On Thursday, June 28, 2007, the United States Supreme Court rejected integration plans in two major public school districts in what some feel may amount to a reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 decision that declared "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
MMEP and Wm. Mitchell College of Law co-hosted a public forum on this topic at Wm. Mitchell College on October 9, 2007. Over 160 people attended and participated in this interactive evening.
Comments on the evening from Carlos Mariani, executive director, MMEP:
"I want to share with you that we had a wonderfully successful MMEP forum Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007, at Wm. Mitchell Law School on the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s School Integration decision.
The event was well attended by many K-12 administrators, teachers as well as post-secondary faculty, a lot of activists from communities of color and MMEP Board members Luis Ortega and Vanessa Abanu. The racial/ethnic media covered this extensively. We had participants who drove in from as far away as Duluth and Rochester, including superintendents and philanthropic foundation board members.
In addition to an excellent review of the court case, including a historical context going back to Brown v. Board by Dr. Michael Jordan, William Mitchell Law School, the audience participated in a spirited discussion of the practical options schools could follow and also in exploring ways to fuel the public’s support for pushing the envelope with creative integration and other responses to the persistent “achievement gap” (or better the “opportunity gap”) that continues to plague our society.
The open and authentic discussion reflects well of the important role that MMEP plays in informing the public, including educational leaders and communities of color, of the salient policy issues impacting education equity in our state. Our tradition and competency in pulling together multicultural, multi-sector public discussions that are powerful, respectful and accessible to all continues to provide hope and practical solution discovery for those supporting students of color."
