Brown v. Board - Bruce Makoto Arnold - Cultural Historian

Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 60, No. 1, 2004, pp. 1--15

50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education: ThePromise and Challenge of Multicultural Education

Sabrina Zirkel∗Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center

Nancy CantorUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

We discuss the legacy of Brown for today’s students and today’s schools, and findthat legacy is more psychological than legal. The decision does more to highlightissues of equity in education and how that influences students’ identity, motivation,and aspirations than it does help us find legal means of addressing these concerns.The manuscripts presented in this issue articulate how today’s students experiencethese issues. The manuscripts focus on several important aspects of interethniccontact in education: the processes by which interethnic contact leads to attitudeand behavior change towards outgroup members, the effect of racial and ethnicintegration on educational and developmental outcomes for students of color, andthe promise that multicultural multiracial educational environments hold for allstudents.

In 2004, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Educationof Topeka, Kansas (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), the Supreme Court de-cision that ordered the desegregation of public schools throughout the UnitedStates. Given the central role that Isidor Chein, Kenneth B. Clark, and Stuart Cookplayed, on behalf of SPSSI, in creating the social science briefs for Brown v. Boardof Education (see, e.g., Benjamin & Crouse, 2002; Jackson, 1998, 2000), we feelthat it is especially important that SPSSI and JSI take this opportunity to examine

∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sabrina Zirkel, Director, SocialTransformation Program, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, 450 Pacific Ave., 3rd Floor,San Francisco, CA 94133-4640 [e-mail: [email protected]].

We would like to thank Lisa Brown, Gretchen Lopez, and four anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments on previous drafts of this manuscript.

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C© 2004 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

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the legacy of this landmark case on its golden anniversary. We take this as an op-portunity to reflect on the meaning and implications of Brown for today’s studentsand today’s schools.

There are a multitude of ways to examine the legacy of Brown—and everyanniversary, many people do (see, e.g., Martin, 1998 for a compilation of anniver-sary editorials in the New York Times; see also, “History,” 2002; Kluger, 1977 onthe occasion of the 20th anniversary of Brown v. Board; Lagemann & Miller, 1996on the 40th anniversary). Many of these anniversary commemorations lament theslow progress towards racial justice in education that we have made in the inter-vening years (Lagemann & Miller, 1996; see also Fischer et al., 1996) and somepoint out that we actually seem to be moving backwards, away from a commitmentto racial integration in schools (Orfield, 2001; Orfield & Eaton, 1996). These arevaluable and important critiques, but we have chosen a different approach for thisissue. We have chosen to examine what happens when racial and ethnic integrationin educational settings does occur—what impact does it have on students, and howwhat is the value of working towards full integration in the 21st century?

The primary concern that the psychological briefs brought to the court in theBrown case was the psychological impact of state-supported and state-mandatedsegregation. The report argued that the best psychological knowledge at the timesuggested that those subjected to prejudice, discrimination, and legal segregationwould experience numerous problems as a direct result, including internalizedself hatred, “defeatist attitudes,” a lowering of personal ambitions and educationaspirations, and would generally be “encumbered” by the experience (Brown v.Board of Education 1954, as cited in Martin, 1998, p. 144). The social sciencebrief pointed out, also, that racism and segregation have negative psychologicalconsequences for White or majority group members as well. Such consequencesinclude: “being taught to gain personal status in an unrealistic and nonadaptiveway” (Brown v. Board of Education 1954, as cited in Martin, 1998, p. 144), whichcan lead to “guilt feelings, rationalizations and other mechanisms which they mustuse in an attempt to protect themselves from recognizing the essential injustice oftheir unrealistic fears and hatreds of minority groups” (Brown v. Board of Educa-tion 1954, as cited in Martin, 1998, p. 145). The social science brief also arguedthat racism and segregation were distorting White Americans’ relationship to au-thority in unhealthy ways (Brown v. Board of Education 1954, as cited in Martin,1998, p. 145). Regarding relations between ethnic groups, the brief noted, “Segre-gation leads to a blockage in the communication and interaction between the twogroups. Such blockages tend to increase mutual suspicion, distrust, and hostility”(Brown v. Board of Education 1954, as cited in Martin, 1998, p. 145). These argu-ments are surprisingly contemporary. We choose to honor the legacy of Brown byexamining current research regarding what happens when those “blockages” areremoved, and when communication and interaction between ethnic groups takeplace in educational settings.

50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education 3

Background Information

In recent years, it has become fashionable for scholars to criticize the SupremeCourt decision in Brown. Critics have argued that the legal decision was weakerthan it should have been (Balkin, 2001; Benjamin & Crouse, 2002; Patterson,2001), ineffective (Orfield & Eaton, 1996), uninspiring (Wilkinson, 1979), am-bivalent about the implementation of the changes it was ordering (as evidencedby the Court not ordering an immediate end to segregation, and instead orderingstates to proceed with the oxymoronic “all deliberate speed;” Brown v. Board ofEducation, 1954 see, e.g., Benjamin & Crouse, 2002, but cf. Kluger, 1977 for adifferent interpretation of that move), and bland and non-confrontational in itslanguage, thus avoiding any statement that the United States Constitution is “colorblind” (Patterson, 2001; Scott, 1997). Critiques of the science behind the socialscience brief in Brown were long levied by those who supported segregation (see,e.g., Kluger, 1977; Patterson, 2001), but in recent years, critiques of the data havebeen heard by those on the left as well (see, e.g., Scott, 1997). The critique by theleft points out that a focus on the psychological data in the decision implies thatif the data had not demonstrated harm, school segregation might be legal. Thereis no question that the decision in Brown represented a compromise position, acompromise designed to achieve unanimity in the decision (Brown, 1996; Kluger,1977; Patterson, 2001).

Nevertheless, we feel that these critiques of both the Brown decision andthe social scientists that helped make it possible represent a revisionist history.Compromise certainly made the decision “weaker” than it might have been oreven than we might now wish it had been. However, we should remind ourselvesthat this decision is remembered as extremely important to many African Americanfamilies at the time (Gates, 1994; Hunter-Gault, 1991; but cf. Hurston, 1954 who,writing at the time of the decision, wrote passionately about feeling that onlyharm could come from sending Black children to schools where White teachersand students did not want them). Its implementation required nothing short of theNational Guard to enforce. Jackson (2000) said it well: “Clark and his colleaguesclearly recognized what we in the 21st century appear to have forgotten: Theelimination of legal segregation was a necessary step on the road toward racialjustice. That the road is a long and difficult one should not blind us to the necessityand value of that very first step” (p. 257).

Whatever its faults or weaknesses, the Supreme Court decision in Brown v.Board of Education was, by all accounts, a landmark decision which many havecalled the defining U. S. legal decision of the 20th century (Benjamin & Crouse,2002; Kluger, 1977). As social scientists focused on issues of ethnicity and ed-ucation, we feel that the Brown v. Board decision held several strengths: (a) thedecision highlighted the human suffering caused by racism and its correspondentracial segregation (although it failed to recognize the psychological harm done to

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Whites noted in the social science brief); (b) it clarified that state sponsored segre-gation (and racism) were inherently more harmful than segregation that occurredwithout the force of law; (c) it articulated the central role that education had cometo play in modern life and concluded that opportunity for all required an end toracial segregation in education; and (d) many argue that Brown v. Board and itsaftermath provided the fuel and the encouragement necessary to further the civilrights work of the 1960s, which in turn led to the Civil Rights Acts (1964, 1991),the Voting Rights Act (1965), the Fair Housing Act (1968) and related legislation.Finally, of particular importance to social scientists, it was the first Supreme Courtdecision to be based, at least in part, on social science data and evidence. Indeed,we find that the modern legacy of the Brown decision is more psychological thenlegal. It serves as a symbolic turning point after which we could no longer ignorethe psychological implications of racism and discrimination.

