On a day marked by celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the USC African American Studies program presented the 17th-annual Robert Smalls Lecture to a packed crowd in the Capstone Campus Room Thursday.
The lecture featured noted law professor and civil rights activist John C. Brittain, who had previously served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union, as legal counsel for the NAACP.
He entered academia as dean of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, and he is now a professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia.
Brittain’s words were prefaced by the presentation of two awards by the Department of African American Studies.
The Dr. Grace Jordan McFadden Award, presented in honor of the first African American woman to receive tenure in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at USC, was given to fourth-year student Chanell Rose and third-year student Micah Thomas.
The Hayes Mizell Research Award, presented in honor of one of the co-founders of the South Carolina branch of the ACLU, was awarded to fourth-year student Chanal McCain.
Brittain’s lecture focused primarily on the inequality that still exists in American education.
His work on such cases as Sheff vs. O’Neill, a landmark 1996 desegregation case in Connecticut, and the 2007 cases Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District and Meredith vs. Jefferson County Board of Education were topics he touched on frequently as he explored the concept of segregation in the 21st century.
“Is education equal for all school children?” Brittain said. “That’s really a rhetorical question — the fact that you have to ask the question is the answer.”
Brittain explained the idea behind de facto segregation, as school districts continually draw lines based on socioeconomic boundaries that end up dividing white and non-white students.
“It’s a pursuit of equality that will include affirmative action and greater diversity in higher education, too,” Brittain said. “People like to say that we live in a post-racial society — if there is such a thing — but this is still an issue.”
Math and reading scores in the United States are considerably lower for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, according to the National Assessment for Economic Progress.
Brittain’s proposed solution to this issue involved a concept which he termed “voluntary integration.” The system would redraw some school district lines to better incorporate a broader swath of students, while also encouraging parents to send their children to more diverse schools by developing what he termed a “convergence of interests.”
“The key is to dissect the future of leadership and provide those opportunities for more nonwhite students,” Brittain said.
Though the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education is approaching this May, Brittain made it clear that fullly equal education is still a goal that’s yet to be met.