Brown v. United States of America
Debating the Issues
Produced by ABA Commission on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
Moderator:
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Harvard Law School
Judges:
The Honorable Stephen Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court
The Honorable Robert Benham, Supreme Court of Georgia
The Honorable Roger L. Gregory, U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit
The Honorable Carlos F. Lucero, U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Tenth Circuit
The Honorable Johnnie B. Rawlinson, U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit
The Honorable Carl E. Stewart, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit
The Honorable Ann Claire Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit
The Honorable Charles Wilson, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit
Lawyers:
John Payton Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, Washington,
D.C.
Alfred A. Lindseth, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP Atlanta,
Georgia
Theodore M. Shaw, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
New York, New York
Rocco E. Testani, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP Atlanta,
Georgia
Witnesses:
Sheryll Cashin, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington,
D.C.
Caroline M. Hoxby, Harvard University, Department of Economics
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gary Orfield, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education,Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Abigail Thernstrom Manhattan Institute for Policy Research,
New York, New York
The Honorable Matthew J. Perry, Jr. U.S. District Court for
the District of South CarolinaColumbia, South Carolina
Armstrong Williams,The Right Side Productions,Washington,
D.C.
On August 7, 2004, the American Bar Association Commission on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education concluded a year of special programs commemorating the Brown decision. This event —available here via video webcast—asked some of the nation's top judges, lawyers, scholars, and policy experts to debate four key issues emanating from the Brown decision that remain unresolved today.
The suit is brought by the family of Oliver Brown against the United States of America. The suit alleges that, as a nation, the United States has failed to deliver the relief promised by the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas because:
- The re-segregation of many of the nation's school districts has created a situation of de facto segregation that, in terms of practical effects, is no different from the de jure segregation that prevailed before the Brown decision.
- Minority students must have access to majority white elementary and secondary schools to achieve their highest potential, and such access has not been adequately provided in the 50 years since the Brown decision.
- The Supreme Court has refused to ensure that minority groups will be proportionately represented among student populations at U.S. colleges and universities by ruling against the use of quotas in affirmative action programs and substituting the more dilute concept of "critical mass" as an acceptable means to achieve diversity.
- The United States, through the majority opinion of its Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger, has suggested that affirmative action policies may no longer be necessary in 25 years, thus creating an unrealistic expectation of the progress the United States will be able to make to remedy the past effects of segregation.
The four allegations are tried by two teams of lawyers, one for each side, through the testimony of expert witnesses called by the plaintiff Brown family and the defendant United States. The trial is presided over by a panel of approximately nine judges before a jury of 24 ABA members representing the breadth of the Association's membership. At the end of the trial, the jury delivers a verdict on the four allegations made by the plaintiffs.
Duration: 52 minutes
Credit Hours: 0.87 hours in a 60-minute state, 1.0
hours in a 50-minute state
Recorded from a live program August 1, 2004
MCLE credit is subject to each state's regulations. Some states do not approve online courses for MCLE credit or have specific rules regarding who may earn credit or the maximum number of credit hours that may be earned through online CLE. Please contact your state if you have any questions.
