Making Desegregation Work: Citizen Participation and Bureaucratic Resistance in the Boston Public Schools, 1974–85

Abstract

Court-ordered desegregation of the Boston Public Schools in the 1970s has often been cast as an example of federal overreach that inflicted a disruptive “forced busing” plan on the city, generating only racial conflict and trauma while failing to ensure educational equality. Yet by encouraging citizen participation in developing and implementing plans for eliminating racism from the school system, the court order opened space for parents and community members to get involved in the public schools on an unprecedented scale. While some white Bostonians responded to desegregation with racist violence, others took advantage of the opportunities provided by the court order to press their vision for a more inclusive school system that would prepare children to live in an interracial democracy. Their efforts came up against an entrenched, self-interested bureaucracy that had no interest in sharing power or significantly reallocating educational resources. The struggles over education reform that played out in the offices of school administrators reveal the diverse interests and motivations that undermined school desegregation in Boston and allowed inequities to persist.

Full text

GRETA DE JONG
Making Desegregation Work: Citizen Participation
and Bureaucratic Resistance in the Boston Public
Schools, 1974–85
Abstract
Court-ordered desegregation of the Boston Public Schools in the 1970s has often
been cast as an example of federal overreach that inflicted a disruptive “forced
busing” plan on the city, generating only racial conflict and trauma while failing
to ensure educational equality. Yet by encouraging citizen participation in devel-
oping and implementing plans for eliminating racism from the school system, the
court order opened space for parents and community members to get involved in
the public schools on an unprecedented scale. While some white Bostonians
responded to desegregation with racist violence, others took advantage of the op-
portunities provided by the court order to press their vision for a more inclusive
school system that would prepare children to live in an interracial democracy.
Their efforts came up against an entrenched, self-interested bureaucracy that had
no interest in sharing power or significantly reallocating educational resources.
The struggles over education reform that played out in the offices of school admin-
istrators reveal the diverse interests and motivations that undermined school deseg-
regation in Boston and allowed inequities to persist.
Introduction
Amid media coverage of angry white people throwing rocks at buses full of chil-
dren, reports of fights and racial conflicts in newly integrated schools, and com-
mentaries that depicted a city in crisis, a sun-colored pamphlet produced by the
Citywide Parents Advisory Council (CPAC) presented a brighter side to court-
ordered desegregation of the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in the 1970s. Titled
Parents Make a Difference! and featuring an interracial group of adults and chil-
dren on the cover, the pamphlet explained how the parent and community
councils established by the court order were working to enhance education for
all children in the system. Already, parents had secured new resources and
improvements at a dozen schools around the city, and the councils were active
in shaping implementation of the desegregation plan. Parent participation was
crucial to ensuring quality education, CPAC asserted, and the council network
Journal of Social History (2022), pp. 1–27
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offered many opportunities for those seeking to influence decisions that affected
their children.
1
Encouraging parents and other citizens to take a more active role in the
BPS was a central component of the plan, but one that critics of the court order
largely ignored. The Boston School Committee (BSC) and the segregationist
group Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) denigrated District Court Judge
W. Arthur Garrity Jr. for imposing “forced busing” on families and accused him
of abrogating parents’ rights. Casting themselves as defenders of the city’s belea-
guered working class, some political leaders excoriated middle-class suburbanites
who supported desegregation but were themselves exempt from a plan that only
applied to the inner city and left all-white schools in the larger metropolitan
area untouched.
2
Like their counterparts in the South, segregationists in Boston
railed against the tyranny of the federal government and lamented the loss of
(mostly fictional) neighborhood schools attended by children who lived within
walking distance. Framing desegregation as an edict passed down by dictatorial
elites was a useful tactic for inciting resistance to the court order while shielding
opponents from accusations of racism.
3
Early accounts of Boston’s “busing crisis” noted the bigotry that lay be-
neath the surface of these arguments but did little to challenge the notion that
the desegregation plan came with great costs and few concrete benefits for chil-
dren or the city as a whole. Focusing on working-class white neighborhoods
such as South Boston and Charlestown where much of the violence was con-
centrated, studies by Alan Lupo, J. Anthony Lukas, Emmett H. Buell, and
Ronald P. Formisano highlight the class resentments as well as the racial antag-
onism expressed by parents who felt victimized by out-of-touch lawmakers and
judges. These authors fault the court order for focusing too heavily on racial ra-
tios and failing to acknowledge underlying economic inequities. A common
theme running through these works is that poor white and Black families were
equally afflicted by a plan that, according to Lupo, amounted to little more
than shuffling children “from one lousy school to another, by telling oppressed
whites and oppressed blacks that they must mingle for some greater social
good.”
4
More recent strands in the historiography have shifted the focus away from
white reactions to desegregation and examined the antiracist activism of African
American and Latinx residents in the decades leading up to the court order. As
analyses by Jeanne F. Theoharis, Zebulon Vance Miletsky, and Tatiana M. F.
Cruz have shown, desegregation did not come to the BPS through the autocratic
actions of a lone federal judge. Rather, decades of lobbying and protests finally
secured compliance with state and federal laws that mandated equal access to
education. Viewing the struggles over desegregation through the eyes of families
that had long been denied rights that white residents took for granted fore-
grounds the broader social justice goals that were at stake and decenters the
complaints of more privileged citizens. Pushing back against scholars who ex-
plain racist violence as an outgrowth of class oppression, Theoharis warns
against naturalizing such responses as the only ones possible on the part of
working-class white people, noting that both opposition to and support for the
court order cut across socio-economic groups.
5
Examining citizen participation in the court-ordered councils shows that
alternatives to the “reactionary populism” expressed by segregationists did
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indeed exist.
6
While their racist neighbors protested and refused to comply with
the desegregation plan, other white Bostonians joined efforts to make it work.
People on both sides understood that Garrity’s court order came at a pivotal
time in the nation’s efforts to ensure educational equity, giving events in
Boston significance beyond the city. Supporters hoped Boston could become a
model for successfully integrating urban school systems by encouraging citizen
involvement and paying attention to the quality of education offered “at the
end of the bus ride.” Opponents warned that chaotic schools and an exodus of
middle-class families lay in store for cities that were subjected to similar orders
from the courts. With public support for racial justice already waning in the
mid-1970s, the outcome of Boston’s desegregation “ordeal” had national
ramifications.
7
The well-publicized activities of ROAR members and others who
obstructed implementation of Garrity’s orders convinced many Americans that
federally mandated school integration was a mistake. Meanwhile, those who la-
bored in support of desegregation were largely hidden from view, depriving citi-
zens seeking to address persistent racial disparities in education then and now of
potential frameworks for success. Excavating the experiences of Bostonians who
worked across racial and class lines to improve education for all children pro-
vides a counternarrative to histories that focus on conflict and failure. It may
also shed light on the conditions that are apt to foster such cooperation and
those that can destroy positive efforts for systemic change. Tracing the rise,
achievements, and limits of Boston’s court-ordered parent and community coun-
cils reveals a piece of the story that is left unexamined in existing studies, which
mention the councils only in passing and without noting their roots in local ac-
tivism or their transformative possibilities.
The councils had their origins in an interracial education reform movement
that pre-dated the 1970s and encompassed goals that went beyond desegrega-
tion. Court intervention enabled these activists to press their vision for remak-
ing the school system through the cooperative efforts of families, teachers,
administrators, political leaders, and communities, working for the benefit of all.
By mandating citizen participation in developing and implementing plans for
eliminating racism from the school system, Judge Garrity opened space for peo-
ple to get involved in the public schools on an unprecedented scale. An exten-
sive network of volunteer councils working at the school, district, and city levels
was charged with monitoring progress toward desegregation and ensuring the de-
livery of quality education throughout the BPS. Early achievements offered
some hope for those seeking to create an inclusive public school system that
could better serve the needs of an interracial democracy. Over time, however,
the obstructive tactics of administrators who preferred to maintain the status
quo undermined reform efforts and embittered many council participants.
Alongside the overt and violent opposition of ROAR, the quiet resistance of
school system personnel presented major obstacles and increased the amount of
labor required to make desegregation work. Moving the spotlight away from the
racial conflicts that occurred in white working-class neighborhoods to examine
the battles over education policy fought in the offices of the Boston School
Department (BSD) illuminates how other, more powerful forces blocked social
change in this era.
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Boston Public Schools before the 1970s
Boston’s public school system was the oldest in the nation, dating back to
edicts issued by leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1640s requiring
communities to provide young people with instruction in reading, writing, and
religious values. The American Revolution pushed public education in a more
secular direction, giving schools a new role in preparing citizens to live as free
and independent members of a democratic republic.
8
In the nineteenth century,
Massachusetts Board of Education secretary Horace Mann and other supporters
of universal free education argued that public schools benefited the whole soci-
ety by promoting shared values, breaking down class barriers, generating eco-
nomic prosperity, and ensuring an informed citizenry.
9
Under the leadership of
Mann and superintendent John D. Philbrick, school administration and instruc-
tion methods were modernized, and at the turn of the twentieth century the
BPS was widely regarded as one of the best school systems in the nation. In the
1930s, financial constraints imposed by the Great Depression and the tempta-
tions offered to those who would use their positions for personal gain began to
undermine educational quality. Political rather than educational concerns domi-
nated administrators’ decision making. The five-member BSC became a favorite
domain for corrupt politicians to acquire power, distribute jobs and contracts to
their friends, and use as a springboard for election to higher office. In 1944, a
study of the BPS by the city’s Finance Commission observed that the BSC oper-
ated without clear policies or plans and “without any adequate conception of
the responsibilities of a public board or the obligations of public stewardship.”
Aging and unsafe buildings, outdated curricula based on rote learning, and an
insular teaching corps all undermined effective instruction, leaving graduates ill-
prepared for a rapidly changing economy and society.
10
Parents who had concerns about Boston’s public schools faced dismissive
attitudes from teachers, principals, and system administrators. In the 1960s,
young couple Louise and Larry Bonar joined a small group of other parents to
push for changes in their local schools in Brighton, without much success.
