conflict was published under the title Southie Won't Go: A Teacher's Diary of the Desegregation of South Boston High School (1986). Additional information can be found in J. Michael Ross and William M. Berg, "I Respectfully Disagree with the Judge's Order": The Boston School Desegregation Controversy (1981); Thomas J. Cottle, Busing (1976); and the book by Dentler and Scott, cited at the beginning of this chapter. Jon Hillson, The Battle of Boston (1977), sees nothing but "racism." On desegregation in St. Louis, see Daniel J. Monti, A Semblance of Justice: St. Louis School Desegregation and Order in Urban America (1985). On desegregation in general, see George R. Metcalf, From Little Rock to Boston: The History of School Desegregation (1983); and Jennifer L. Hochschild, The New American Dilemma: Liberal Democracy and School Desegregation (1984). Hochschild's book is a puzzle. The author supports desegregation but introduces a good deal of evidence damaging to the belief that desegregation is the best way to improve black education. Contrary to the assumption underlying the Brown decision and the whole struggle for desegregation—"that white institutions are superior to black ones," in Hochschild's words—"evidence seldom shows that racially isolated blacks have impaired self‐ esteem, and it all too often shows that blacks in desegregated schools do." One study cited by Hochschild concludes that desegregation leads to "bitter rejection, isolation, and intellectual incompetence." Desegregation often means, moreover, that black teachers lose their jobs and that black principals are demoted. The legally sanctioned belief in the inferiority of black institutions endangers black colleges and businesses. The most damning testimony comes from black professionals who contrast their own experience in segregated schools, where teachers "made very strong demands" on them, with their children's experience in desegregated schools. "Lower expectations on the part of the teachers," these parents complain, undermine their children's "drive for educational achievement."

In view of all this discouraging evidence, it is not surprising that black support for desegregation dropped from 78 percent in 1964 to 55 percent in 1978; that a former civil rights lawyer, Derrick Bell, now pronounces desegregation "wasteful, dangerous, and demeaning"; that a number of black scholars have begun to argue that attempts to achieve racial balance may "prove disastrous for black children and their communities"; that the Atlanta NAACP "gave up its fight for mandatory desegregation in favor of black control of the city's public school system"; and that Hochschild herself concedes that opposition to desegregation is no longer "synonymous" with racism. Yet Hochschild, like most liberals, still comes down on the side of desegregation—the only solution, in her view, that assures equal protection under the laws. "After all, we inhabit, not a majoritarian democracy, but a liberal democracy—which means that preferences or consequences cannot override basic rights." She does not seem entirely comfortable with this conclusion, however, since it is by no means clear that racially balanced schools fall into the category of basic rights, even if we could agree to overlook "preferences or consequences"; and her support for desegregation therefore ap

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