A primary issue in the Brown v. Board case was the role that segregationplayed, and by extension, racial integration would play, in the personality, motiva-tional, educational, and professional development of people of color (Clark, 1988;Clark & Clark, 1947; Deutscher & Chein, 1948). One hope and expectation of theproponents of Brown was that school integration and contact between “the races”would lead to a lessening of racist attitudes among Whites and ultimately to moreintegration in other aspects of society (Martin, 1998, p. 149; Patterson, 2001; seealso Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000). In this issue, we examine whetherand when these hopes regarding the outcomes of integration are realized.

Current Status of Integration and Racial Justice in Education

In examining the state of racial integration and racial justice in education today,there is much to be discouraged about. Schools in most areas of the United Statesremain largely segregated by race (“Compelling Need,” 1999; Fischer, et. al., 1996;Guinier & Torres, 2002; Orfield & Eaton, 1996), and although this segregation isnot state enforced, states and school districts have fought for and won the right todismantle their efforts to desegregate their schools (Orfield & Eaton, 1996). Somehave even argued that, in light of our failed attempts at integrated schools, racialjustice would have been better served if the 1954 decision of the Court had upheldthe “separate but equal” provision of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), because whatwe now have is separate but unequal (e.g., see Bell, 2001). Even within integratedschools, students are often either resegregated by academic tracking (Fischer, et al.,1996; Oakes, 1996, Wells, 1996) or resegregate themselves along racial and ethniclines (Tatum, 1997; this issue). Students of color are disproportionately likelyto find themselves in poorly-funded schools with few facilities and resources(Fischer, et al., 1996; Glickstein, 1996) or assigned to non-college preparatorycourses of study (Fischer, et al., 1996). Desegregation efforts have often been metwith “White flight” from public schools (Orfield, 2001). Those students of color


who do make it to college are disproportionately likely to drop out before receivingtheir degree (Bowen & Bok, 1998; Steele, 1997). Du Bois’ oft quoted predictionthat, “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” (DuBois, 1903/1986, p. 359) may simply have been an understatement: The problemcontinues into the 21st Century.

And yet. And yet despite all this, we still find reason to hope. Students ofcolor represent two to three times the percentage of college graduates, four toseven times the percentage of law graduates, and two to four times the percentage ofmedical school graduates than they did in 1960 (Bowen & Bok, 1998). Elementary(Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, & Dovidio, this issue) and secondaryschools, as well as colleges (Guinier & Torres, 2002; Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez, thisissue; Nagda, Kim, & Truelove, this issue; Schoem & Hurtado, 2001) and graduateschools are making real efforts to improve the educational experiences of studentsof color. Affirmative action, of course, has been an effective (Bowen & Bok,1998; “Compelling Need,” 1999) but politically beleaguered (Guinier & Torres,2002; Niemann & Maruyama, in press) means of redressing racial disparities ineducation, as have multicultural curricular requirements in many high schools andcolleges. Recent efforts at several state supported universities include reflectingon and subsequently changing admissions criteria in ways that will ensure fairadmission of students from a broader range of the respective state’s high schools(see e.g., Geiser & Studley, 2001; Guinier & Torres, 2002; Kirlaender & Yun,2000; Kornhaber, 1999; Lavergne & Walker, 2000).

In addition, changing demographics in the United States means that de factosegregation of schools based on housing patterns is less possible than it used to be,and will eventually become impossible in many areas. The percentage of peopleof color in the United States is rising. The 2000 census reveals that people ofcolor now represent nearly one-third of the U. S. population, half the population ofTexas, and more than half of the population of California, Hawaii, and the Districtof Columbia (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002a). Projections are that people of colorwill represent more than half of the total U.S. population by about the time of the100th anniversary of Brown (U. S. Census Bureau, 2002b). Put simply, racial andethnic integration in schools is part of our lives today and it will certainly be evenmore a part of our future. What are the implications of this greater integrationfor interracial attitudes and behavior and for the psychological and educationaloutcomes of all students? Those fighting on behalf of Brown argued clearly thatintegration would, if designed well, improve the psychological outcomes of allstudents and would also improve relations between ethnic groups as well (Allport,1954/1979; Clark, 1953).

Equal access to educational opportunities for all students was a primary goal ofBrown. Issues of equal access remain a problem today and are discussed at lengthin other places (e.g., Fischer, et al., 1996; Lagemann & Miller, 1996; Orfield &Eaton, 1996). Our focus in this issue is on another concern that was central to

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those—Black and White alike—who were working towards overturning segrega-tion in schools and elsewhere. Their goal was also the conceiving and realizationof a new multiracial society in which increasing levels of integration would endracism over time, thereby alleviating the psychological suffering caused by seg-regation and racism (see, e.g., “History,” 2002; Jackson, 2000). Fifty years afterBrown v. Board (1954), the issue of race in education is no longer simply oneof access—although access issues do, of course, remain. The issue at the timeof Brown was whether to “let Blacks in.” Today, we are focused on a broaderrange of ethnic groups and in a higher goal than simply “letting people in”—weask questions about how to create educational institutions that serve all studentsequally well. In 1954 we did not ask whether the schools young Oliver Brownand others would enter would welcome them and nurture them—or whether theschools would adapt a curriculum that made equal sense to all groups. Today, weask such questions.

Current Issues and Research

Several reviews of the literature suggest that school desegregation does, in fact,lead to better educational outcomes for African American students (Wells, 1996)and that inter-ethnic contact does lead to improved race relations and decreasedlevels of prejudice (Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000). Pettigrew (1998)notes that although a wide variety of data suggest that interracial contact leadsto reduced levels of prejudice and discrimination (see also Pettigrew & Tropp,2000 for a review of the data), the generalizabilty of these data are hampered byat least two problems. One problem is a selection bias, in that the most prejudicedindividuals avoid racially integrated contexts. (A related problem as described inWells, 1996 and similar data is that Black students attending mixed schools werealso attending wealthier schools). Thus, we don’t know how studies of the effectsof integration generalize to settings with more prejudiced individuals. A secondproblem is that few studies have focused on the processes by which this changeoccurs. As a consequence, we know little about what aspects of integrated environ-ments are important for creating change. Additionally, few studies have looked atthe educational and developmental outcomes of diverse learning environments forWhite students (but cf. “Compelling Need,” 1999; Gurin, et al., this issue; Lopez,this issue; Nagda, et al., this issue). Several of the pieces in this issue address thesepoints.

The focus of the manuscripts in this issue is twofold. First, several manuscriptselucidate some of the processes by which attitude and behavior change occurs asa result of interethnic contact. These manuscripts examine these processes in avariety of educational settings—from elementary school through college—andprovide an opportunity to examine change in settings in which participants hadvarying degrees of choice in the decision to participate in interethnic contact.


Secondly, several manuscripts outline some of the challenges to be encountered increating multicultural educational environments in which everyone does not neces-sarily share the same goals. True integration and multicultural education requireschanging institutions—at a deep level—to better meet the needs, expectations,and desires of all students (see also Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen,1999).

