15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the South were still segregated. Some school districts actively blocked desegregation. North Carolina passed legislation authorizing tuition grants to white private schools, sometimes called "segregation academies." Members ... Show More
May 2022
Sean J. Drake, "Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2022)
In Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb (U California Press, 2022), sociologist Sean J. Drake addresses long-standing problems of educational inequality from a nuanced perspective, looking at how race and class intersect to affect mode ... Show More
1 h
Jan 2025
MLK Bonus: The Civil Rights Children's Crusade
To further celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we're re-releasing our classic episode about the Children's Crusade, an effort to bring the youth of Birmingham, Alabama into the Civil Rights Movement in order to affect change across the country.April 20, 1963. Dr. Martin Lut ... Show More
31m 45s
Dec 2021
1,500 Black college students challenged police in 1961. The Supreme Court took their side.
In 1961, Black college students fought segregation. Four years later, their Supreme Court case secured First Amendment rights for future protesters. Sylvia Copper was a freshman at Southern University when she was suspended for her participation in the historic protest. She knew ... Show More
17m 37s
Apr 2025
Aaron Kupchik, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice" (NYU Press, 2025)
Every year, millions of public school students are suspended. This overused punishment removes students from the classroom, but it does not improve their behavior. Instead, suspension disrupts their education, harming the students, their families, and their schools. Black student ... Show More
27m 43s
Dec 2024
Leslie Beth Ribovich, "Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools" (NYU Press, 2024)
The processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in publ ... Show More
59m 16s
Jun 2024
The War for America's Classrooms - From Texas to You
Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get full access to this episode, bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Mike Hixenbaugh is a Pulitzer finalist, P ... Show More
36m 51s
Nov 2021
The L.A. Riots | 2. No Justice
In March 1991, the video of the Rodney King beating was national news. The LAPD was under intense scrutiny and many white Americans were seeing a side of policing they’d never seen before.Just a few days after George Holliday’s tape aired, the residents of South Central, Los Ange ... Show More
50m 38s
Oct 2024
The Fire Will Not Consume Us: Barry Black, Pt. 1
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the mere act of burning a cross, absent evidence of specific intent to intimidate, is protected by the first amendment. But who was the klansman who got his case all the way to the highest court in the land? This is the first half of the stor ... Show More
48m 20s