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The article focuses on the current states of political economy of city power and discusses the efforts taken to reform the same in the U.S. Topics discussed include practice of treating cities as competitors in a global marketplace for capital and labor; efforts taken by the U.S. Government to address the weaknesses through institutional reforms such as home rule, national urban policy, and regionalism; and Milliken v. Bradley court case on same.

The article presents the views of American Judge Nathaniel Jones on his experience of litigating the Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley I in 1974 that deals with desegregation in education in Detroit, Michigan. Topics include his personal background, academic achievements, and legal jobs after he graduated from law school. Also discussed are the origins of his involvement in the Milliken case, the decison to adopt a disegregation plan, and the impact of the court's ruling after 40 years.

Background/Context: Prior research on Milliken v. Bradley focuses on the failure of this case to implement interdistrict busing in the highly segregated Detroit schools. Much of this work focuses explicitly on desegregation, rather than on equity and addressing individual, systemic, institutional, and organizational challenges that may prevent the advancement and actualization of desegregation to benefit Black students, teachers, and communities. Purpose/Objective: In this study, we shed light on the impacts of desegregation on Black students, teachers, and communities. We argue that Brown, Milliken, and associated policies that attempt to address segregation focus mostly on student assignment policies. Our focus instead is on highlighting the underconceptualized microlevel realities of desegregation, which include the losses of cultural and community connections, strong role models, and connections to school. Population/Participants: This study draws from interview data collected from three experts in the field of education whose research focuses on school desegregation. The interview participants have written scholarly articles and/or book chapters about desegregation and related influences on/for Black teachers, Black students, and Black communities spanning the PreK-12 and higher education spectrum. Research Design: This study employs in-depth qualitative interviewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article examines the contemporary implications of the Milliken v. Bradley (1974) decision for educational inequality between school districts in U.S. metropolitan areas. We focus upon fo u r metropolitan areas that were highly segregated in the 1970s but which met different fates in court: We first examine Detroit and Philadelphia, where plaintiffs sought but ultimately failed to obtain a metropolitan-wide desegregation ruling. We then examine St. Louis, where a court imposed a metropolitan desegregation remedy. We finally include Jefferson County, where the court order resulted in a merger of city and suburban schools. Objective: Through this comparative analysis we seek to tease out the effects o f the ruling on patterns of inequity between urban and suburban school districts over time. We specifically examine how districts within these metro areas differed over time in terms of patterns o f school segregation, fiscal resources, and academic performance. Research Design: We employed qualitative case study methodology. We purposively selected three case study districts within each o f the fo u r metro areas (total o f 12 school districts) based on their contextual status in 1970, i. e., whether they were in each of these three categories: urban, segregated suburban, or affluent suburban. We compared them along three dimensions: patterns of segregation, academic outcomes, and fiscal resources. Conclusions: We fo u n d that the segregated and high poverty districts in the three metro areas where courts left districts intact (Detroit, Philadelphia, and St. Louis) have been, since Milliken, increasingly hemmed in by their boundaries: struggling with growing concentrations of need, low resources to meet those needs, and as a result falling into fiscal and academic decline. In contrast, the maintenance o f district boundaries by the courts has allowed the affluent suburbs in these contexts, over time, to benefit from a number of policies and practices that allowed them to accrue and protect advantage through exclusionary zoning policies and housing discrimination. Together, these policies have promoted and protected the affluence and advantage in each of these contexts, which has in turn attracted investment and allowed these districts to maintain strong financial standing over time. Our study suggests that socially constructed political boundaries, like school district boundary lines, by carving up political geography along the lines of race and class, can take on an active role in the reproduction of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: This article employs critical policy analysis as it examines the historical underpinnings of racialized policy discrimination in Detroit. It considers histories, discourses, and oppressive structures as it seeks to understand how policies have been and currently are implemented by Whites in predominantly Black urban areas. Focus of Study: As we seek to understand how policy is constructed in relationship to predominantly Black communities, we argue that White actions toward Detroit are based on deep-rooted and historical biases, stereotypes, and fears of Blacks. Research Design: We used critical policy analysis around the famed Milliken v. Bradley (1974) Supreme Court case to explore 20th century White American behaviors and policy regarding Black urban spaces, specifically in Detroit. Data Collection and Analysis: We pull from political, educational, and legal literature surrounding Milliken 1 and critically examine prior research and policies related to the case. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our analysis suggests that Milliken had a long-term deleterious impact on Black students (and families) in the city of Detroit, including the resegregation of separate and inequitable schools and the (re)entrenchment of White fears and stereotypes about Black Detroiters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background./Context: Milliken v. Bradley (1974) (Milliken I) is a pivotal Supreme Court case that halted a metropolitan school desegregation remedy between Detroit and 53 surrounding suburban school districts. In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, the Milliken ruling was a significant retraction from the landmark Brown v. Board (1954) (Brown I) ruling that 20 years earlier deemed state imposed racially segregated schools unequal and unconstitutional. The effects of the Milliken decision neutralized school desegregation efforts in the United States, especially in the North. We, therefore, revisit the significance o/Milliken over 40 years later. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the context and contradictions in Milliken. In doing so, we review select federal school desegregation cases that informed the judicial and plaintiff's thinking in Milliken, and provide an in-depth description of the city of Detroit and Detroit Public Schools, prior to and during Milliken. We also analyze how the Milliken decision reinforced what we refer to as the "contours o f privilege" as well as materialized property rights for white, suburban students and school districts at the expense of African American students in Detroit Public Schools. Research Design and Methods: A qualitative content analysis was employed for this study. Our analysis draws on a review o f existing literature about Milliken beginning in 1970, policy documents, legal filings, and local newspaper articles on the case. We use critical race theory's whiteness as property to guide this analysis. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the Supreme Court protected white, suburban students educational rights and interests in Milliken. This was accomplished through the contours of privilege as reproduced in Milliken, which include acknowledging inequity but not disturbing racially inequitable systems, restricting black educational rights and perpetuating white privilege, and exercising the right to maintain dual educational systems. The study concludes with policy implications in light o/Milliken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan in Detroit that sought to achieve racial balance in part by busing white suburban students to the city's majority black schools. In a stark departure from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Milliken left the question of how, or even whether, to equalize education fo r black students up to local parents, educators, activists, school board members, state legislators, and other private and public community stakeholders. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study: In this article, I consider school desegregation as a form o f social justice for blacks and racial equality for all, 40 years porf-Milliken. Drawing from research on school desegregation as social justice and Bell's theory of interest convergence, I argue that integration and equality in the post-Civil Rights Era requires attention to the competing visions of social justice I describe as black equality and white freedom. Research Design: Framed by distributional and relational dimensions of social justice and Bell's theory of interest convergence, this paper presents a conceptual analysis of school desegregation as social justice post-Milliken. Conclusions/Recommendations: The competing interests of black equality and white freedom central to Milliken remain fundamental to the question of school desegregation 40 years later. In light of growing political and public support for local control, school choice, and neighborhood schools, I conclude by discussing the implications o f local control for black students and racial equality within the current context of widening economic equality, political polarization, and racial isolation in the United States and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the history of educational equality in Detroit, Michigan, the1974 Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, and school desegregation

Recent tragedies in our nation's schools--such as the Sandy Hook shooting in Newton, Connecticut and the Marysville-Pilchuck shooting near Seattle, Washington--have brought the school safety debate to the forefront of American politics. Issues of serious school violence receive intense media scrutiny. As a result, the school safety debate tends to incite emotional responses from legislatures, school districts, and parents alike. However, given that school safety concerns more than just mass shootings, emotionally charged legislation focused upon firearms is not the answer. Rather, school safety legislation needs to be school-centered. In response to the current guns-in-schools debate, this Note proposes that the proper way to address school safety is through state legislation that requires school resource officer programs and individual school safety plans, and creates a source of financial support for these increased safety measures. Recent legislation from Indiana and Connecticut serve as models for state policymakers to follow when responding to the issue of school safety through legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board Of Education related to violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Topics discussed include Supreme Court Justices voting in systemic racial discrimination cases in education, decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Milliken v. Bradley, Goss v. Board of Education and Griffin v. County School Board and information on freedom-of-choice plan in the U.S.