School officials thought “that was not any of our business,” Louise Bonar
explained. “We were just parents, providing the raw material, and how dare we
ask them?”
11
In a letter to BPS superintendent William Ohrenberger in 1968,
Larry Bonar complained that many principals took suggestions for reform as a
personal affront and viewed citizens who were interested in what was happening
in the schools as “troublemakers and subversives.” Even parents who simply
wanted to monitor their own child’s progress could not do so because educators
withheld “basic information they have every right to know.”
12
The only official avenue for participation was through the Home and
School Association (HSA), an organization of parents and teachers that was
funded and controlled by the BSC. In most schools, the HSA acted as a rubber
stamp for principals and rarely challenged their authority. Teachers whose jobs
and promotions depended on pleasing higher-level administrators avoided
criticisms of the school system and generally voted the way their principals told
them to. Parent members were expected to endorse whatever decisions were
made by teachers and administrators.
13
A study conducted by Boston’s League
of Women Voters (LWV) in 1967 quoted BSC member Thomas Eisenstadt as
saying that the HSA was a “company store” and that “no impetus for change or
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innovation ever comes from the Association.” Noting that some other urban
school systems allowed more meaningful parent participation than the BPS, the
LWV advocated for mechanisms that gave citizens a greater voice in shaping
school policy.
14
For African Americans, the school system’s deficiencies were exacerbated
by racism. White people dominated the BSC, the HSA, and the BSD, and
school officials generally ignored concerns raised by Black residents regarding
the education of their children.
15
Racial discrimination within the BPS intensi-
fied in the mid-twentieth century as policy makers responded to an influx of
Black migrants from the South. Between 1940 and 1970, the city’s African
American population increased from 23,679 to 104,707. Meanwhile, many
white Bostonians moved to the suburbs or left the area altogether, reducing their
number from 745,366 to 524,709.
16
As the proportion of Black children in the
BPS increased to more than 30 percent in those decades, school officials grew
alarmed. Fearing the loss of more white families from the system, the BSC
adopted policies aimed at containing Black students within particular schools.
17
Although a state law passed in 1855 prohibited schools from denying admis-
sion to anyone for racial or religious reasons, BPS administrators and urban plan-
ners used zoning, school siting, and enrollment policies to create an education
system that segregated students almost as effectively as the Jim Crow South.
18
Reports prepared by the Boston branch of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1963 noted that Black students
were concentrated in the city’s oldest and most dilapidated school buildings, en-
during leaky roofs, broken plumbing, loose windows, and overcrowded class-
rooms. Children attending mostly Black schools scored lower than city averages
on achievement tests that were administered each year in all grades.
19
Some
teachers and principals openly expressed racist beliefs suggesting that African
Americans failed to succeed academically because they were naturally unintelli-
gent or did not value education.
20
Boston’s Educational Reform Movement
Black activists were not the only ones concerned about these conditions.
The fight against Nazi Germany during World War II and the rise of the postwar
civil rights movement convinced many white Bostonians of the need for a more
egalitarian system of public education. Growing up and attending schools in the
working-class, racially transitioning neighborhood of Roxbury, Henry Allen no-
ticed the racism that permeated the BPS. After graduating from college in the
mid-1960s, he remained in Roxbury as it became a predominantly African
American community and supported school desegregation efforts. For Allen,
equalizing educational opportunities for all children was “absolutely the right
thing to do.”
21
Louise Bonar reached the same conclusion watching television
coverage of the violent attacks on civil rights activists who participated in mass
protests against segregation in the South. Bonar shocked her relatives and neigh-
bors in Brighton by studying urban teaching at Simmons College, accepting a
post at a mostly Black school, and actively seeking out opportunities for her fam-
ily to interact with African Americans.
22
While some parents fixated on the harm their children might suffer if they
attended racially mixed schools, others viewed integration as an educational
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necessity that benefited all students and the society as a whole. Louise and Larry
Bonar were appalled by the racism and parochialism they saw in Brighton’s
mostly white schools and the effects that this stultification had on young minds.
Children were not being taught to think or develop problem-solving skills but
to obey authority, and any display of creativity or imagination was quickly sti-
fled. Seeking a different type of education for their children, the Bonars joined
Henry Allen and other parents to secure federal funding and BSC approval for
the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Roxbury, an early magnet
school that drew a diverse student body from throughout the city and some sub-
urbs when it opened in 1969.
23
Unlike other white parents who cited concerns
about safety or lower educational standards as reasons for opposing desegrega-
tion, those who founded the Trotter School viewed ensuring equal rights for
African Americans and doing what was best for their own children as comple-
mentary rather than competing goals. Allen believed integration was “a question
of absolute justice” and that “entwined in the very definition of a quality educa-
tion is a diverse education, is people knowing and understanding different com-
munities and cultures and learning from one another.”
24
These families’ efforts on behalf of BPS children reflected nationwide trends
that encouraged grassroots movements for social change across the political spec-
trum in the 1960s and 1970s. The civil rights movement, antiwar movement,
and the feminist movement inspired progressive reformers and provided models
for activism aimed at making institutions more responsive to constituents who
were previously ignored. Community action programs established by the federal
government’s Great Society initiatives mandated that low-income people be in-
cluded in designing projects that served their communities. Many Americans
joined neighborhood organizations that tackled local issues such as inadequate
public services, corrupt municipal governments, and urban renewal projects that
threatened to destroy people’s homes.
25
Both opponents and supporters of deseg-
regation in Boston often had experience with earlier struggles that pitted them
against the city’s political elite. Louise Bonar recalled that change was “in the
air” and that despite the challenges of starting a new interracial school in
Roxbury, it did not seem unusual “to just take an idea and [say] ‘We should do
that, so let’s do that.’”
26
Although Black activists led the struggle for desegregation, a diverse coali-
tion of labor, religious, and civic organizations supported these efforts. At a pub-
lic hearing held at the request of the NAACP in June 1963, BSC members
heard from representatives of dozens of groups urging them to end school segre-
gation in the city. Ruth Batson of the NAACP’s Education Committee pro-
vided a detailed account of research findings that demonstrated clear patterns of
racial discrimination in the BPS. Labor leader Julius Bernstein outlined the role
that working people had played in advocating for public schools since the nine-
teenth century and called on the committee to fulfill “the promise of American
democracy” by ensuring equal educational opportunities for African Americans.
Sumner Rosen of the American Veterans’ Committee decried the lack of trans-
parency that characterized the relationship between school administrators and
the community, calling on the BSC to restore trust through better communica-
tion and accountability. Spokespeople for the Massachusetts Council of
Churches, the Congress of Racial Equality, Citizens for the Boston Public
Schools, the Bay State Law Society, and other organizations sounded similar
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themes, highlighting the racial disparities and bureaucratic indifference that
undermined education for all children in the system.
27
Despite the evidence amassed by reformers, the all-white BSC denied that
it discriminated against African Americans. Committee members cited residen-
tial segregation, parents’ preference for sending children to schools close to their
homes, and the cultural backgrounds of Black students—anything but the deci-
sions made by themselves—as reasons for the problems cited by their critics.
28
Committee chair Louise Day Hicks leveraged her opposition to desegregation
and defense of “neighborhood schools” to enhance her political career, winning
election to the city council in 1969 and going on to serve a term in the U.S.
House of Representatives in the early 1970s.
29
Most other committee members
also maintained an intransigent stance and refused to admit that racism was a
problem in the BPS. In March 1965, Joseph Lee argued that the BSC had al-
ways acted with the best interests of African Americans at heart and contrasted
the welcoming atmosphere in Boston with the exclusionary tactics of suburban
communities that aimed to keep them out. According to Lee, the concentration
of Black students in certain schools proved there was no discrimination, since
no self-respecting racist would allow white students to be “submerged by Negro
majorities in 45 Boston schools.”
30
Continued pressure from civil rights activists who organized school stay-
outs, mass demonstrations, vigils, and a visit to the city by Martin Luther King
Jr. failed to move the committee. The NAACP and its allies had more success
with state education leaders, who agreed to study the extent and effects of
“racial imbalance” (a euphemism used to describe segregation that seemed unin-
tentional rather than mandated by law) in Massachusetts schools and issued a
report in April 1965 recommending action.
31
In August, the legislature passed
the Racial Imbalance Act (RIA) and ordered districts that contained imbal-
anced schools to develop plans for addressing the problem.
32
Still, the BSC de-
clined to act. For the next decade, the committee repeatedly filed inadequate
plans that were rejected by the board of education, forfeiting millions of dollars
in state funds that could have been used to enhance education and ease the
transition to integrated schools. Meanwhile, residential segregation and the
number of imbalanced schools in Boston increased. Between 1964 and 1972,
white enrollment in the BPS dropped from 70,703 to 63,798 and nonwhite en-
rollment increased from 21,097 to 33,429, pushing the number of imbalanced
schools to sixty-four.
33
Instead of adopting state officials’ suggestions for integrat-
ing the schools, however, BSC members used the shifting demographics to jus-
tify their inaction, arguing that redistricting and other recommended changes
would only lead to more white flight from the system. The committee’s stone-
walling eventually made it impossible to draw up effective plans without includ-
ing busing among the tools used to comply with the law. When state officials
drew up such a plan for desegregating Boston’s schools in November 1972, the
BSC refused to implement it and instead challenged it in court.
34
As the committee continued to block reform efforts, an interracial alliance
began to coalesce around efforts to elect progressive candidates to the BSC and
ensure more citizen involvement in policy decisions. In 1970, a directory of
organizations concerned with the state of public education in Boston listed more
than a hundred neighborhood organizations, social service agencies, parent
groups, civic associations, educational and cultural institutions, and other
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entities representing every social demographic and geographical area of the city.
Activists from a broad cross-section of these organizations formed the City-Wide
Educational Coalition (CWEC) in January 1972. Executive director Mary Ellen
Smith was a white teacher who was fired along with five others for supporting
protests by Black students and parents at the Christopher Gibson School in
1968, and the group included others who were active in earlier reform efforts as
well.
