Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Columbia Law Review

Abstract

Across the country, violent tactics were employed to create and maintain all-white municipalities. The legacy of that violence endures today. An underexamined space in which that violence endures is within school districts. Many school district boundary lines encompass geographic areas that were created as whites-only municipalities through both physical violence and law. Yet principles that inform how school district boundary lines are drawn fail to account for the harms engendered by geographic spaces that are formerly whites-only municipalities. Legal doctrine and public policies also fail to capture the significance of the historical violence in considering the constitutionality and normative propriety of maintaining school district boundary lines around spaces that encompass formerly whites-only municipalities. This Essay sets forth a framework for rethinking the normative, sociocultural, and legal implications of maintaining school district boundary lines around geographic areas that encompass formerly whites-only municipalities.

First Page

1221

Volume

123

Publication Date

2023

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