Race Report’s Influence Felt 40 Years Later

Legacy of Coleman study was new view of equity

Just before the Fourth of July weekend in 1966, the U.S. Office of Education quietly released a report that would shake the beliefs upon which many educators and social reformers had staked their work.

Titled “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” the mammoth, 737-page study reached the unsettling conclusion that school might not be society’s great equalizer after all.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of that study, now better known as the Coleman Report, researchers continue to grapple with many of the same questions about how family background contributes to disparities...