Multicultural Education as Change Agent

Educators often argue for the importance of multicultural education, and manyhigh schools and colleges have included a course in some aspect of “diversity”in their graduation requirements or have made concerted efforts to ensure thatissues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are integrated into theoverall curriculum. Several of the manuscripts in this issue highlight the waysthat multicultural education and curriculum can boost the academic relevanceof the curriculum for students of color and also improve the attitudes towardsand relations between ethnic groups and create valuable learning experiences forall. Researchers point to a variety of benefits to the educational experience ofall students when they encounter an ethnically diverse educational environment,including: greater intellectual engagement, more active thinking, more growth inintellectual and academic skills among all students (Gurin, in “Compelling Need,”1999), greater cross-racial socializing (Bowen & Bok, 1998; Gurin in “CompellingNeed,” 1999), and better preparation for living in a diverse and democratic society(Bowen & Bok, 1998; Gurin in “Compelling Need,” 1999; Gurin, et al., this issue).These data were cited by the majority opinion of the 6th Circuit Court’s opinion inGrutter v. Bollinger & James, et. al. (2002), upholding the right of the Universityof Michigan to use race as a factor in law school admissions. Several manuscriptsin this issue focus on how ethnically diverse educational environments combinedwith multicultural curriculum and/or interventions designed to connect studentsacross ethnic groups can have profoundly positive effects on students’ developmentand on improving an awareness of issues of race in society and race relations moregenerally. Gurin, et al., (this issue) provide a theoretical model of the link betweendiverse educational settings with a multicultural curriculum and the developmentof democratic sentiments and ideals and increased civic participation. In doing so,they take up issues central to the original social science brief in Brown (1954)—therole that race relations play in individual psychological development and in thedevelopment of democratic citizens. They then test this model in two cohorts ofcollege students, providing strong evidence for the lasting effect of multiculturalcurriculum on student development.

Multicultural learning environments can—just as a proponents of Brownhoped all those years ago—promote better inter-racial relationships and reducedlevels of racial prejudice among students (Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp,

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2000). Although there is much hand wringing about students segregating them-selves by race and ethnicity within schools, this is not the complete picture. Theevidence is that most students in diverse educational settings do report “knowingwell” students of other ethnic backgrounds during their college years (Bowen &Bok, 1998), and they do develop lasting relationships with peers of different racialand ethnic backgrounds (Bowen & Bok, 1998; “Compelling Need,” 1999). In herlongitudinal study of in-group and outgroup attitudes, Lopez (this issue) reportsthat both interethnic group contact on campus and multicultural curriculum servedto improve intergroup attitudes among college students, but the amount of changeand the precise influences on change varied by ethnic group. Lopez discusses theimplications of these findings for facilitating change in other educational settings.Similarly, Nagda, et al. (this issue) demonstrate that real and lasting change in in-terethnic relationships can come from confronting issues of race relations directlythrough a series of intergroup dialogues. In a pre-test/post-test study, they examinehow different aspects of carefully constructed intergroup learning communitiesaffect students’ critical consciousness, perspective taking, communication, andmotivation to effect greater racial justice. The Common In-group Identity Model(CIIM; Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1999) provides a framework for efforts toimprove and foster intergroup relations through multi-ethnic groups working to-wards superordinate goals (see also Aronson, 1997; Sherif, 1958). Houlette, et al.(this issue) report on an elementary school intervention consistent with the CIIMin which students are encouraged to expand their identified social circle furtherand further to include an ever wider variety of peers. In a different vein, Tatum(this issue) highlights the developmental importance of same-race friendships andurges us to understand their meaning for students.

Zirkel (this issue) argues that schools are less threatening and alienating forstudents of color if they can build social connections with peers in school. School-based friendships facilitate adolescent students’ feelings of being connected to andbelonging at school (e.g., Cohen, Steele, & Ross, 1999; McNeely, Nonnemaker,& Blum, 2002; Moody & Bearman, 2002). An important backdrop of her studyis that it takes place in elementary and junior high schools in the years followinga Northeastern city’s move to use busing to desegregate their schools. Busingcreated newly diverse schools in which students of color represented approximately50% of the student body (though, importantly, far less of the faculty and theadministration). She finds that for students of color in her sample—but not Whitestudents—making social connections and developing meaningful friendships atschool was an important ingredient to “taking on an academic identity.” Thisacademic identity was expressed in a greater interest in and enjoyment of academicactivities and more reported academic goals. At the same time, the general patternwas the students of color reported significantly fewer friends at school. These dataspeak to the potential value of an intervention like that described in Houlette et al.(this issue), wherein a classroom intervention led to students being more likely


to look beyond their own ethnic group when thinking about “their most preferredplaymate.”

Identity processes are an important part of adolescent development for all,but issues of racial and ethnic identity development play an especially impor-tant role in development for students of color (Phinney, 1996; Roberts, Phinney,Masse, Chen, Roberts, & Romero, 1999; Rowley, Sellers, Chavous, & Smith, 1998;Sellers, Chavous, & Cooke, 1998). Tatum (this issue) describes the predicamentof African American students in predominantly White high schools and commu-nities and the difficulties they experienced in developing a strong racial identity inan environment that didn’t always offer opportunities to make these explorations.This developmental task was then postponed until their college years, when oppor-tunities to explore and examine their racial identity emerged. Many students, allof whom were attending a small predominantly White college, reported wishingthat they had chosen an historically Black college instead. The feelings expressedwere that historically Black colleges would have provided more opportunities forexploring racial and ethnic identity issues and also better opportunities for datingand socializing. Her work highlights some of the positive psychological conse-quences that a multi-ethnic environment, multicultural curriculum, and available,ethnically-matched role models (see also Zirkel, 2002) would provide studentsearlier in their educational careers.

Multicultural Education: Innovations and Challenges

Truly multicultural educational institutions are those that are created, orga-nized, and run by members of all ethnic groups and designed to thoughtfully addressthe educational needs and concerns of all. This ideal is not always achieved. Severalof the manuscripts in this issue provide an opportunity to learn from continuingplaces of conflict and well-meaning efforts that have not worked. For example,many campuses have learned that admission is only the first part of the equationto graduating more students of color. Retention is just as, if not more, critical.Brower and Ketterhagen (this issue) examine college retention efforts and theacademic performance and retention of African American students at historicallyblack colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions(PWIs) and White students at PWIs. A consistent finding in the literature is thatAfrican American students’ academic performance and academic development isstronger at HBCUs than at PWIs (Allen, 1992; Bohr, Pascarella, Nora, & Terenzini,1995; Cokley, 2000; Davis, 1995; DeSousa & Kuh, 1996; Watson & Kuh, 1996),just as more women leaders in business, government, and science and engineeringcome from women’s colleges than coeducational institutions (Streitmatter, 1999).Brower and Ketterhagen (this issue) find that that retention efforts at HBCUsand PWIs are focused on very different aspects of the educational experience,and that these differences play a role in the academic success and retention of

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African American students. These data highlight one example of how schoolssometimes seek to recruit more diverse student bodies but don’t always designprograms that specifically match the needs of all students. These data dovetailwith Tatum’s article (this issue) in highlighting the ongoing importance and valueof HBCUs and the continuing need for PWIs to examine how well they serve theirstudents of color and where there is still room for improvement.

Many have called for more teachers of color at every level of the educa-tional process, from elementary school through graduate and professional school(Hurtado et al., 1999). This call is usually based on the belief that faculty of colorwill better know how to serve students of color, that students of color may feelmore connected to faculty of color, and that students of color are more likely to feelrepresented and respected if they see faculty “like them” on the school groundsor the college campus (see also Zirkel, 2002). Brown and Dobbins (this issue)unpack one aspect of this issue: student trust of faculty. Expectations that facultyare fair and are not prejudiced is essential for creating a “safe” and non-threateningacademic environment for students of color (McNeely et al., 2002; Steele, 1997).Brown and Dobbins report a series of experimental studies illustrating the mis-trust and sometimes hidden conflicts between White faculty and students of color.These studies highlight the need for training in issues of diversity for all facultyso that they can understand the social context of their interactions with students.They provide, also, an empirical background for understanding why recruiting andretaining diverse faculty is an essential aspect of creating a multicultural learningenvironment. Gaines (this issue) discusses how complex, difficult, and heated itcan be for an African American professor to frankly discuss issues of racism andprejudice in the classroom at predominantly White colleges and universities. It isparticularly difficult to do without tenure. His piece underscores the necessity ofconfronting these issues in classrooms precisely because they are so difficult todiscuss, and highlights how evaluation of faculty needs to be sensitive to thesedifficult teaching dynamics.

