ESCU April Program: "Life After Brown 2005: With All Deliberate Speed...Looking Back, Moving Ahead"

Program Description and Conference Registration

April 15-16, 2005
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, CT 06226

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education in which the United States Supreme Court decided that racial segregation in public schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Less than a year after the Court handed down its decision in Brown, litigants were before the Court to argue questions pertaining to relief. In other words, the question remained, how should the decision in Brown be implemented in each of the localities involved in the original Brown decision? The Court concluded that the lower courts needed to act ?to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.? Plainly stated, the lower courts were instructed to give the children involved in the cases access to all public schools in a swift manner. It can be said that despite the Court?s decision in Brown II, public schools (and some public services) in the United States remain segregated. As a result, the swiftness of ?with all deliberate speed? leaves much to be desired for some communities.

Our hope is that the conference, Life After Brown 2005: With All Deliberate Speed ? Looking Back, Moving Ahead will explore the questions that need to be asked and answered as the United States moves forward with efforts to gain social equality and equality in services for all people. We will do this by first, reflecting on the past and exploring the lessons that can be learned from the court decisions. Next, we will examine the social, political and economic implications of the Brown decisions in today?s society. The conference will conclude with an examination of future efforts to be made in order to move forward the vision set out in the Brown decisions.

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