35
Members developed a “Community Agenda for the Boston Public
Schools” that asserted the need to “utilize the creative skills of parents, teachers,
students, and community residents in the development and execution of school
policy.” More cooperation between the BSD and the broader community, im-
proved services for bilingual and special education students, initiatives to hire
more racially diverse teachers and administrators, and an end to racial and gen-
der discrimination were needed to ensure high-quality education in the BPS.
School desegregation was essential, CWEC stated, “because it is law, because it
is good educational practice and because it is necessary to building a cohesive
society.”
36
In the early 1970s reformers pressed the BSC to create parent and commu-
nity advisory councils in each school and district. Committee members
expressed mild support for the idea, but it ultimately fell by the wayside as find-
ing ways to prevent or delay desegregation consumed their attention.
37
Frustrated by the BSC’s intransigence and inadequate enforcement of the RIA,
a group of Black parents filed a lawsuit in federal court in March 1972. No lon-
ger content to acquiesce in the pretense that racial imbalance was accidental or
caused by forces beyond school officials’ control, the plaintiffs’ legal team
charged the BSC with violating the Fourteenth Amendment by deliberately
maintaining a segregated school system that denied Black children an equal
education.
38
Federal Tyranny, or Opportunity?
Judge Garrity’s ruling in the case, filed on June 21, 1974, brought the
weight of the federal government down on the side of racial justice. The 152-
page decision rejected the BSC’s professions of innocence and carefully docu-
mented how school officials discriminated against African Americans.
Responding to claims that BSC policies aimed to preserve neighborhood schools
in accordance with parents’ preferences, Garrity observed that exceptions were
commonly granted to enable white students to avoid attending mostly Black
schools that were closer to their homes. Even if parents’ concerns were genuine,
he noted, they did not relieve the committee of its legal responsibility to deseg-
regate the schools. As a temporary measure, Garrity ordered the BSC to imple-
ment the state desegregation plan for the 1974–75 school year (Phase I). He
then gave the defendants until December to develop a long-term plan for inte-
grating the school system, effective in fall 1975 (Phase II).
39
Garrity’s decision came at the high point of federal efforts to end racism in
public education. For more than a decade after the Supreme Court declared the
South’s segregated schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education
(1954), most school districts refused to comply with the ruling, necessitating fur-
ther action by Congress and the courts. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 empow-
ered federal agencies to withhold funds from school systems that failed to
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eliminate racial discrimination, and Supreme Court rulings in several cases be-
tween 1968 and 1971 clarified that ineffective desegregation plans must be
replaced with measures (including busing, if necessary) that actually worked.
Meanwhile, the federal district courts issued divided opinions on whether the
law required school systems outside the South to take similar action. The
Supreme Court settled that question in Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1
(1973), upholding a finding that school officials had deliberately segregated
some schools and ordering the entire district to desegregate.
40
The BSC’s actions
were similar to those used by the school board in Denver, and Garrity cited sev-
eral aspects of the Keyes case in his own ruling.
41
The trajectory of federal court
decisions alarmed opponents of school desegregation in Boston and elsewhere.
Expressing her determination to continue the fight against “forced busing of our
school children,” Louise Day Hicks told a supporter in Florida: “As Boston goes,
so will the entire nation and we just cannot allow that to happen.”
42
Among segregationists in Boston, the decision sparked outrage. An
unsigned letter to Garrity asked, “Who elected you to play God with my chil-
dren? . . . Law by decree smack’s of Big Brother Hitler style.”
43
State senator
William M. Bulger of South Boston reinforced such sentiments in a response to
a WCVB-TV editorial that condemned the violent responses of some citizens in
his district and encouraged peaceful acceptance of the judge’s ruling. “South
Boston parents are fighting for their most basic natural rights,” Bulger stated.
Like many of his constituents, the senator viewed the court order as “an outra-
geous interference with a parent’s natural right to be responsible for the upbring-
ing and education of children.”
44
Other critics of the court order pointed out
that Garrity lived and sent his own children to school in suburban Wellesley, so
he would not have to suffer the consequences of his decision.
45
These arguments
served to delegitimize Garrity and justify lawless responses to his desegregation
orders. Convinced that the threat of federal tyranny and the imposition of an
unjust ruling by an elitist outsider warranted forceful opposition, segregationists
urged families not to send their children to school and threatened those who
did. Throughout the late 1970s, parents and students who complied with the
law endured verbal harassment, death threats, vandalism of their property, and
physical attacks.
46
As widespread as such opposition seemed, it was by no means universal.
Henry Allen was elated by the decision and thought it was a “just and moral
thing to have happen and was long overdue.”
47
In an opinion piece written for
her local newspaper, Brighton resident Laura Ross praised the judge for uphold-
ing the law and exposing how the BSC’s racist manipulations deflected atten-
tion from “the poor quality of all public schools in the city.”
48
Similarly, a
former teacher from Dorchester interrupted the stream of hate mail that Garrity
received to congratulate him on saying publicly what everyone knew: that
Boston schools were terrible and doing little to educate children. She had
worked in the BPS for six years but quit when she could “no longer stand being
part of a system doing so much harm and so little good for pupils . . . a system
where politics, promotions, and paychecks have long since supplanted education
as the principal concern of the school committee, the administrators, and many
teachers.”
49
Supporters of the court order saw Garrity’s decision as a chance to enact a
more inclusive and democratic vision for their city rather than an oppressive
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federal diktat. Segregation undermined the learning conditions of all children,
not just African American children, and racially integrated schools were essen-
tial for preparing the next generation for success. A flyer highlighting the poten-
tial benefits of the desegregation plan noted, “With integration, our children
can learn to live together in our multi-racial, multi-national society. With inte-
gration, it will be possible for black and white parents, facing basically the same
problems, to work together to insure that EVERY Boston school provides a qual-
ity education for ALL our children.” For too long, politicians had played on ra-
cial fears to deflect attention from problems that existed in the schools instead
of coming up with solutions. The court ruling provided an opportunity for citi-
zens to press school officials to do better and prioritize the education of children
over their own political ambitions.
50
Reformers believed that empowering parents and other stakeholders to take
a more active role in the BPS was essential to improving the quality of educa-
tion. Shortly after Garrity announced his decision, supporters urged him to cre-
ate a mechanism for citizen participation to assist with integration efforts and
encourage broader changes within the school system. Some activists highlighted
the positive role played by the Community Education Council (CEC) in
Denver as that city moved to implement its own desegregation plan. The coun-
cil’s forty-one members included representatives from area churches, businesses,
labor unions, educational institutions, and community organizations who were
appointed by District Court Judge William Doyle to help monitor progress to-
ward integration and ensure peaceful execution of the plan.
51
After traveling to
Denver to meet with council members in November 1974, Boston community
organizers Patrick Jones and Percy Wilson reported favorably on what they had
seen and learned. In a letter to Garrity, Jones stated that the citywide council
“made the critical difference in Denver and we feel strongly that the absence of
such a responsible group of leaders in Boston has impeded the smooth imple-
mentation of desegregation here.”
52
Garrity was receptive to the idea of increasing citizen participation in the
BPS. After the Boston Teachers Union requested court action on measures to
alleviate racial tensions in September 1974, the judge ordered the BSC and su-
perintendent of schools to establish Racial-Ethnic Parent Councils (REPCs)
and Racial-Ethnic Student Councils (RESCs) in schools with ten or more white
and Black students enrolled. The REPCs were elected by parents of children at-
tending each school and included an equal number of white and Black represen-
tatives (three each for elementary schools, four each for middle schools, and five
each for high schools). Representation was also provided for Asian American
and Latinx parents at schools where sixty or more pupils from those groups were
enrolled. Parent council duties included working to resolve racial conflicts; fos-
tering communication among parents, students, teachers, and administrators;
and promoting a sense of “understanding and common purpose” in the commu-
nity. The same order created CPAC, a fourteen-member body made up of an
equal number of white and Black parent representatives drawn from the REPCs
in each of the city’s six school districts, plus one Asian American and one
Latinx representative who were elected at large.
53
When the BSC failed to develop an acceptable desegregation plan of its
own to replace the state plan that was in effect during Phase I, Garrity appointed
a panel of masters and experts to assist the court in crafting a new Phase II plan.
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The panel reviewed and incorporated elements from various proposals put for-
ward by the plaintiffs and defendants to the case as well as other interested par-
ties, including community groups.
54
Supporters of citizen involvement in the
schools continued to lobby for the inclusion of councils for this purpose, arguing
that they could help generate broad support for the plan and ensure its success.
55
The report of the masters submitted to the judge and parties for review in
March 1975 included recommendations for ensuring citizen participation in
Phase II through parent and community councils formed to assist with
implementation.
56
Garrity incorporated these suggestions into the final version of the plan. Far
from being a meaningless numbers game based on racial quotas imposed by clue-
less suburban elites, as opponents claimed, Phase II laid out a design for the pub-
lic schools in line with the ideals of the city’s grassroots education reform
movement. In an introduction outlining the rationale for federal intervention to
end racial discrimination, Garrity explained that the plan also aimed to improve
the overall quality of education in the BPS. White as well as Black students suf-
fered from outdated curricula, deteriorating buildings, and poor academic perfor-
mance, he noted, and attempts to improve the system had been thwarted by
school officials’ commitment to segregation. Phase II provided an opportunity to
restore “a vision for an equitable and effective public school system ... that will
be free, universal, inclusive, and sound in ways that meet the educational needs
and aspirations of all of Boston’s citizens,” he asserted.
57
The plan created eight community school districts where school assign-
ments were based on parents’ preferences within parameters needed to ensure
desegregation. It also included a citywide school district (District IX) made up of
magnet schools that were open to everyone. These schools used the lure of spe-
cial programs and curricular themes to attract students and achieve integration.
Schools in both the community and magnet districts benefited from pairings
with area colleges, universities, businesses, and cultural institutions that pro-
vided access to resources beyond those typically provided by the BSD. The range
of options that were available meant parents’ decisions could now be based on
whether their children’s educational needs were met rather than the racial com-
position of particular schools. As the judge emphasized, Phase II aimed not just
to ensure that students from diverse backgrounds attended school together but
to improve “the quality of education available in Boston’s public schools for all
students whatever their race or ethnic origin.”
