Brown v Board of Education: The Supreme Court Decision That Changed America
David H. Goldenberg has served as Professor and Dean of the College at the University of Hartford for the past twenty years. A Dean, Chief Academic Officer, and Chancellor of universities across the United States over the past 40 years, he began his career as head of the Office of Student Affairs for the State of New York, handling student legal rights education and cases on behalf of the Commissioner of Education. Dean Goldenberg has co-authored numerous books and articles on education law. Along the way, he retired from NCAA Division 1 basketball coaching with a perfect 1-0 record.
Overview
Sixty-seven years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision that shook the very foundation of our educational and social structures. There is hardly a person who has not heard of “Brown v Board of Education,” yet most do not know how it came to be. The segregation of our public schools in the first half of the 20th century was ever present; one Justice of the Court described that condition as an experience “…that may affect the hearts and minds (of children) in ways unlikely ever to be undone.” The nation had a moment of reckoning about racism that ripples across time to today.
In this lecture, Dean David Goldenberg will discuss the events that led to this Landmark ruling by the Supreme Court. The case, as we shall see, really begins eighty years earlier. The struggles of segregation in our educational system, and the ways in which courts looked at the question of “separate but equal,” are as relevant today as in 1954.