Discussing elementary and secondary education, Hurtado and Vega (this issue)and Tatum (this issue) highlight the ways that better understanding of and work withstudents of color will happen as a direct result of talking to those students and theirfamilies about what they need—such a simple intervention, but one that doesn’thappen often enough. Tatum (this issue) helps us to understand the loss createdwhen students of color felt no room in high school to explore their own ethnicidentity. They also underscore how our efforts to push for “full integration” and ourhand-wringing about students separating themselves by ethnic development cansometimes choke off students’ healthy efforts to resolve this aspect of development.

In California, one-third of all people (and an even greater percentage of schoolage children), identify as Latino/a (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002a). Hurtado and Vega(this issue) highlight the ways that language, culture, and English acquisition func-tion in the educational and home lives of immigrant students in California. They


demonstrate that although English acquisition does takes place, students do notmove to English monolingualism, but rather to a bilingual biculturalism. This bilin-gualism is an important part of young immigrants’ adaptation efforts and identitydevelopment (Phinney, Horenczyk, Leibkind, & Vedder, 2001; Phinney, Romero,Nava, & Huang, 2001). At the same time, California recently passed legislationbanning bilingual education for most students. Hurtado and Vega discuss some ofthe ways that Latino/a and other immigrant students could greatly benefit frommore thoughtful and nuanced efforts to support and utilize this bilingualism, ratherthan segregating heritage languages as something that happens only at home.

Conclusions

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) opened the door to widespread socialchange that is, perhaps only now, 50 years later, beginning to reach its true fruition.It was a symbolic beginning to one of the greatest national and international seachanges in attitudes, belief, and behavior in modern life. K. Brown (1996) pointsout that although we cannot look to Brown for guidance about how to proceed increating fully integrated schools and universities, we can look to it for inspiration.Brown did not provide any guidance in how to create fully multicultural schoolenvironments, nor was that its goal. In fact, the decision itself only referred to theexperience of African Americans and Whites, leaving out all other groups. At thesame time, Brown provided us with a rationale for and a first step towards racialjustice in education. Brown opened the way for us to bring questions of identity,intergroup relations, and the psychology of prejudice and discrimination to theforefront of discussions that educators and the public have regarding educationalpolicy. We argue that it is this legacy of Brown—the psychological rather thanthe legal—that is most important, on this 50th anniversary, as we think about howto move forward. The articles in this issue articulate this vision of the legacy ofBrown—what happens when integration does occur, and what are some of the bestefforts we can engage in to further full racial and ethnic integration in schools?

We find that creating multicultural educational environments that promotesuccessful outcomes for all students requires thoughtful planning. This includescreating new policies and procedures rather than simply importing strategies thathave worked for White students. It also does not mean providing, laissez-faire,a setting in which students of various ethnic backgrounds can meet and interacton their own. Instead, the best multicultural learning environments are ones inwhich administrators and faculty encourage and arrange interaction in a variety ofplanful ways—from organizing campus dialogs to creating projects for students towork on together. We find that when thoughtful plans for creating more interethniccontact are implemented, prejudice and discrimination on campus is lessened andachievement for all students improves.


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SABRINA ZIRKEL is Associate Professor and Director of the Social Transforma-tion Program at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. She received herPhD in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1991. Her primary researchinterests are in identity development and change and, especially, on how identityis shaped by social structure. Of particular interest in this area is the developmentof academic and professional identities among women and students of color inadolescence and adulthood. She has published a recent article on role models andachievement among students of color in Teachers College Record and work onsocial intelligence and identity development in adolescence and young adult de-velopment in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Cognition, TheHandbook of Personality Psychology, and the Handbook of Emotional Intelligence.

NANCY CANTOR is Chancellor of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.She received her PhD in Psychology in 1978 from Stanford University. Sincethat time, she has been Professor and served administratively at the Universityof Michigan and Princeton University. As Vice Provost and then Provost of theUniversity of Michigan, she was instrumental in U of M’s fight to defend their affir-mative action policies before she moved to the University of Illinois. She is widelypublished. She co-authored a monograph with John Kihlstrom entitled Personalityand Social Intelligence, and published scores of peer-reviewed articles and bookchapters. Her research and theoretical work have focused on developing her socialintelligence model of personality in which she examines individuals’ flexible andfunctional efforts to adapt to current situations and normative developmental lifetasks.

The American Psychological Association’s Responseto Brown v. Board of Education

The Case of Kenneth B. Clark

Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr. Texas A&M UniversityEllen M. Crouse University of Montana

In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education,the SupremeCourt struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine of thePlessy v. Fergusondecision (1896) that was the foundationof school segregation in 17 states and the District ofColumbia.Brown is arguably the most important SupremeCourt decision of the 20th century in terms of its influenceon American history. Moreover, it has a special signifi-cance for psychology because it marked the first time thatpsychological research was cited in a Supreme Court de-cision and because social science data were seen as par-amount in the Court’s decision to end school segregation.This article describes psychologist Kenneth B. Clark’s rolein that case and the response of the American Psycholog-ical Association to scientific psychology’s moment in agreat spotlight.

I f North American psychologists were asked to list themost important dates in the history of their field, cer-tain events would likely be named: Gustav Fechner’s

mind–body insight on October 22, 1850; Wilhelm Wundt’sestablishment of his Leipzig laboratory in 1879; the pub-lication of William James’sPrinciples of Psychologyin1890; the founding of the American Psychological Asso-ciation (APA) in 1892; John Watson’s behaviorist mani-festo published in 1913; the first state psychology licensurelaw in Connecticut in 1941; and the Boulder Conference of1949 that established the scientist–practitioner model ofprofessional training in psychology.

Not on this short list, and perhaps not even associatedwith the discipline by many psychologists, is a date cer-tainly important in American psychology’s history: May17, 1954. This date marks the public validation of psychol-ogy as a science through the use of psychological data in a1954 Supreme Court case that many have called the legaldecision of the 20th century because it changed the fabricof American society. How was such a monumental eventreceived by psychologists? More particularly, how did or-ganized psychology, specifically APA, respond to this his-toric occasion in which psychologists and psychology hadbeen so intimately involved? We offer some possible an-swers to these questions by focusing on the psychologistmost involved in the court decision, Kenneth BancroftClark.

The Brown v. Board of EducationDecision

On the morning of May 17, 1954, there was no indicationof any unusual activity on the agenda of the United StatesSupreme Court. That Monday promised to be uneventful.Reporters covering the Court sat in the pressroom waitingfor the decisions to arrive by means of pneumatic tubes,thereby allowing them to file their stories for their papers ornews agencies. They could choose to be part of the audi-ence in the Court’s chambers, hearing the decisions readaloud, but it was easier and faster to work from the printedopinions (Kluger, 1975).

Shortly after noon, the press was notified that theCourt would be rendering its decision on the school deseg-regation cases that had occupied the lower courts beforereaching the Supreme Court in December 1952 asOliverBrown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka. Members ofthe press raced up the stairs to the courtroom to be part ofthe audience, many of them no doubt recognizing thehistoric significance of the moment. Chief Justice EarlWarren, who had been on the Court for only seven monthsand confirmed as Chief Justice only two months earlier,began reading the unanimous decision of the Court. He wastwo-thirds through the reading before he gave the first hintof what the Court’s decision would be (Kluger, 1975).

TheBrown v. Board of Educationsuit challenged theconstitutionality of segregated public schools that had been

Editor’s note. This History of Psychologysection was developed byWade E. Pickren.

Author’s note. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr., Department of Psychology, TexasA&M University; Ellen M. Crouse, Department of Psychology, Univer-sity of Montana.

