(This article was originally published in the March issue of Perspectives on History by the American Historical Association)
As part of a 2013 AHA Roundtable in Perspectives about the Supreme Court ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which upheld affirmative action in university admissions, Jonathan Zimmerman of New York University observed that the almost-universal support of diversity in US educational and political culture has gone hand in hand with a substantial retreat from the struggle to integrate America’s schools. The country that had recently elected its first African American president also maintained public schools that had become more segregated since the 1970s. As Zimmerman noted, “‘diversity’ has replaced ‘integration’ as our central racial motif.” CONTINUE READING