58
Court experts Robert Dentler
and Marvin Scott observed that the plan showed “a deeper, more positive con-
cern with educational reform than any previous federal court case.”
59
Citizen Participation
Though the order placed responsibility for eliminating segregation with
school officials, Garrity aimed to deploy the talents and expertise of other resi-
dents as well in achieving this goal. To supplement the school-level and city-
wide parent councils established earlier, Phase II enabled broader community
participation through the Citywide Coordinating Council (CCC) and
Community District Advisory Councils (CDACs) established in each of the
nine school districts created by the plan.
60
By enlisting citizens representing the
various stakeholders in public education beyond the families directly served by
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the schools, Garrity hoped to ensure a strong base of support that could mobilize
the political and financial resources needed to transform the BPS.
61
The scope
of parent and community participation built into the plan at every level set
Boston apart from earlier desegregation cases. Although the CCC was intended
to be a temporary monitoring body similar to the CEC in Denver, Garrity and
his supporters envisioned the REPCs, CDACs, and CPAC as permanent fixtures
that could carry on the work of ensuring equal opportunities for all children af-
ter the court’s supervision ended.
62
The court chose forty-two civic leaders reflecting the economic, social, and
political diversity of the city to serve on the CCC. Among the appointees were
many people who were active in earlier education reform activities, including
Ruth Batson, Julius Bernstein, Louise Bonar, and Mary Ellen Smith. Other
members had backgrounds in areas such as business, higher education, religious
organizations, and social service agencies.
63
The CCC informed the public
about the purpose and benefits of school desegregation, monitored compliance
with the court order, mediated problems, and made regular reports to the judge
on progress the city was making toward educational equity.
64
In January and
February 1976, the council held public hearings to give residents in each district
an opportunity to provide feedback regarding their experiences with Phase II
and make suggestions for improving its implementation. Although ROAR acti-
vists disrupted some of the meetings, other citizens appreciated the chance to
make their views known and offered recommendations for solving problems
with transportation, student-teacher ratios, and the poor condition of some facil-
ities. In a letter thanking the CCC for holding the hearings, teacher Phyllis
Conlon praised the group for helping to address long-standing problems in the
school system. “In my particular school, issues that were brought up at that
meeting were investigated the very next day,” she reported. “Lights that had
been broken were fixed and an aide was assigned to my overcrowded classroom.
Believe me, with this extra help, the quality of education in my class has cer-
tainly improved.”
65
The CDACs provided another mechanism for citizens to enact reforms.
Each district-level council had twenty members and contained a mix of parents
and non-parents with an interest or expertise in education. The REPCs and
RESCs in each district elected ten parents and two students to serve on their lo-
cal CDAC. The remaining eight members might be teachers, school officials,
university professors or administrators, police, clergy, business owners, labor
leaders, or community activists who were nominated by the CCC and appointed
by the court. These councils acted as advisory groups to district superintendents.
Garrity intended CDACs to serve as places where “parents, students, school staff
and others involved in education . . can meet to discuss the educational needs
of the district and to monitor the peaceful desegregation of the district’s
schools.”
66
Contradicting critics’ complaints regarding Garrity’s dictatorial tendencies,
the court’s efforts to ensure broad participation in decision-making democratized
the school system and provided ways for citizens’ voices to be heard. During
Phase I, CWEC staff members who helped to set up REPCs observed that the
parents who attended meetings typically identified an array of issues apart from
desegregation that merited attention, such as the need for new textbooks, equip-
ment, and educational programs.
67
In March 1976 Mary Ellen Smith informed
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Judge Garrity that the councils “allowed parents to get involved in the Boston
public schools in a way that was never before possible. Parents are increasingly
demanding answers from the School Department as to why their schools lack
books, teachers, etc.—sometimes they even get responses.”
68
One year later, a
CCC report noted how new forms of citizen involvement challenged the domi-
nance of the BSC and HSA over the school system, forcing administrators to
take more diverse interests into account. “A previously closed, hierarchical
structure is being shaken by the prospect of a more open, democratic model that
demands effective participation by all those who have a stake in public schools,”
the report stated.
69
Another description of the councils observed that their
membership and activities encompassed “nearly the entire economic, geo-
graphic, and racial, ethnic, linguistic range of this city. Poor single parents serve
alongside university professors; non-english speaking immigrants sit with savvy
black and white community activists; representatives of the business and univer-
sity communities, too, share in the lives of these councils.”
70
Some parents who participated in the council network had initially opposed
the court order but changed their views after working with other families in
their children’s new schools. Jane Margulis of Savin Hill was nervous about
sending her daughter to school in Columbia Point, a predominantly African
American and Latinx community. She decided to overcome her fears by organiz-
ing a coffee meeting and inviting other parents so they could get to know each
other. “I wasn’t going to feel safe unless I knew people there,” she told a re-
porter. “I figured we could make a deal—you take care of my kids and I’ll take
care of yours.” Her efforts succeeded in building trust and facilitated the success
of the school’s REPC. Over the next several years, Margulis served on the
REPC, the CCC, and CPAC in addition to working as a neighborhood coordi-
nator for CWEC. Similarly, Moss Hill parent Frank McDonough was not
pleased when he learned that his children were assigned to a school in Jamaica
Plain. Working with the REPC helped the family adjust to the situation,
though, and McDonough was also heartened by his son’s reaction to the news
that they were going to attend a new school in a community where many stu-
dents spoke Spanish: “Gee, Dad, maybe I can learn Spanish.”
71
Not least among the benefits of the court order was that it gave the BSD ac-
cess to state and federal funds that were available to assist school systems with
desegregation. Throughout the city, parent councils developed proposals and se-
cured money for various projects to improve the quality of their schools, includ-
ing library enhancements, tutoring programs, and other initiatives.
72
Schools
where councils were able to forge cooperative relationships among parents, prin-
cipals, and teachers demonstrated that desegregation could occur peacefully and
with significant benefits for everyone. At public hearings held by the CCC in
April 1977, REPC members from several schools explained how parents, school
staff, and community members worked together to create high-quality educa-
tional programs and a welcoming, safe atmosphere for all children whether they
lived locally or were bused in from other neighborhoods. Iris Stroud stated that
at the Maurice J. Tobin Elementary School in Roxbury, children were comfort-
able, happy, learning, and in no hurry to go home at the end of the day. When
her own daughter left for kindergarten each morning, Stroud knew she was go-
ing to a place where she would receive “the same love for those couple of hours
at school that she will get at home.”
73
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Bureaucratic Resistance
Not everyone welcomed the infusion of new people, ideas, and pressures for
reform. During the first year of Phase II, observers reported seeing “severe prob-
lems of delay, secretive rather than helpful practices, and instances of conde-
scending attitudes by school department personnel towards parents and outside
agencies which wanted to help.”
74
Education reformer John D. O’Bryant, who
became the first African American to serve on the BSC in 1977, noted the aver-
sion some committee members displayed toward citizen participation. “Even
with the court order, in the beginning it was still difficult for parents to have ac-
cess because the School Committee was in non-compliance and they avoided
parents whenever they had the opportunity,” he stated.
75
In a report to Garrity
in November, the CCC confirmed that the BSC continued to obstruct imple-
mentation of his orders and listed several areas where the committee had yet to
meet its obligations, including improvements to educational programs and com-
munity participation.
76
The same report expressed little confidence in the abilities of system admin-
istrators to competently carry out the desegregation plan “or indeed to imple-
ment any policy which requires comprehensive management.”
77
To be fair to
the BSD, the task of overhauling the school system would have been challeng-
ing under any circumstances, and it was further hamstrung by the BSC’s hostility
toward the project. The committee was slow to approve funds and staffing
needed to adequately prepare parents, teachers, and administrators. Some
employees who were hired because of their political connections rather than
their qualifications were terrible at their jobs. Reliable information regarding ba-
sic factors such as enrollments, demographic data, and classroom capacities was
hard to find, which played havoc with the student assignment process. The BSC
also fired several administrators who tried in good faith to carry out the court’s
orders, discouraging others from being too cooperative.
78
Within the BSD fear of repercussions, bureaucratic lethargy, lax oversight,
and lack of interest in ensuring the success of Phase II were powerful obstacles
to change.
79
Administrator John Coakley acknowledged in March 1976 that
many staff members were apprehensive about the effects of the plan and reluc-
tant to modify the way the system had operated for decades. “Practices, habits of
years standing are being altered,” he observed. “Change is no simple matter.”
80
More concretely, closer scrutiny by parents, community members, and the court
threatened opportunities for patronage and graft that some employees used to
enrich themselves.
81
The machinations of BSD personnel who were determined
to maintain control over the system was a source of endless frustration among
parents and community members seeking to improve education. Citizen volun-
teers often found that council participation became a form of arduous labor, re-
quiring huge expenditures of time and energy by those attempting to realize the
full potential of the court order.
Administrative resistance was most evident at the local school level, mani-
festing in bitter struggles between principals and parents over the activities of
REPCs. A report from CDAC VII on developments during the first year of
Phase II stated that many of the district’s REPCs were not performing very well
because of “the general failure of school officials to place much importance in
the work of these councils.”
82
Parents were willing and eager to be involved, but
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they received no encouragement or support from school authorities who pre-
ferred not to include them in decision making. At the Blackstone Square
School, it proved difficult for the REPC to function at all.
83
Blackstone REPC
co-chair Patricia Young and secretary Katherine Knight reported that school
staff obstructed their work by failing to inform parents of meetings, taking no ac-
tion on their concerns, and preventing them from forming a committee of
parents and teachers to address racial conflicts among the students. Young and
Knight believed these tactics were designed to demoralize council members, in
hopes they would abandon efforts to improve conditions at the school.
