Education Policy, Business and Technology

In Mississippi Town, Some Fear School Desegregation Ruling May Backfire

The New York Times: CLEVELAND, Miss. — The multicultural high school band kicked off a punchy “Pomp and Circumstance” as the 2016 graduates of Cleveland High School marched across the gymnasium. They were a near-equal mix of black and white students, with the occasional Nguyen, Patel or Rojas sprinkled among them.

Here in the heart of the Mississippi Delta — where whites once howled over federal desegregation orders, then ignored them for years, then largely abandoned their public schools — it seemed, in many ways, a rare scene of racial redemption. The school is 45 percent black and 47 percent white. A white co-valedictorian spoke, followed by a black one, Jasmine Shepard, who argued that their educational experience had been enhanced by the diversity.

Read article