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In U.S. Schools, Race Still Counts

Despite progress, challenges loom.

Many observers of the U.S. Supreme Court were expecting May 17, 1954, to be a run-of-the-mill Monday—until Chief Justice Earl Warren made a surprise announcement: He was ready to deliver the court's opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka .

"We conclude—unanimously—that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," he told those assembled that afternoon in the marble-and-mahogany courtroom. "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Since that historic moment half a century ago, much has changed in American life and education. By today's standards, the notion that black children could be consigned to separate schools solely because of their skin color—in a nation founded on principles of freedom and equality—seems unconscionable. Indeed, the nation's highest-ranking school official, U.S. Secretary of Education...