout the 1960s purposefully balanced the faculty of each school by race, sex and experience, with primary emphasis on race As the Federal judge m the segregation trial also noted, it was the first public agency in Michigan to require contractors to demonstrate nondiscrimination in hiring practices, and it was a pioneer in developing multiethnic instructional materials Ultimately, as Milliken v Bradley, the case became a landmark when the Supreme Court in 1974 ruled against Detroit's city-suburban desegregation plan But Wolf's analysis does not focus on that ruling Instead, it wisely searches for clues to how the Federal District Court found the Detroit School Board guilty of intentional racial segregation in the first place A sociologist at Wayne State University, Wolf closely examines the quality of the evidence presented at the trial She seeks to determine what persuaded Judge Stephen Roth to decide that the Detroit schools were practicing de jure segregation, and to order a merger between the predominantly black city schools and the predominantly white suburban schools Based on a careful reading of the trial transcript, Wolf considers the two kinds of evidence presented first, the testimony of social scientists on issues like the academic benefits of integration, and second, the specific constitutional violations allegedly committed by the Detroit School Board Although Judge Roth did not refer to the social science testimony in his decision, Wolf believes the claims of the social scientists, not evidence of illegal actions, caused the judge to order metropolitan desegregation In her view, Judge Roth was persuaded by the social scientists that black children were educationally impaired unless a majority of their classmates were white For its discussion of the use of social science in the courtroom alone, Trial and Error warrants our attention It offers a devastating, well-documented critique of the social scientist in the adversary system Ostensibly called in to introduce neutral, authoritative evidence, expert witnesses became advocates for a point of view and offered statements that oversimplified, distorted or misrepresented the findings of their discipline Time and again, Wolf shows, assertions were confidently made without any proof to back them up or without appropriate reference to contradictory findings "Segregation" in Detroit's schools, Wolf contends, resulted from demographic change, not from the school board's actions or inaction Given the city's extensive residential segregation, she notes, there was "virtually no neighborhood in which a school could be built within walking distance of children without its being a predominantly one-race school "This fact, coupled with the rapid growth of the black population, defeated efforts to plan and maintain integrated schools The system was 46 per cent black in 1961 (the first year the school population was counted by race), and 64 per cent black in 1970 Even Judge Roth projected that the city schools would be 81 per cent black by 1980 and virtually 100 per cent black by 1992 Its intentions notwithstanding, Detroit was trapped in a Catch-22 situation If the system built new schools in black communities, it would be accused of "isolating" and "containing" black pupils, if it failed to build new schools in black communities, then large numbers of black pupils would have to use buildings that were old and unsafe Either course would provide evidence of discrimination Some new schools had been planned for areas undergoing racial transition By the time they opened, the enrollment was already predominantly black, and on its way to becoming more than 90 per cent black Thus, any new school would be located in a neighborhood that was either predominantly white, predominantly black, or shifting from white to black (Wolf lists a number of schools that went from all white to over 90 per cent black between 1960-70) Wolf feels the instances of constitutional violations by the Detroit School Board were substantially overstated, and that the presence of ambiguities in the record makes it impossible to prove the Detroit school system was responsible for creating and maintaining racial segregation The fact that the judge ordered metropolitan busing seems proof to her that no alteration of boundary lines or feeder zones could reverse some faulty previous decision to produce integration in a district that was rapidly becoming overwhelmingly black Judge Roth found the Detroit school system guilty, the author holds, because it was legally necessary to find school-caused violations, not simply demographic trends, in order to impose busing As she points out, the existence of one-race schools is not a constitutional violation, if it were, there would be no reason to have a trial Since the Supreme Court rejected Judge Roth's proposal for metropolitan busing, the Detroit School Board was left in a quandary How was it to "desegregate" a school system that is at present close to 85 per cent black' Should every school be racially balanced to achieve system-wide similarity...