We express our appreciation to George Albee, David B. Baker,Clifford L. Fawl, Leslie Hicks, Robert Perloff, John A. Popplestone, andSherman Ross, and especially to Robert V. Guthrie, John P. Jackson, Jr.,M. Brewster Smith, and Andrew Winston for their comments on earlierversions of this article, and to the Archives of the History of AmericanPsychology, University of Akron; the Manuscript Division of the Libraryof Congress; and the American Psychological Association for permissionto quote from materials in their archival collections.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to LudyT. Benjamin, Jr., Department of Psychology–4235, Texas A&M Univer-sity, College Station, TX 77843-4235. E-mail: [email protected]

38 January 2002● American PsychologistCopyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/02/$5.00

Vol. 57, No. 1, 38–50 DOI: 10.1037//0003-066X.57.1.38

sanctioned legally more than 130 years earlier and rein-forced more recently by the Supreme Court decision Plessyv. Ferguson (1896) that had established the “separate butequal” doctrine. In recent challenges to Plessy, opponentshad argued that government-sanctioned separation of theraces created a strong sense of inferiority among AfricanAmericans. Proponents argued that no such position wasinherent in the law and that if African Americans inter-preted it that way, then the problem was with them and notthe law. As he spoke, Warren addressed that claim:

Segregation of White and colored children in public school has adetrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greaterwhen it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating theraces is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negrogroup. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of the child tolearn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has atendency to retard the educational and mental development ofNegro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits theywould receive in a racially integrated school system. Whatevermay have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the timeof Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modernauthority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to thisfinding is rejected. We conclude that, in the field of publiceducation, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.(quoted in Kluger, 1975, p. 782)

That section of the decision and its footnote number11—used to support the Court’s references to inferiority,motivation to learn, and retarded mental development—generated a firestorm of protest among legal scholars andmany other critics who felt that the Court had based itsdecision on psychological rather than legal grounds. Theynot only pointed out the inappropriateness of appealing topsychology for legal judgments but also attacked the sci-entific soundness of the psychological evidence considered

by the Court (for arguments on both sides, see Cook, 1979,1984; Gerard, 1983; Jackson, 2000a, 2000b). The Courtasserted that the psychological evidence had been cited inthe footnote only because it demonstrated the fallacy of the“cheap psychology of Plessy” and that it was not thefoundation of the decision (Kluger, 1975, p. 706). AsRichards (1997) has argued, however, “while, in point offact, the Supreme Court . . . stressed that its decision wastaken on purely legal and moral grounds, not scientificones, the prominence given to the involvement in the caseof psychologists and sociologists overshadowed this” (p.245). Thus, the psychological evidence would become alightning rod for critics of the decision in the years follow-ing Brown v. Board of Education (Tucker, 1994).

Kenneth B. Clark and theDesegregation CasesFootnote 11 in the decision referred to the “psychologicalknowledge . . . supported by modern authority” (Kluger,1975, p. 782). It listed seven social science publications.The first of these was “K. B. Clark, Effect of Prejudice andDiscrimination on Personality Development (MidcenturyWhite House Conference on Children and Youth, 1950)”(quoted in Kluger, 1975, p. 785). In his history of Brown v.Board of Education, Richard Kluger has suggested that theplacement of Clark’s (1950) work as first in the listing ofseven sources was perhaps not arbitrary but a tribute toClark for his considerable work in preparing the socialscience evidence for the case.

African American psychologist Kenneth B. Clark be-came involved with the litigation that would lead to Brownv. Board of Education in February 1951, when he was anassistant professor at City College in New York City. Thecall came from Robert Carter, an attorney with the LegalDefense Fund of the National Association for the Advance-ment of Colored People (NAACP), where he was Thur-good Marshall’s deputy. Carter and Marshall were prepar-ing to challenge the legality of segregated public schools.Carter had talked with Otto Klineberg, Columbia Univer-sity psychologist and author of two critically importantbooks, Race Differences (Klineberg, 1935b) and NegroIntelligence and Selective Migration (Klineberg, 1935a).Klineberg told Carter about the paper that Clark had pre-pared for the White House conference the previous yearand suggested that Carter get in touch with Clark. Clarkdescribed his meeting with Carter as follows:

So Bob Carter and I met for the first time. He told me the problemthey faced; they had to prove to the Court that segregation, initself, damaged the personality of the Negro child. They had comeupon this question themselves. They had formulated their legalapproach and the only thing they didn’ t know was whether theywould get any support for it from the psychologists. They thoughtof Klineberg as the person who had done outstanding work inracial differences and he had worked with them before, givingtestimony on the fact that there are no innate racial differences. Sothey went back to Otto and he said your man is Kenneth Clark. Iwasn’ t sure but I told Bob I would give him the manuscript toread, and if he felt it did fit into their legal structure then psy-chologists could help him. He took the manuscript and read it and

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called me about a week later, all excited. I’ ll never forget hiswords. He said, “This couldn’ t be better if it had been done forus.” (Clark, n.d., pp. 132–133; see also Clark, 1986b, for a similardescription)

Otto Klineberg (1986) has provided a supporting accountand modestly claimed, “My own contribution to the casewas the suggestion to ask Clark to work with the lawyers.The rest is history” (p. 55).

Marshall and Carter enlisted Clark’s help almost im-mediately, asking him to testify in a segregation case inCharleston, South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliott) that was tocome to trial in May 1951. Clark did so, taking to court hisblack and white dolls to explain how they had been used inthe studies that he and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark, hadconducted on racial identification in African Americanchildren (see Clark & Clark, 1947; Lal, 2002, this issue). Itwas the beginning of a four-year involvement for Clark,including preparation for Brown v. Board of Education andassignments following the Court’s 1954 decision. AfterSouth Carolina, he testified in cases in Delaware and Vir-ginia, thus participating in three of the four desegregationcases that would be joined together as Brown v. Board ofEducation. Among the psychologists who testified for theplaintiffs in the lower courts were David Krech, HoraceEnglish, Louisa Holt, George Kelly, Helen Trager, JeromeBruner, Otto Klineberg, Isidor Chein, M. Brewster Smith,and Mamie Phipps Clark.

Kenneth Clark joined Isidor Chein on a committee ofthe Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues(SPSSI) chaired by Gerhart Saenger to prepare a socialscience appendix to the legal brief that the NAACP wouldsubmit to the Supreme Court. Stuart Cook later joined thatcommittee, and he, Chein, and Clark wrote the initial draftof what would be called the social science statement (“Ap-

pendix to Appellants’ Briefs,” 1975). Their final productwould be signed by 32 prominent social scientists includingFloyd and Gordon Allport, Hadley Cantril, Allison Davis,Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Katz, Gardner Murphy,Nevitt Sanford, and Brewster Smith. The seven sourcescited in Brown’s footnote 11 were drawn from the refer-ence list to the social science statement.

Although there were many psychologists, sociolo-gists, and other social scientists involved in supporting theefforts of the NAACP in the school desegregation cases, itwas generally agreed that no one was more instrumental inthat effort than Kenneth Clark. At a Division 26 sympo-sium organized by John A. Popplestone and honoring the25th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, BrewsterSmith (1979) said, “Kenneth Clark was the central figure indeveloping the social science support for the NAACP case”(p. 1). That opinion was echoed by Stuart Cook (1986) and,according to his biographer, by Thurgood Marshall (Wil-liams, 1998). Clark used his passion, his energy, and hisconsiderable work ethic to accumulate and organize thesocial science evidence needed for the trials. Subsequent tothe May 1954 decision, he was heavily involved in gath-ering information and making recommendations about pro-cedures to bring about school desegregation.