84
Staff of the CCC observed that similar problems existed at other schools
throughout the city. The BSC and district superintendents neglected the court-
ordered councils and did not encourage people to participate in them. This lack
of support from upper administration meant principals “felt free to ignore or ac-
tively thwart the work of the REPC’s.” Some principals refused to meet with the
parent councils and denied them access to mailing lists and other information
they needed to function effectively. “REPC members, in some schools, have
been made to feel as if they are trespassers and interlopers,” the CCC report
stated. “Their right to enter the school has been challenged, their interest in
their children’s educations have not been welcomed, but resisted by the building
administrators.” The interracial parent councils were supposed to help foster mu-
tual understanding and a sense of common purpose, the CCC pointed out, but
this was hard to do at schools where principals accorded them no respect, used
racial slurs to refer to some members, and showed little regard for the safety or
education of the children placed in their care.
85
The district-level councils also encountered hostility to their activities.
Members of CDAC VII reported in March 1976 that the district superintendent
had moved from overt antagonism toward the council to treating them with in-
difference, rarely seeking or taking any advice they offered. Under the heading
“Entrenched Opposition to the Plan,” they wrote: “Although it is hard to draw
a line between incompetence and non-compliance with the Court order in most
single instances, the overall picture of non-supportive actions in so many areas
can only lead to the conclusion of a pervasive, institutionalized resistance to the
desegregation plan and the persistence of the feeling that this resistance will
lead to its ultimate defeat.”
86
School officials subtly undermined citizen partici-
pation by failing to provide needed information, setting impossibly short dead-
lines for councils to provide input into decisions, and then disregarding that
input once it was received.
87
In March 1977, CCC staff observed that although
BPS superintendent Marion Fahey had issued several circulars advocating parent
involvement and BSD cooperation with the councils, most administrators
remained unsupportive and seemed to be “awaiting the day that parents ‘go
away’ with the expectation that the citizen input structures will disappear when
the U.S. District Court relinquishes its role.”
88
Some administrative resistance stemmed from genuine disagreements over
the proper place of parents and community members in the schools. Even as ed-
ucation reformers were urging Garrity to include mechanisms for citizen partici-
pation in crafting the Phase II desegregation plan, school officials pushed back
against the idea. A statement adopted by the Boston Elementary Principals
Association in April 1975 warned that its members were “unalterably opposed
to any suggestion which places community councils or similar groups in a
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decision-making or administrative role.” Though they welcomed advice and in-
terest from others, they asserted, legal responsibility and therefore ultimate au-
thority over the schools lay with them.
89
As frequently as council members
complained about administrators’ efforts to keep them out of the schools, princi-
pals and teachers complained about intrusions into their workspace by lay peo-
ple who were not qualified to interpret what they saw. Boston Teachers Union
president Henry Robinson opposed giving parents a role in hiring and evaluat-
ing teachers because they lacked the appropriate expertise. “If someone is going
to evaluate me then that person should be really an expert, or should be better
than I am,” he explained. “Because . . . how can they tell what I’m doing is right
or wrong. We want the parents to get involved. But there’s a difference between
getting involved and taking over.”
90
In conflicts between school officials and citizen stakeholders over their ap-
propriate spheres of influence, Garrity favored an expansive interpretation of
council responsibilities. A memorandum and orders issued in September 1977
made clear that the councils’ efforts to improve conditions in the schools were
appropriate and reflected the court’s intent. Noting that previous orders relating
to the citizen participation network all assumed a broad mandate for the court-
ordered councils, Garrity asserted: “All matters which are apt to facilitate or hin-
der the desegregation process in particular schools or districts or citywide are ap-
propriate subject matters for citizen concern and action.”
91
With
encouragement from the court, the list of activities that school-level councils
were involved in grew to include the creation of transportation and safety teams,
crafting policies regarding student discipline, reviewing curricular programs and
materials, helping to develop proposals for new programs, screening applicants
for administrative positions, and fighting for needed repairs at their schools. As
one observer noted, REPCs were “involved with almost every aspect of the edu-
cational life of their schools.... The parent councils are developing their own
definitions of what is their business and what is not.”
92
Disillusionment and Decline of the Councils
Despite the court’s support for citizen participation in the school system,
council members continued to face obstacles to their efforts. Citizen volunteers
often donated hundreds of hours of labor to projects that were later nixed by
administrators. In 1976, for example, parents who served on screening commit-
tees to evaluate applicants and recommend finalists for principal positions in
their districts diligently read through copious amounts of material, sat through
long meetings, and endured patronizing treatment from BSD personnel, only to
have their recommendations ignored by the board of superintendents and the
BSC. A report prepared by CWEC noted that the selection procedures discour-
aged meaningful participation by parents and favored incumbents who were
known by the superintendents.
93
Several parents expressed their frustration with
the process at a BSC meeting in August. One woman wondered why she and
others on her committee had put so much effort into choosing a principal if the
person they recommended—unanimously—was not going to be hired. “I spent a
lot of time at these screening committee meetings, and I went early and picked
up my reports so I could read about everything... . Then I find out I might as
well not have been there at all,” she stated.
94
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Experiences like these caused many people to drop out of the councils and
discouraged others from becoming involved. Peter Driscoll, a CDAC coordina-
tor who had been in the fight for education reform for eleven years, resigned in
May 1979 after finally exhausting his ability to shoulder “the incredible amount
of work which is required to make even small progress.”
95
The same month, the
REPC at the Henry Grew School disbanded and parents began withdrawing
their children from the school after months of complaining about the conduct
of its principal yielded no action from the BSD.
96
Observers who noted that par-
ent participation in the BPS was waning attributed the decline to continued op-
position from system administrators and the difficulty of securing meaningful
changes. An editorial that appeared in the Boston Globe in February 1981
explained, “The general weakness of the current parent structure is attributable
to its lack of real power. Might as well stay home as venture out to a night meet-
ing to advise someone who doesn’t have to listen.”
97
Other constraints added to council members’ growing reluctance to expend
precious time and energy on activities that held such little reward. Many partici-
pants found it hard to fit council membership into other commitments such as
work, childcare, and family time. Those who did not own cars incurred signifi-
cant unreimbursed expenses to attend meetings outside their immediate neigh-
borhoods, and some people were afraid to venture into parts of the city where
they felt unwelcome.
98
School officials’ preference for holding meetings during
their regular working hours conflicted with the needs of parents who had day
jobs of their own and could not afford to take time off work to attend.
99
The
CCC noted the obstacles to participation faced by working-class families, report-
ing to the court that the financial burdens of council membership discouraged
many people from becoming involved.
100
In the late 1970s and early 1980s economic recession, stagnant incomes, ris-
ing inflation, and committee fatigue further eroded citizen participation.
Council members who once had the luxury of being full-time volunteers, spend-
ing their days harassing recalcitrant school administrators and their evenings at-
tending committee meetings, now had to find paid jobs to help support their
families.
101
At the same time, the school system was hurt by budget cuts, falling
enrollments, school closings, and teacher layoffs that undermined the achieve-
ments of earlier years. In November 1980, Massachusetts voters approved
Proposition 2 1/2, a ballot measure that capped property taxes and reduced local
governments’ ability to fund public services. The Boston city council cut its bud-
get by 25 percent and laid off thousands of workers, with devastating consequen-
ces for the BPS.
102
Superintendent Paul Kennedy’s assessment of the budget
constraints the system faced for the 1982 financial year indicated how far out of
reach the goals of earlier educational reformers now seemed. In contrast to the
vision of educational excellence for every child laid out in the Phase II desegre-
gation plan, Kennedy framed the central challenge merely as providing
“essential service within the limits of the will and the ability of the public to
pay.”
103
Explaining Failure
As hopes for transforming the BPS into an integrated, broadly supported,
and universally excellent school system faded, political leaders found a
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convenient scapegoat in Judge Garrity. As Robert Dentler observed, the BSC
and city council generally refused to act on anything related to desegregation
unless directly ordered to by the judge, then accused Garrity of overreaching his
authority when he tried to ensure compliance. This in turn allowed administra-
tors to evade responsibility by contending that the system was being run by the
court rather than themselves.
104
Some parents interviewed by CWEC in the
1980s were convinced that Garrity had single-handedly destroyed the city’s pub-
lic schools. “None of my kids had any problems in public school until busing,”
one parent stated.
105
Others believed the court order had only exacerbated ra-
cial tensions and worsened the quality of education in the BPS. Several parents
thought it was good that Garrity was preparing to end the court’s involvement
because “he was the one that screwed it up” and “made a mess of things.”
106
In contrast, Bostonians who were more closely involved with implementing
the desegregation plan placed blame for the problems afflicting the schools
squarely on administrators. “Forced busing is not ruining our schools, it’s liars,
cheaters & deceitful people in high office who refuse to accept parents into their
kingdom for fear of being caught in there malicious schemes,” wrote one dish-
eartened REPC member.
107
Tired of the constant excuses and buck-passing they
heard from BSD staff, CDAC IX co-chairs Henry Allen and Isaac Adar asserted
that the real problem was school officials’ mismanagement of the BPS. “Until
such time as solid educational concerns become the first item of business on the
school department’s agenda, the system will continue to follow the downward
spiral which it has been pursuing over the many years prior to and following the
Court Order,” they stated.
108
Surveys of parents who pulled their children out of the BPS showed that
many complaints other than “busing” factored into their decisions. Chronic
underfunding of programs and uncertainty created by budget cuts and school
closings were hard for many people to take. Some parents felt worn down by
constantly having to fight for resources in a system in which no one seemed to
care whether their children learned or not. “Bad education, instability and
teacher lay-offs have made me leave, and it will take too long for it to improve
for my children to come back,” one parent explained. “Boston is not interested
in education, they only care for cutting taxes,” concluded another.
109
For families whose limited finances did not allow them any alternatives, the
BPS continued to underdeliver. In 1985, the same year that Garrity issued final
orders extricating the court from the case and allowing the parties to negotiate
further modifications without his involvement, CWEC conducted a series of
interviews with parents that revealed persistent deficiencies in the school sys-
tem. Participants noted the poor physical condition of the schools their children
attended and the challenges to teaching and learning posed by buildings with
peeling paint, leaks, and broken equipment.
