Gen X: The last generation of school racial integration
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Gen X attended the most racially integrated school system in U.S. history before the Supreme Court dropped decrees and schools resegregated, an Axios review of federal data shows.
The big picture: On the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Axios found that the nation's schools today have grown more separate and unequal, but during Gen X's education, schools were moving in a different direction.
- The 1954 Brown ruling banned separating schoolchildren by race, but its full effects weren't felt until the 1980s and early 1990s when districts finally adopted boundary changes and busing plans.
Why it matters: Experts say the racially integrated schools during the years of Hip-Hop's rise, the crack epidemic, the AIDS crisis and the Rodney King police beating prepared Gen X for a more diverse future nation.
- Scholars say classes had more robust debates, students were exposed to more perspectives, and partisan divides didn't prevent friendships.
By the numbers: Black, Latino, and Asian American students were more likely in 1990 — the height of Gen X in public schools — to attend schools with a significant number of white students than three decades later, a UCLA Civil Rights Project report found.
- The typical Black student in 1990 attended a school with 34.7% white students. By 2021, the average Black student went to a school that was only 24.5% white.
- In the American South, the share of Black students in majority-white schools reached a peak of 43% in the 1980s. The share declined to about 16% by 2021.
- The typical Latino student attended a school that was 31.5% white in 1990 compared to one in 2021 that was only 24.9% white.
- In 1988, only around 7.4% of schools were intensely segregated — enrolled more than 90% students of color. By 2021, the percentage of intensely segregated skyrocketed to nearly 20%.
Zoom in: Eisenhower High School in Houston — which President George H.W. Bush praised for its diversity and academics during the Gen X years — was 31% white, 41% Black, 18% Latino and 11% Asian American in 1991.
- The school, in the early 1990s, produced such graduates as future NFL offensive tackle Fred Miller and Brown University-educated and noted immigration lawyer Karen Tumlin.
- Today, Eisenhower is 1% white and 98% students of color, mainly Latino and struggles academically.
Zoom out: Federal data examined by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University tool reviewed by Axios found that in the years after Gen X left public schools, the districts began to resegregate and today have returned to 1960s segregation levels.
- A 1991 Supreme Court decision that terminated desegregation plans in Oklahoma City took some teeth out of the 9-0 Brown decision that declared separating children in public schools by race was unconstitutional.
- White flight to the exurbs contributed to resegregation, but so have charter schools, which at times can pick and choose who they can accept, Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, tells Axios.
Generation X generally describes people born 1965-80 — putting them between the ages of 44 and 59 today.
- Baby Boomers were born 1946-64. Millennials were born 1981-96.
Between the lines: Gen X benefited from the work of the Civil Rights Movement and, for a time, showed the nation what diversity looked like, Louis Moore, a history professor at Grand Valley State University, tells Axios.
- "It was rebellious. It's for everybody. It was that key integrated moment when all your friends were watching 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and trying to 'Do the Right Thing.'"
- Moore said Gen X doesn't get credit for that historic integrated moment because the crises of those years, like the crack epidemic and AIDS, have been glossed over or forgotten.