Psychology’s Moment in the SpotlightSince its beginnings in the last quarter of the 19th century,the “new” psychology had struggled to establish its identityas a legitimate science in America, separating itself frommetaphysics, philosophy, and a popular psychology of themind long in existence. In its early years, it sought todistance itself from phrenology, psychic research, and spir-itualism, the pseudosciences that the public often confusedwith the new experimental psychology (Coon, 1992). In the1920s, it battled psychoanalysis for the public’s favor asthe true science of the mind, a battle that psychologist–historian Gail Hornstein (1992) said was won bypsychoanalysis.

In the 1930s, psychological science was attacked inbooks, magazine articles, and newspaper editorials as an artwith misguided or unrealistic scientific aspirations (seeAdams, 1931, 1934; “Page the Psychologists,” 1934; Stol-berg, 1930). The situation seemed bad enough that WalterHunter, APA president in 1931, suggested changing thename of psychology to anthroponomy, a label that hebelieved was a more accurate description of the science andone that possessed fewer negative associations. In his au-tobiography, Hunter (1952) wrote, “ I was never under anydelusion that the designation of the science would bechanged to anthroponomy, but the path of our sciencewould have been much smoother in its public relations hadsome nonpsychic term designated it” (p. 172).

The success of psychologists’ work for the militaryduring World War II clearly helped the scientific andapplied image of the field. Research opportunities for psy-chologists, largely through government contracts andgrants, expanded the utility and visibility of psychologicalscience after the war (Capshew, 1999). Moreover, themental health needs of the returning veterans, along with

Ellen M.Crouse

40 January 2002 ● American Psychologist

the planning of the Veterans Administration, the UnitedStates Public Health Service, and APA, were largely re-sponsible for launching the professions of clinical andcounseling psychology and the concomitant growth of ac-ademic programs to train those professionals. In the 20years following the war, American psychology underwenta rate of growth unlike anything in its history in terms ofboth the science and the profession of psychology. Still, itcould be argued that psychology had not overcome its lackof respect or what Keith Stanovich (2001) has lamentedis its standing as the “Rodney Dangerfield of the sciences”(p. 194).

It was the continued quest for respectability and rec-ognition that made the Brown v. Board of Education deci-sion so important for psychology as science. Probably forthe first time in American history, psychological researchwas cited as crucial evidence in a court decision—and inperhaps the most important court decision in 20th-centuryAmerica.

A Time for CongratulationsFor many African Americans living in 1954 and certainlyfor all of those psychologists, lawyers, clerks, and otherswho worked on behalf of the NAACP’s effort, May 17must have provided a wealth of flashbulb memories. OttoKlineberg was working for the United Nations Educational,Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Paris, France, whenhe got the word by telegram. He promptly wrote to hisformer student Kenneth Clark:

The great news has just reached me, and I am writing immediatelybecause I know how you must be feeling, and because I want totake this occasion to congratulate you personally for the wonder-ful job that you have done. Although a number of social scientistsdid work with you, I have always felt that without your leadershipand enthusiasm the task would not have been accomplished nearlyso well. I noted with the very greatest of interest that there werea few references in the Supreme Court decision which indicatedthat what we collectively had to say did not go entirely unno-ticed. . . . (Klineberg, 1954, p. 1)

Harvard University psychologist Gordon Allport, whosebook The Nature of Prejudice (Allport, 1954b) had beenpublished in January of that year, wrote to Clark the nextday:

You are probably receiving congratulations on all sides. Let meadd my word of admiration for your Herculean labors and adroithandling of social science evidence for the Supreme Court. Thehappy outcome marks an epoch in the development of socialscience, in the history of the Negro race, and in the improvementof American foreign relations. Since you had a large part to playin all these achievements I congratulate you with all my heart.(Allport, 1954a, p. 1)

The letters and telegrams in the Kenneth BancroftClark Papers in the Library of Congress congratulatingClark are full of admiration and praise for his organiza-tional skills, leadership, and persistence. They express ex-uberance, warmth, and a clear appreciation of the historicsignificance of the decision. Many acknowledge the inher-ent endorsement of the value of social science, as noted in

the letters from Klineberg and Allport excerpted above.Many also indicate an awareness of the difficulties that layahead in making desegregated schools a reality and ineliminating other forms of segregation.

Buell Gallagher, president of the City College of NewYork, where Clark was a faculty member, wrote:

With you, I am proud, deeply moved, and humbly grateful. Thatthe real task is now before us is the sobering meaning of the hour.But I cannot let the moment of rejoicing pass without entering inthe record my profound appreciation of your part in settingstraight the course of American history. (Gallagher, 1954, p. 1)

What must it be like to have a part in “setting straightthe course of American history”? What is it like to know,as one writer put it in her letter to Clark, that one has“assisted in the future development of the educational,cultural, and economic life of the Negro citizens of Amer-ica” (Lewis, 1954, p.1) or, from another letter, that one hasadvanced “ the equality of all men” (Bachrach, 1954, p. 1)?In Clark’s case, he was ecstatic at the news of the decision:“My initial response was that of tremendous exhilaration. Ijust felt so enthusiastic. I felt joy at being an American. Iwas full of hope and optimism” (as quoted in Nyman, 1976,p. 112). In a few days, however, that feeling gave way tothe grim realization of the many battles that lay ahead.Clark wrote to Klineberg:

These three weeks since the Court’s decision have been in manyrespects the most exciting period of my life. Starting from about2:00 p.m. on May 17th, Mamie, Thurgood, Bob Carter and theentire staff of the Legal Defense and Educational Division of theNAACP and all of our friends have been celebrating. The firstthree or four days we were in the clouds and refused to be broughtdown to earth by a consideration of the really serious problemswhich we must now all face.

There are so many things which I wanted to enjoy with youduring this period. My only regret is that you were not here tocelebrate with us the victory of which you were so much a part.The Court left no doubt that it was basing its decision as muchupon contemporary social science knowledge and theory as it wasbasing it upon law. Anyone who knows this field knows that youhave been in the forefront of providing the basic facts upon whichwe could move from the ideas about racial differences which wereprevalent at the time of the Plessy decision to those which we nowhold and which made the present decision possible and tenable.(Clark, 1954b, p. 1)

Clark’s modesty was genuine and his feelings towardKlineberg ones of enormous respect and affection.

The Response of APAWhile the NAACP team was celebrating its accomplish-ment and acknowledging the role of the social scientists incarrying the day for the lawsuit, what was happeningwithin APA? To answer that question, we began by lookingthrough the APA Papers and the Kenneth Bancroft ClarkPapers, both housed at the Library of Congress, to see whatcorrespondence existed between the two. We also looked atthe minutes and correspondence associated with the APACouncil of Representatives and Board of Directors. Fur-thermore, we examined all of the seemingly relevant cor-


respondence folders from 1952 to 1956, for example, thecorrespondence of Fillmore Sanford, the executive secre-tary of APA at the time of the Brown decision. We thenexpanded our search to the Stuart Cook Papers, BrewsterSmith Papers, and SPSSI Papers, all housed at the Archivesof the History of American Psychology at the University ofAkron, and to the Michael Amrine Papers at GeorgetownUniversity.

We were able to locate three letters from APA toClark in 1954. One of those was dated four days prior to theCourt’s decision and, given the weekend, may havereached Clark on the Monday of the Brown decision. It wasfrom Fillmore Sanford and informed Clark:

Two facts have just been brought to my attention: (a) you haveexpressed a willingness to have your name appear on a slate ofcandidates for election to the Committee on Academic Freedomand Conditions of Employment; (b) you are just before beingdropped from membership in the Association for non-payment ofdues. These two facts together constitute something of a problem.But only a technical one. . . . (Sanford, 1954a, p. 1)

These two events—news of the Supreme Court decisionand news from APA that his dues were in arrears—makefor an interesting juxtaposition! It seems a safe assumptionthat given the nature of the first event, the second oneprobably got no attention from Clark, at least not for sometime. In fact, the evidence is clear on this point. Clark’ssecretary, Ruth Morton (1956), sent a check for $58 toAPA in September 1956, more than two years later, for“payment of dues for the years, 1954, 1955, and 1956”(p. 1).