110
A Latinx parent who thought
the court had played a positive role in pushing the BPS to address such problems
expressed concern that the judge was leaving the case, fearing that “there won’t
be anybody responsible enough” to maintain the improvements made in educa-
tional quality, parent access, and desegregation.
111
At the national level, support for federal intervention on behalf of racial
justice waned as narratives framing such efforts as misguided disasters prevailed.
Funding for programs to assist with school integration dried up during the presi-
dency of Ronald Reagan, who favored limiting the government’s role.
112
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Responding to criticisms of the administration’s backtracking on civil rights,
Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds echoed the views of seg-
regationists who argued that federal initiatives had failed. “In city after city, we
have seen the courts’ preoccupation with busing drive large numbers of students
from the public schools, in many instances increasing, rather than decreasing,
racial isolation,” he claimed. Along with many other Americans, Reagan and
his advisors saw no reason to continue with “a remedy whose ineffectiveness is
so manifest.”
113
In subsequent decades, the Supreme Court reversed course as
well, handing down decisions that allowed school systems to resegregate.
114
In Boston and other cities, low-income African American and Latinx stu-
dents made up the majority of children in public schools while middle-class fam-
ilies left or sent their children to private schools instead. A study undertaken in
1995 found BPS families facing many of the same challenges that existed in the
1960s: poor-quality education, racial discrimination, confusing policies and pro-
cedures, and school officials who were unresponsive to parents’ concerns. Some
remnants of the court-ordered councils still existed, but they were not very effec-
tive. Even if they wanted to, many parents found it hard to get involved in
council activities because of low incomes, lack of transportation, work and fam-
ily commitments, language difficulties, and other obstacles.
115
Under these cir-
cumstances, few people could muster the time, energy, and financial resources to
fill the gaps left by persistent underfunding and political indifference toward
public education.
Conclusion
These outcomes were not the inevitable result of liberal social engineering
by an arrogant federal judge, as segregationists claimed. Between 1974 and 1985,
court-ordered desegregation in the BPS strengthened a grassroots education re-
form movement dedicated to increasing parent and community participation in
the public schools. The school, district, and citywide councils created by the de-
segregation plan empowered a cadre of citizen volunteers to secure improve-
ments in the quality of instruction and pressure administrators to include a
broader spectrum of constituents in decision making. The interracial and cross-
class coalitions built during this decade demonstrate the range of reactions to de-
segregation that existed beyond violent opposition or abandonment of the pub-
lic schools. Strong federal enforcement of civil rights laws, an inclusive
approach that recognized the whole community’s stake in public education, op-
portunities for people from diverse backgrounds to interact and cooperate with
each other, and citizens who were willing and able to get involved were among
the factors that encouraged progress toward educational equity in this decade.
Achievements at schools where principals and teachers worked with instead of
against council members showed that peaceful integration and educational
enhancements occurred under the court order.
At the same time, possibilities for remaking the BPS were constrained by
the large number of school officials who were reluctant to relinquish control
over educational resources. Obstruction by BSC members and BSD administra-
tors posed significant challenges to council members’ efforts and ultimately
blocked meaningful reforms. Opponents of the court order played on class
resentments to deflect the ire of BPS parents away from themselves and onto a
Making Desegregation Work 19
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suburban judge from Wellesley, eliding their own responsibility for the school
system’s failures. Framing this era as one of chaos and trauma caused by a heavy-
handed federal mandate that ignored local concerns does a disservice to Judge
Garrity and to those Bostonians who sincerely tried to make desegregation
work. Assessments of court-ordered desegregation in Boston must acknowledge
the possibilities for citizen participation fostered by the Phase II plan and the
wall of bureaucratic resistance that shattered every proposal for reimagining the
city’s public education system thrown its way.
Endnotes
Many thanks to colleagues who suggested improvements on earlier versions of this article
presented in the form of conference papers and drafts: Tatiana M. F. Cruz, Dennis
Dworkin, Jeffrey Helgeson, Nick Juravich, Zebulon Miletsky, and the Journal of Social
History’s anonymous peer reviewers. Thanks also to the John and Marie Noble
Endowment for Historical Research, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Office of the
Vice Provost for Research and Innovation at the University of Nevada, Reno, for funding
that facilitated research for this article. Address correspondence to Greta de Jong,
Department of History, Mail Stop 308, Reno, NV, 89557-0308. Email: gdejong@unr.edu.
1. Citywide Parents Advisory Council (CPAC), Parents Make a Difference!, [late 1970s],
file 87, box 4, Patricia Corcoran Papers (PCP), City of Boston Archives and Records
Management Division.
2. School committee members Louise Day Hicks and John Kerrigan frequently engaged in
this tactic, as did lawmakers who represented Boston in the state legislature. Although a
metropolitan plan that integrated city and suburban schools might have made desegrega-
tion more effective, the Supreme Court’s decision in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) meant it
was not possible to order such a plan for Boston. See Emmett H. Buell Jr., School
Desegregation and Defended Neighborhoods: The Boston Controversy (Lexington, 1982), 80,
102; Robert A. Dentler and Marvin B. Scott, Schools on Trial: An Inside Account of the
Boston Desegregation Case (Cambridge, 1981), 122; and J. Anthony Lukas, Common
Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (New York, 1985), 242.
3. For some analyses of the ways that colorblind rhetoric defending local control, family
values, and small government enabled white parents to deny any racist intent even as
they acted to maintain segregated schools, see Matthew D. Lassiter, The Silent Majority:
Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, 2006); Matthew Delmont, Why Busing
Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Oakland, 2016);
Ansley T. Erickson, Making the Unequal Metropolis: School Desegregation and Its Limits
(Chicago, 2016); and Elizabeth Gillespie McRae, Mothers of Massive Resistance: White
Women and the Politics of White Supremacy (New York, 2018).
4. Alan Lupo, Liberty’s Chosen Home: The Politics of Violence in Boston (Boston, 1977), 151;
Buell, School Desegregation and Defended Neighborhoods;Lukas,Common Ground;RonaldP.
Formisano, Boston against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel
Hill, 1991). Adam R. Nelson’s more recent book, The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational
Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools, 1950–1985 (Chicago, 2005)
examines school desegregation in the broader context of federal education policy and its
intersections with action at the state and local level. His conclusions regarding the imple-
mentation and impact of the court order largely reiterate those of earlier studies.
5. Jeanne F. Theoharis, “‘We Saved the City’: Black Struggles for Educational Equality in
Boston, 1960–1976,” Radical History Review 81 (2001): 61–93; Zebulon Vance Miletsky,
“Before Busing: Boston’s Long Movement for Civil Rights and the Legacy of Jim Crow in
20 Spring 2023Journal of Social History
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the ‘Cradle of Liberty,’” Journal of Urban History 43 (2017): 204–17; Tatiana M. F. Cruz,
“‘We Took ’Em On’: The Latino Movement for Educational Justice in Boston, 1965–
1980,” Journal of Urban History 43 (2017): 235–55.
6. Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 3. Formisano uses this term to refer to the combina-
tion of race and class resentments that motivated many opponents of the court order.
7. “Statement of ‘Assembly for Justice,’” September 30, 1974, 1, file 1300, box 38,
Freedom House, Inc. Records (FHR), Snell Library, Northeastern University; Richard S.
Burdick, “Boston’s Ordeal Over Integration, Pt. 16,” WCVB-TV 5 Editorial, October 29,
[1974], 1, file 8, ser. LIc, box 37, Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. Chambers Papers on the
Boston Schools Desegregation Case (WAGP), University Archives and Special
Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston.
8. Joel Spring, The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind (New York,
2008), 15, 30–37, 78–88.
9. Horace Mann, “Tenth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education”
(1846), in The School in the United States: A Documentary History, ed. James W. Fraser
(New York, 2001), 52–54; American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations, Labor: Champion of Public Education (Washington, 1970), 3–4, 7.
10. Lukas, Common Ground, 122; Dentler and Scott, Schools on Trial, 14–17; Finance
Commission of the City of Boston, A Digest of the Report of the Boston School Survey
(Boston, 1944), 1–5, 20–23, 27–28, 34–35, 39, 48–49, 53, esp. 4.
11. Louise Bonar, interview by author, April 28, 2018, MP3 audio recording, in author’s
possession.
12. Laurence C. Bonar to William Ohrenberger, [ca. May/June 1968], 1–2, file 33, box 8,
Louise Bonar and Carol Wolfe Collection of Boston Education Materials (LBCWC),
John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
13. Peter Schrag, Village School Downtown: Politics and Education—A Boston Report
(Boston, 1967), 139–41; Bonar interview.
14. Boston League of Women Voters, “Study of the Boston Home and School
Association,” [1967], 5, 9–10, esp. 5, file 7, ser. III, box 1, Edward Blackman Papers,
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of
Massachusetts Boston.
15. Hattie Dudley, “Home and School Explained,” CDAC Speak Out [Community
District Advisory Council (CDAC)] I newsletter, [late 1970s?], [2], file 87, box 4, PCP.
16. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, vol.
II: Characteristics of the Population, pt. 3: Kansas–Michigan (Washington, 1943), 670
(Table 35); U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of Population, vol II: Characteristics of
the Population, pt. 23: Massachusetts (Washington, 1973), 62 (Table 23).
17. “Comparative Census Figures 1964–1971,” encl. in Victor A. McInnis to Chairman
and Members of the School Committee, Superintendent of Schools, and Board of
Superintendents, memorandum, November 2, 1971, 1, and Joseph Lee, “Racial Ratios,”
Speech to School Committee, March 3, 1965, [draft?], 3, 6–7, both in file 55, box 7,
Joseph Lee Papers (JLP), Boston Athenaeum.
18. Theoharis, “‘We Saved the City,’” 65–66; Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410,
415, 424–25, 469–74 (1974). For a discussion of the ways urban policy makers in other
cities reinforced racial inequality through decisions that generated segregated neighbor-
hoods and schools, see Erickson, Making the Unequal Metropolis, chap. 4.
