Clark Hits Integration Plan at Mark Twain JHS
Date: Jul 27, 1974
Caption: Judge Jack Weinstein approved a plan to desegregate Mark Twain Junior High School by making it a “gifted and talented” school to attract white students. Long-time desegregation advocate and psychologist Dr. Kenneth Clark denounced the proposed plan.
When Judge Jack Weinstein initially issued a court order to integrate District 21 schools, he proposed a wide-reaching plan that called for the Board of Education, District 21’s school board, and private real estate developers and housing officials to integrate the district’s neighborhoods and schools. White parents were furious with the decision and threatened to subvert the court order, leave the city, or withdraw their children from public schools. The district school board, whose members were all white, shared the white parents’ preference for segregation, but also felt that they had to meet the requirements of the court.
As a compromise to accommodate white parents’ preferences while also meeting the court requirements, the school board proposed turning Mark Twain into a “gifted and talented” school. They hoped that this would attract white parents to the school, and they assumed that more white students than Black or Latinx students would qualify for the school. The judge accepted the proposal and Curtis J. Berger, a Columbia Law School professor, drafted the plan.
The above Amsterdam News article captures how Dr. Kenneth Clark and others criticized the plan. Dr. Clark was a Black psychologist who had worked with his wife Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark in support of desegregation. Dr. Kenneth Clark saw the Mark Twain plan as an attempt “to evade the politically explosive issue of desegregation.” And he said it was an example of educational tracking, by which he meant unequal opportunities in a school’s curriculum and classes.
Despite Dr. Clark’s criticisms, the judge approved Berger’s plan and Mark Twain became a middle school known for its “gifted and talented” program.
Categories: Brooklyn, K-12 organizing
Tags: racist segregation, white people, court cases, curriculum, disability labels, zoning and student assignment, student achievement, white liberalism, ableist ideas
This item is part of "School Governance and Democratic Control" in "How Did New York City Segregate its Schools?"
Item Details
Date: Jul 27, 1974
Creator: New York Amsterdam News
Source: New York Amsterdam News
Copyright: Under copyright. Used with permission.
How to cite: “Clark Hits Integration Plan at Mark Twain JHS,” New York Amsterdam News, in New York City Civil Rights History Project, Accessed: [Month Day, Year], https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/gallery/clark-hits-integration-plan.
Questions to Consider
- Why do you think Dr. Kenneth Clark labeled the plan “obscene, immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional”? Do you agree with his assessment?
- What does Berger mean when he says that his plan is “the only plan that can succeed”? Whose preferences did Berger have in mind?
- How does the decision to turn Mark Twain into a magnet school illustrate who has power and how power works within the New York City school system? What has changed, or stayed the same, since the 1974 desegregation case at Mark Twain?
References
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