The second letter from APA came from LorraineBouthilet, managing editor of the American Psychologist,and was written two weeks after the Brown decision. Itinformed Clark that he was scheduled for two presentationsat the upcoming APA meeting and that APA guidelineslimited participants to only one (Bouthilet, 1954). HadBouthilet known Clark, one might assume that her letterwould have included a note of congratulation, perhaps evenas a postscript. There was none.

The third letter in 1954 was from Michael Amrine,who worked for APA as a public information consultant.He wrote to Clark in November encouraging him to use aspeech he had given recently as the basis for an article inScientific American. Clark replied, sending him copies oftwo presentations that he had given and asking for hissuggestions about how they might be combined into asingle article (Amrine, 1954a; Clark, 1954a).

It appears that there was no resolution from the APABoard of Directors or Council of Representatives com-mending Clark and the other psychologists for their excel-lent work on the case. None could be found in our search.Indeed, there is no mention of the Brown decision any-where in the minutes of the board or council in the periodfrom 1952 to 1956. The only evidence that the desegrega-tion cases might have been discussed by the board appearsin a report of board discussions by Sanford (1954b). Therelevant section of the report is labeled “Psychology andPublic Affairs,” and it acknowledged that psychologists

were playing an increased role as expert witnesses in thecourts and testifying before congressional committees, thusattempting to influence governmental decisions. Sanfordcommented that “such developments, pleasing to some anduncomfortable to others, appear to be inevitable concomi-tants of our maturation as science and profession” (San-ford, 1954b, p. 715). Perhaps paraphrasing some of thediscussion at the board’s September 1954 meeting, Sanford(1954b) noted that psychologists have

an increasing opportunity to contribute evidences, arguments, andpoints of view to the decision-making process of community, ofgovernment, and of society. Such an increasing opportunitybrings with it an increasing responsibility and what to somerepresents an exhilarating challenge. How does psychology makeits most effective contribution to its supporting society whilemaintaining its own sense of integrity? How does it play itsincreasingly influential role without doing insult to the traditionsof science, scholarship, and democracy? (p. 715)

It is hard to imagine that in September 1954, with theBrown decision only a little more than three months old,the Supreme Court case and psychologists’ participation init were not part of the board’s discussion of psychology andpublic affairs. Still, the report contains no such directreference.

Perhaps there was an acknowledgment in “Across theSecretary’s Desk,” a monthly column in the AmericanPsychologist that had been started by Dael Wolfle when thejournal began publication in 1946 and continued by thesubsequent executive secretaries of APA? That columntypically reported Washington news related to psychologysuch as federal grants, legislation, Veterans Administrationactivities, and other items of interest to psychologists. Yetnowhere in those columns was any mention of Brownfound, despite there being material where the Brown caseswould have been relevant. For example, in a 1953 column,Sanford (1953a) included a section on “Psychology and theLaw,” yet no mention was made of the psychologicaltestimony in the cases leading to Brown or the brief onsocial science research filed with the Supreme Court.

Were there any special acknowledgments for Clarkand the others at the annual meeting of the association heldin New York City, New York, in September 1954? Noevidence could be found of a reception, social hour, orother session that recognized psychology’s role in theBrown decision. Clark was involved in two symposia atthat meeting (apparently he did not cancel one of those asrequested by Bouthilet). One was a symposium on prob-lems of desegregation sponsored by SPSSI. It was chairedby Isidor Chein and included presentations by Clark, JohnDean (a sociologist from Cornell University), and Thur-good Marshall. It is not known for certain whether thissymposium was organized before or after the court deci-sion, but it seems likely, given the date of Bouthilet’s letter,that it was before. The second symposium in which Clarkparticipated was sponsored by APA’s Division on ClinicalPsychology and was on the subject of cultural approachesto psychotherapy.

At the 1955 APA meeting in San Francisco, Califor-nia, there was another SPSSI-sponsored symposium on


research on racial differences in which Clark participated.At the 1956 meeting in Chicago, Illinois, there were twoSPSSI meetings, one a symposium and the other a work-shop, both on desegregation, but Clark was not listed as aparticipant in either. In summary, nowhere in the APAprograms for 1954–1956 is there any mention of Brown.

We also looked at the articles, comments, and notesand news sections in the American Psychologist between1951 and 1956 to see if there were mentions of the lowercourt desegregation cases, Brown, or issues of segregation.There was a brief article written by Martin Grossack, aprofessor at Philander Smith College, that appeared in theMay 1954 issue, the month of the court decision. Thisarticle reported the results of a survey of African Ameri-cans’ perceptions of psychology and called for psycholo-gists to do a better job of communicating the results of theirresearch, especially as it would benefit minority groupmembers (Grossack, 1954). In the following year, therewas a single comment by Robert Perloff (1955) encourag-ing psychologists to use their science to aid the transition inschools that was mandated by the Court’s desegregationdecision. Two articles were published in 1956 on psychol-ogists as expert witnesses in court. Both articles werereceived in the journal’s editorial office after the Browndecision, yet neither mentioned psychologists’ involvementin the cases leading up to that lawsuit (McCary, 1956;Schofield, 1956). Finally, there were two items in the“Psychological Notes and News” sections in 1955, the firstappearing about a year after the Brown decision, that an-nounced a grant program sponsored by SPSSI for researchon desegregation. Isidor Chein chaired the grant awardscommittee, which included Kenneth Clark and BrewsterSmith as well (see “Psychological Notes and News: Grants-in-Aid for Research on Desegregation,” 1955, “Psycholog-ical Notes and News: Society for the Psychological Studyof Social Issues,” 1955).

In March 1955, almost a year after the Brown deci-sion, Sanford wrote to Clark inviting him to do “a piece forthe American Psychologist on psychological research andsegregation” (Sanford, 1955, p. 1). The invitation was atthe suggestion of Stuart Cook, a point Sanford acknowl-edged in his letter. Amrine was also encouraging of thearticle. Sanford (1955) added:

Such an article would, I feel, be of real interest to many of ourreaders and the story should be recorded. I would hope, however,that you could write with relative brevity. We are facing prettystringent space problems in the American Psychologist. (p. 1)

It is likely that the “story” to which Sanford referred wasthe involvement of psychologists in Brown and the casesleading up to that decision. For reasons unknown, Clark didnot write such an article for the journal or, if he did, it wasnot published. The latter seems unlikely because the articlehad been invited by the journal’s editor himself. StuartCook, however, did publish an article (Cook, 1957) ondesegregation in the American Psychologist in 1957. Al-though Cook’s article referred to the 1954 decision, it wasnot a recounting, in any way, of the story of psychologists’involvement in that case.

Michael Amrine had been hired by APA in 1952 tospearhead its public information efforts. Six weeks beforethe Brown decision, he issued a press release on behalf ofAPA entitled “Desegregation: An Appraisal of the Evi-dence” (Amrine, 1954b). The release was intended to pub-licize a recent issue of the Journal of Social Issues writtenby Clark (1953) that provided data on American commu-nities that had undergone voluntary desegregation ofschools. The press release noted that

Dr. Clark’s investigations are a direct result of the issue pendingbefore the United States Supreme Court: whether segregation bylaw of facilities for Negro and White children in the publicschools shall be ruled unconstitutional, regardless of purported“equality” . The findings presented in this Journal, which has justbeen released, form part of the evidence under consideration bythe Court. What, the Court asked in effect, is known about thesocial outcome of sudden or gradual segregation? (Amrine,1954b, p. 1)

A search of relevant archival collections has not turned upany other APA press releases related to issues of desegre-gation or Brown v. Board of Education in the years 1952through 1956.