Making Desegregation Work 21
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19. Paul Parks, “A Statement on the Education of Negro Children in the Boston Public
Schools,” May 22, 1963, 1–2, file 1309, box 38, FHR.
20. Ruth Batson, “Statement to the Boston School Committee,” June 11, 1963, 1, file
1309, box 38, FHR.
21. Henry L. Allen, interview by Rhea Ramjohn, Feb. 28, 2005, transcript, 3–6, 8, 24,
esp. 24, OH-42, John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project (JJMOHP), John Joseph
Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University (accessed online at https://moa-
kleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1).
22. Bonar interview.
23. Bonar interview; Ned Schofield, “Interview with Mr. William Brennan,” March 6,
1971, 1, file 63, box 52, Center for Law and Education: Morgan v. Hennigan Case
Records (CLER), University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library,
University of Massachusetts Boston; Allen interview, 8n8.
24. Allen interview, 11.
25. For more on the climate of social activism and some examples of grassroots organizing,
see Annelise Orleck and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, eds., The War on Poverty: A New
Grassroots History, 1964–1980 (Athens, 2011); Harry C. Boyte, The Backyard Revolution:
Understanding the New Citizen Movement (Philadelphia, 1980); and Suleiman Osman,
“The Decade of the Neighborhood,” in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in
the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge, 2008), 106–127.
26. Lupo, Liberty’s Chosen Home, 85–86, 94–95; Formisano, Boston Against Busing,3,
234–35; Bonar interview.
27. Boston School Committee, “Hearing to NAACP,” June 11, 1963, transcript, 8–17
(Batson), 71–74 (Rosen), 75–78, esp. 76 (Bernstein), file [8] “School Committee Hearing
to NAACP June 11, 1963,” box 1, School Committee Secretary Desegregation Files, City
of Boston Archives and Records Management Division. For some accounts of Black acti-
vists’ efforts to secure equal access to education before the 1970s, see Theoharis, “‘We
Saved the City,’” 61–93; Delmont, Why Busing Failed, 81–87; and Miletsky, “Before
Busing,” 204–17. A comprehensive chronology of Black Bostonians’ struggles for educa-
tional equality from the colonial era through the late twentieth century can be found in
Ruth Batson, The Black Educational Movement in Boston: A Sequence of Historical Events;
A Chronology (Boston, 2001).
28. Lukas, Common Ground, 133–34; Joseph Lee, “The Schools’ Fatal Self-Delusion,”
January 19, 1971, in Proceedings of the School Committee of the City of Boston, 1971
(Boston, [1975]), 16, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofsch1971-
bost/page/16/mode/2up.
29. Buell, School Desegregation and Defended Neighborhoods, 61–86.
30. Joseph Lee, “Racial Ratios,” Speech to School Committee, March 3, 1965, [draft?],
1–2, 5, esp. 5, file 55, box 7, JLP.
31. Massachusetts Board of Education, Because It Is Right—Educationally: Report of the
Advisory Committee on Racial Imbalance and Education (Boston, 1965), 2.
32. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “An Act Providing for the Elimination of Racial
Imbalance in the Public Schools,” Chap. 641 (August 18, 1965), Acts of 1965 (Boston,
1965), 414–16.
33. Leon T. Nelson, “Capsule History of ‘Legal Matters’ Connected with Desegregation
in the Boston Public Schools (1961–1982),” 1–2, file 1540, box 43, FHR; Jim Vrabel, A
22 Spring 2023Journal of Social History
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People’s History of the New Boston (Amherst, 2014), 55–57; “Comparative Census Figures
1964–1971,” encl. in Victor A. McInnis to Chairman and Members of the School
Committee, Superintendent of Schools, and Board of Superintendents, memorandum,
November 2, 1971, 1, file 55, box 7, JLP.
34. Dentler and Scott, Schools on Trial, 10; “Draft,” April 5, 1974, 1, encl. in Richard
Kelliher to Distribution List, memorandum, April 9, 1974, file 31, box 47, Mayor Kevin
H. White Records (KHWR), City of Boston Archives and Records Management
Division; Joseph M. Harvey, “Bus Issue Aired in High Court,” Boston Evening Globe,
December 28, 1972, 1, 6.
35. League of Women Voters of Boston, Together We Can Do It! A Directory of Groups
Concerned About Education in Boston’s Public Schools, January 1970, file 21, box 24, Julius
Bernstein Papers (JBP), Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer
Holmes Bobst Library, New York University; City-Wide Educational Coalition (CWEC),
“Citizen Participation in Urban Education: The City-Wide Educational Coalition of
Boston,” April 1, 1974, 4–14, 24–25, file 24, box 1, LBCWC; “The Gibson Affair: An
Analysis,” Citizens for the Boston Schools Bulletin, October 1968, 1, 4, file 24, box 24, JBP;
Mary Ellen Smith, interview by Anna Maria Hidalgo, March 3, 2005, 5–13, transcript,
OH-044, JJMOHP (accessed online at https://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/
3747); Louise Bonar to Mary Ellen [Smith], [ca. April 16, 1973], file 13, box 7, LBCWC.
36. CWEC, “Community Agenda for the Boston Public Schools,” 1973, I-1, XI-1, file 13,
box 25, Citywide Educational Coalition Records (CWECR), Snell Library, Northeastern
University.
37. “Urgent Meeting,” [ca. June 1969], 1–2, file 13, box 7, LBCWC; League of Women
Voters of Boston, “Summary of Statement of the League of Women Voters of Boston,”
April 6, 1971, 1, file 13, box 7, LBCWC; CWEC, “Citizen Participation in Urban
Education,” 17.
38. Buell, School Desegregation and Defended Neighborhoods, 93–94; Lukas, Common
Ground, 218–19; Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410, 415 (1974).
39. Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410, 425–41, 456–63, 473, 482 (1974); Nelson,
“Capsule History,” 2.
40. Frank T. Read, “Judicial Evolution of the Law of School Integration since Brown v.
Board of Education,” Law and Contemporary Problems 39 (winter 1975): 7–43.
41. Frederick D. Watson, “Removing the Barricades from the Northern Schoolhouse
Door: School Desegregation in Denver” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, 1993), 40–
60, 129–34, 255.
42. Louise Day Hicks to Mrs. J. J. Suddath, May 30, 1975, 1, file 4, box 1, Louise Day
Hicks Papers, City of Boston Archives and Records Management Division.
43. Unsigned letter to W. Arthur Garrity, August 6, 1974 (postmark), 1, box 49, file 3,
WAGP.
44. William M. Bulger, “Boston’s Ordeal over Integration,” October 1, [1974], file 7, box
25, JBP.
45. Alice C. Hayes, “Denied Basic Right,” [Letter to the Editor], clipping labeled
“Herald, about 7/5/74,” box 49, file 2, WAGP.
46. “Statement of Rayleen Craig to James Gabriel, U.S. Attorney,” February 17, 1976, 1,
file 9, box 2, LBCWC; “MCHR Minutes,” June 10, 1976, 2, cons. with Massachusetts
Coalition for Human Rights, “Coalition Capsules,” June 16, 1976, file 19, box 19, JBP;
Making Desegregation Work 23
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“Are You Free to Go Anywhere You Want in Boston?,” flyer for Public Hearing on
Racial Discord, June 21, 1979, 1, file 54, box 3, PCP.
47. Allen interview, 8.
48. Laura Ross, “Garrity Decision Uncovers Long-Standing Dual System,” reprint from
Allston-Brighton Citizen Item, November 28, 1974, [3], file 8, ser. LIc, box 37, WAGP.
49. R. (Dorchester, Mass.) to W. Arthur Garrity, December 18, 1975, 1–2, file 34, ser.
LXVIII, box 50, WAGP. Restrictions imposed by Judge Garrity on the use of his papers
prevent identification of members of the public who wrote to him about his decision. I
have therefore used only people’s initials and their place of residence (when known) to
identify the letters cited from these files.
50. Committee for Unity and Equality, “We Can Make It Work!!!!,” flyer, [ca. 1974/
1975?], file 8, box 25, JBP.
51. Florence Rubin and Elaine Kistiakowsky to W. Arthur Garrity, June 27, 1974, 1–2,
file 8, ser. LIc, box 37, WAGP; National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, A
Tale of Seven Cities: Problems and Issues in School Integration/Busing and the Role of the
Churches, Report of Consultation, November 21–22, 1974, 3–4, file 2, box 1, Linda
Lawrence Papers, University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library,
University of Massachusetts Boston.
52. Patrick Jones to W. Arthur Garrity, December 12, 1974, 1–2, file 8, ser. LIc, box 37,
WAGP.
53. W. Arthur Garrity Jr., “Memorandum on Teachers Union’s Request for Discussion,”
Morgan v. Kerrigan, September 23, 1974, 1–2, file 2, ser. XLV, box 32, WAGP; [W.
Arthur] Garrity Jr., “Memorandum and Order Establishing Racial-Ethnic Councils,”
Morgan v. Kerrigan, October 4, 1974, [1]–[2], [5], esp. [2], file [13] “CPC Monitoring
Compendium on Citizen Participation Orders 1986,” ser. V, box 9, Citywide Parents
Council Records (CPCR), City of Boston Archives and Records Management Division.
54. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 225–27 (1975).
55. Florence R. Rubin and Elizabeth Hartl to W. Arthur Garrity, February 11, 1975, 1,
file 8, ser. LIc, box 37, WAGP; Ellen Jackson and Ron Edmonds to Court Appointed
Masters and Experts, [ca. February 3, 1975], 1–2, file 1532, box 43, FHR.
56. Jacob J. Spiegel et al., “Report of the Masters in Tallulah Morgan, et al., versus John
Kerrigan, et al.,” March 31, 1975, 57–62, file 12, ser. III, box 1, Robert Dentler Papers,
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of
Massachusetts Boston.
57. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 223 (1975).
58. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 235–37, 240–41, 256–60, esp. 240 (1975).
59. Dentler and Scott, Schools on Trial, ix.
60. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 248 (1975).
