After ""Brown"": The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation

The subtitle of tells it all. While school desegregation-and thus interracial contact-increased for a few decades after the pivotal Brown decision, ""contrary forces restrained the extent of this increase,"" writes Clotfelter, who teaches public policy, economics and law at Duke University. Those forces include the tendency for whites to avoid racially mixed schools, the private school option, predominantly white ""tracking"" or extracurricular activities, school officials willing to gerrymander attendance zones and the Supreme Court's 1974 decision to limit the scope of desegregation. Clotfelter draws on a deep range of documents, including private school information, to make his case. (June)