In 1963, Black and Hispanic students and families filed Crawford v. Board of Education, a class action lawsuit challenging segregation in LAUSD schools. After years of litigation, courts found that LAUSD’s schools were “substantially segregated” and that the school district had a constitutional obligation to take steps to address that harm.
At the time, segregation in Los Angeles schools was widespread. Many Black students attended schools that were overwhelmingly Black, despite Black students representing a much smaller percentage of the district’s overall enrollment. A 1971 federal survey of public school enrollment found that LAUSD was among the most segregated in the entire country. For example, in 1968, 80 elementary schools had Black student enrollments that exceeded 50 percent (and almost all exceeded 90%), even though Black students comprised only 22 percent of LAUSD’s total student population. Schools serving students of color were often overcrowded and had fewer resources, poorer facilities, and fewer educational opportunities.
In 1981, the Los Angeles Superior Court approved a desegregation plan for LAUSD schools that provided a range of remedies, including magnet programs, voluntary transportation options, and additional support for communities most affected by segregation.
For more than four decades, these court-ordered programs have helped alleviate the harms of unlawful, racial isolation. Now, they are being challenged in federal court.
The ACLU is moving to intervene to ensure that students and families affected by this case have a voice in court — and to preserve the obligation of LAUSD to provide equal access to a fair and equal education, free from segregation. This case is part of a broader effort to eliminate the ability to respond to racial and other forms of societal inequality, and to erase history rather than learn from it.