61. “CDAC/District Council Liaison Subcommittee Meeting with the Judge,” February
26, 1976, 3–4, file 60, box 3, PCP.
62. [CCC], “Citizen Participation,” n.d. [ca. March 1977], 1, file 2, box 27, Citywide
Coordinating Council Records (CCCR), Archives and Manuscripts Department, John J.
Burns Library, Boston College; Margaret Del Giudice, “Wood Says Council Strengthens
Role of Parents,” Boston Globe, August 27, 1976, 12.
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63. Citywide Coordinating Council (CCC), Annual Report, 1975–1976, July 1, 1976,
vii–xxviii, file 1239, box 37, FHR.
64. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 265–67 (1975).
65. CCC Newsletter, February 1976, 2–4 and CCC Newsletter, June 1976, 4, both in file
90, box 4, PCP.
66. Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F. Supp. 216, 248–49, 267, esp. 249 (1975).
67. [CWEC], “City-Wide Educational Coalition Program Proposal for 1975–76,” [1975],
32–33, file 36, box 58, KHWR.
68. Mary Ellen Smith to W. Arthur Garrity Jr., March 30, 1976, 14–15, file 37, box 58,
KHWR.
69. “Quality Education: Changing Definitions and Heightened Expectations,” [ca. March
1977], [3], file 2, box 27, CCCR.
70. Steve Krugman and Helen Chin, “Parent Council Activities, 1978–1979: A Year
End Summary Report,” [1979], 2, file 117, box 5, PCP.
71. Dianne Dumanoski, “School ’75: Parents Work to Make Busing Work,” Boston
Phoenix, August 5, 1975, 5, 14–15; Jane Morrison-Margulis to CPAC, August 14, 1980,
1–2, file [16] “Citywide Parents Advisory Council (C.P.A.C.) 1979–82,” box 15,
Department of Implementation Records (DIR), City of Boston Archives and Records
Management Division.
72. [CWEC], “City-Wide Educational Coalition Program Proposal for 1975–76,” 10.
73. CCC, “Public Hearing,” April 13, 1977, transcript, 27–28, 57–65, 294–98, 303–4,
esp. 65, file 1, box 47, CCCR.
74. Massachusetts Coalition for Human Rights, “Report of MCHR Activities for the Year
Ending September 1976,” 2, file 19, box 19, JBP.
75. John O’Bryant quoted in Miriam Clasby, “The Role of the School in the
Community: Community Perspectives,” July 1979, 13, file 28, box 6, Carmen A. Pola
Papers, Snell Library, Northeastern University.
76. CCC, “November Report of the Citywide Coordinating Council to the United States
District Court,” November 1977, 3, file 12, box 20, CCCR.
77. CCC, “November Report of the Citywide Coordinating Council to the United States
District Court,” November 1977, Letter of Transmittal, 1, I-5, file 12, box 20, CCCR.
78. Lupo, Liberty’s Chosen Home, 169–70; Dentler and Scott, Schools on Trial, 21, 24–27,
46, 63–64.
79. “Overview of CDAC 7 at Mid Year, Phase II,” [March 1976?], 5, file 118, box 5,
PCP.
80. “Remarks of John Coakley,” March 23, 1976, file 1, box 25, JBP.
81. Conference of the Boston School Committee, Minutes, February 11, 1976, 9, file 16,
box 11, CCCR; CWEC, “The Promotional Rating Process, An Analysis,” August 1976,
1, file 59, box 23, CCCR; Smith interview, 31–32.
82. [Garthenia Beal, Patricia B. Corcoran, and Donna Crowley], “Introduction” [to
CDAC report in District VII Annual Report for 1975–1976], [1], file 118, box 5, PCP.
Making Desegregation Work 25
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83. Garthenia Beal, Patricia B. Corcoran, and Donna Crowley, “Report of District
Council (CDAC),” [in District VII Annual Report for 1975–1976], 2, file 118, box 5,
PCP.
84. CDAC VII, “Minutes,” March 24, 1976, 1–2, file 60, box 3, PCP.
85. CCC, “Staff Memorandum on Citizen Involvement,” n.d., 1–3, esp. 1, 2, cons. w/
“Staff Memorandum on Permanent Appointments,” [ca. June 1977?], file 187, box 25,
Office of the President (Ryder) Records, Snell Library, Northeastern University.
86. “Overview of CDAC 7 at Mid Year, Phase II,” 4–5.
87. CCC, “Staff Memorandum on Citizen Involvement,” 3–4; Peter Driscoll to Herman
Hernandez-Santana and Manny Teixeira, May 18, 1979, 2, file [14] “CDAC I General,
Dec. 1978–Oct. 1980,” box 1, ser. I, CPCR.
88. [CCC], “Citizen Participation,” [ca. March 1977], [9], file 2, box 27, CCCR.
89. Ralph E. Mann to W. Arthur Garrity, April 3, 1975, 1, file 8, ser. LIc, box 37,
WAGP.
90. Henry Robinson interviewed by Harry Savas, WBZ Radio News, “Three Years of
School Desegregation: Is It Working?” June 1977, VII-1, transcript, file 83, box 4, PCP.
91. W. Arthur Garrity Jr., “Memorandum and Further Orders as to Citizen Participation
Groups,” Morgan v. McDonough, September 1, 1977, 1–3, esp. 3, file 6, ser. XLVIa, box
33, WAGP.
92. “Press Advisory: Parent Councils in the Boston Public Schools,” [1978?], 4, file 84a,
box 4, PCP.
93. CWEC, “The Promotional Rating Process, An Analysis,” August 1976, 9–22, file 59,
box 23, CCCR.
94. Conference of the Boston School Committee, Minutes, August 3, 1976, 83, file 1,
box 12, CCCR.
95. Peter Driscoll to Herman Hernandez-Santana and Manny Teixeira, May 18, 1979, 1,
file [14] “CDAC I General, Dec. 1978–Oct. 1980,” box 1, ser. I, CPCR.
96. Patricia Johnson et al. to Ms. Koch, May 18, 1979, 1, file 43, box 3, PCP.
97. Arnita Cooper, Louella Hoffman, and Henry Allen, “Second Draft, Report Outline
of the [CPAC] Sub-Committee on External Relationships,” [ca. 1981?], 7, file 117, box 5,
PCP; Kirk Scharfenberg, “Nothing to Lose,” Boston Globe, February 28, 1981, 15.
98. “Minutes of CPAC Meeting,” July 26, 1978, 3, file 68, box 3, PCP; Marion J. Fahey,
“Annual Report of Total System for the 1976–77 School Year,” July 15, 1977, [28], file 1,
ser. II, box 1, WAGP; [CCC], “Citizen Participation,” [3].
99. CWEC, “Promotional Rating Process,” 12–13.
100. CCC, “March 1978 Report of the Citywide Coordinating Council to the United
States District Court,” April 12, 1978, I-7, file 116, box 5, PCP.
101. Camilla Stewart to Judge Garrity, July 16, 1982, 1, file 24, ser. XLVIa, box 34,
WAGP.
102. Vrabel, People’s History, 204; [CPAC], “Proposal: Parent Councils,” Sept. 17, 1981,
1–3, file 26, ser. XLVIa, box 34, WAGP.
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103. [Paul Kennedy], “FY ’82 Budget Position Paper,” February 9, 1981, 2, encl. in Paul
Kennedy to CDAC Co-Chairs, March 9, 1981 (rec.), file 26, ser. XLVIa, box 34,
WAGP.
104. Dentler, “Urban School Desegregation,” 5–6.
105. [Interview notes], n.d. [summer 1985], [3], file 16, box 23, CWECR.
106. CWEC, Parent Survey, W7, 1985, pt. II, p. 1, file 18, box 23, CWECR; CWEC,
Parent Survey, W6, 1985, pt. II, p. 1, file 18, box 23, CWECR.
107. Diane Hills to Mr. Howard, 1–2, May 11, 1979, cons. w/Patricia Johnson et al. to
Ms. Koch, May 18, 1979, file 43, box 3, PCP.
108. Henry Allen and Isaac Adar to Diane Moriarty, December 5, 1980, 1–2, file [9]
“Community District Advisory Council (CDAC) 1978–82,” box 5, DIR.
109. CWEC, “School to School Transition: A Report on the Effects of Closing Schools,”
[ca. June 30, 1982], [32], [34], [38], file [18], box 15, DIR.
110. CWEC, Parent Survey, B17, 1985, pt. I, p. 1, file 17, box 23, CWECR.
111. CWEC, Parent Survey, H2, 1985, pt. II, p. 1, file 17, box 23, CWECR.
112. Mattleen Harris-Wright to CDAC II Members, memorandum, August 18, 1981, 1,
file 26, ser. XLVIa, box 34, WAGP.
113. William Bradford Reynolds quoted in Tom Mirga, “Civil-Rights Panel Attacks
Reagan’s Policy on Busing,” Education Week, December 15, 1982, accessed online at
https://www.edweek.org/education/civil-rights-panel-attacks-reagans-policy-on-busing/
1982/12.
114. Gary Orfield, “Turning Back to Segregation,” in Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet
Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education, ed. Gary Orfield and Susan E. Eaton (New York,
1996), 14–22.
115. Following recommendations from CPAC, Garrity reorganized the council structure
in July 1982. The revised structure created an all-parent network made up of School
Parent Councils (SPCs), District Parent Councils (DPCs), and the Citywide Parents
Council (CPC). Broader community participation at the district level was eliminated and
replaced with an eighteen-member advisory committee to the CPC, appointed by its co-
chairs based on nominations put forward by the SPCs. W. Arthur Garrity, “Memorandum
and Semi-Final Orders on the Structure of Citizen Participation in the Desegregation
Process,” Morgan v. McDonough, July 20, 1982, 2–8, file 6, ser. XLVIa, box 33, WAGP;
CWEC, “Findings, Recommendations, Implications: Parent Focus Group Project, May–
June 1995,” 3–5, file 20, box 18, CWECR.
Making Desegregation Work 27
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