In summary, following the 1954 Supreme Court de-cision, there was apparently no formal or official recogni-tion from APA for any of the psychologists participating inBrown. There were no commendations from the APAboard or APA council, no letters of congratulation orcommendation from the office of the APA executive sec-retary. There was no official recognition of the work of thepsychologists at subsequent APA meetings other thanthrough the programs organized by SPSSI, and those do notappear to have been celebratory. There was no coverage ofthe subject in the American Psychologist, not even in the“Across the Secretary’s Desk” column where such cover-age would have been quite appropriate. Nor was there anycoverage of Brown in the American Psychologist in theseveral articles on, for example, psychologists as expertwitnesses, where not only would mention of the decisionseem quite appropriate but its exclusion seems calculated.Only Robert Perloff’s brief comment (Perloff, 1955) in thejournal in 1955 made any mention of the court case in theyears 1954 through 1956. How could it be that APAignored such a visible accomplishment? Is it possible thatthe involvement of psychology in such a controversial casewas not viewed as an accomplishment in 1954? Was racisma factor?

Why the Lack of Response FromAPA?It is easy to slip into a presentist interpretation of the eventsof 1954 or what Butterfield (1931) called “Whig history,”that is, an interpretation of the past in the context of thevalues, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of the present. Werepsychological research to be cited in a Supreme Courtdecision today—especially one of the magnitude of Brownv. Board of Education—one can imagine a flurry of activ-ity from APA that would include press releases, specialsymposia and celebratory events at the annual convention,


and citations from the APA president for the individualswhose research was cited or who worked on the court case.In short, there would be incredible fanfare over whatKlineberg (1986) described (with reference to the mentionof psychology in the Brown decision) as “ the greatestcompliment ever paid to psychology by the powers-that-bein our own or any other country” (p. 54). Yet America isvery different today, psychologists are different, and APA,too, is a very different organization. In discussing thepossible reasons for a lack of response from APA to theBrown decision, we have sought to understand APA andpsychology in the 1950s in terms of the perception of thesignificance of the court case, psychologists’ beliefs aboutrace, APA’s position on issuance of public resolutions, theperception of SPSSI as a leftist organization, and the con-troversy over the scientific evidence presented in the de-segregation trials.

The Perceived Magnitude of Brown v. Boardof EducationToday, there seems little doubt about the significance of the1954 Court decision as a defining event in American his-tory. Editors at Oxford University Press have labeled it assuch by making a book on Brown the initial title in a newseries of books called “Pivotal Moments in American His-tory” (see Patterson, 2001). Legal scholar Michael Klarman(1994) has written, “Constitutional lawyers and historiansgenerally deem Brown v. Board of Education to be themost important United States Supreme Court decision ofthe twentieth century, and possibly of all time” (p. 81).Still, there is debate today about its role in the history ofcivil rights and racial equality in the second half of the 20thcentury and, of greater importance to our questions, abouthow important the decision was perceived to be when itwas rendered in 1954.

Was the Brown decision viewed as an important de-cision in 1954? Could APA’s lack of response have beenbecause the association did not consider the decision to beof critical importance? The newspaper coverage of thedecision suggests that the press viewed it as important. Ofcourse, the issue of school desegregation was an ongoingone because the 1954 decision called for a further SupremeCourt decision on a timetable and suggested procedures forthe actual desegregation to begin. That second decision(Brown v. Board of Education, 1955, which also involveda brief prepared by Kenneth Clark and other social scien-tists recommending strongly against gradualness of deseg-regation), rendered on May 31, 1955, is usually referred toas Brown II; it ordered that the desegregation of publicschools should proceed “with all deliberate speed” (quotedin Kluger, 1975, p. 745), a wording that had been adoptedas a compromise between those who favored immediacyand those who argued for a more gradual transition. Thewording, which Tucker (1994) labeled oxymoronic, provedto favor the gradualists as many school districts in the deepSouth did not begin to comply with the law until the 1970s.

The first Brown decision had been awaited for manymonths; thus, there was much anticipation built up inAmerica’s Black community. Patterson (2001) described

how many African Americans vividly recalled their excite-ment over the news of 1954 in the way that their ancestorshad recalled the events of the day on which they heard thenews of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 EmancipationProclamation. Kluger (1975), on the other hand, describeda more subdued response from African Americans, statingthat they had witnessed the good intentions of the Ameri-can government before and were taking a wait-and-seeattitude regarding the ultimate impact of the decision. Le-gal scholars in 1954 recognized the case as one of the mostimportant of all time, and some argued that the decisionwas the most important in the history of the Court (Kluger,1975). Time magazine declared the decision to be thelandmark decision of the Court; no other decision had“directly affected so many American families” (Kluger,1975, p. 709).

Historian Ben Keppel (1995) has written, “From themoment of its announcement, the Brown decision becamea sacred and redemptive chapter in the history of Americandemocracy” (p. 115). In the 1950s, segregation in Americahad been used in Communist rhetoric to point to the hy-pocrisy of the nation. Time magazine called the Courtdecision a “ timely reassertion of the basic American prin-ciple that ‘all men are created equal’ ” (quoted in Keppel,1995, p. 116). As Keppel (1995) noted, the message thatthe decision sent abroad was “ that America was as good asits creed” (p. 116).

The comments offered here (and many more of similarvein could be included) suggest that the Brown decision’simportance was recognized by various publics in 1954.Surely, psychologists would have been as aware as anyother group of citizens of the meaning and significance ofthe Court’s decision. Moreover, APA leadership was awareof its members’ work on behalf of the plaintiffs in thevarious lower court cases and in preparation of the socialscience brief for the Supreme Court. Thus, it seems un-likely that APA’s lack of response was based on a view ofthe Court decision as being of marginal importance.

A Divided PsychologyIn 1954, racially segregated schools existed by law in 17states and the District of Columbia and were permitted in 4other states at the discretion of local school districts. Otherforms of racial segregation prevalent at the time could befound in churches, theaters, trains, buses, restaurants, hous-ing, work settings, mental institutions, prisons, restrooms,and drinking fountains. In the 1950s, racism was visible inmost American institutions, including polling booths, and itwas no less present in psychology as an integral part ofAmerican society. Graham Richards (1997) has written,“Psychology is never separate from its host culture, thepsychological concerns of which it shares, articulates, andreflects” (p. 153). Thus, for many psychologists, the Browndecision would not have been a cause for celebration, apoint that Stuart Cook (1957) recognized in writing in theAmerican Psychologist in 1957 about desegregation: “Ascitizens we may consider the Court’s rulings wise or un-wise, we may applaud or condemn specific actions taken inthe South” (p. 1, emphasis in original). Cook was willing to


concede differences of opinion as citizens, but regardless ofthose differences, he argued that as psychologists, therewas an obligation to bring the objective methods of thefield to bear on the questions dividing the country. Ofcourse, many psychologists opposed to a social actionagenda for their science would take strong issue with theclaim for such an obligation.

The division within American psychology was evi-dent in the lower court cases leading to Brown. In a 1952Virginia case (Davis v. County School Board of PrinceEdward County), the attorneys for the state of Virginia,who were aware of the psychological testimony from theearlier cases in South Carolina, Kansas, and Delaware,were determined to counteract that testimony. Theybrought in a Richmond, Virginia, child psychiatrist (Wil-liam H. Kelly) and two psychologists (John Nelson Buck,a clinical psychologist, and Henry E. Garrett, chair of thePsychology Department at Columbia University and for-merly president of APA in 1946) to testify as expert wit-nesses on behalf of the state.

Buck, who for more than 20 years had administeredpersonality tests to patients entering the state mental hos-pital in Lynchburg, Virginia, was presented as an expert onpsychological testing. He attacked the survey research ofIsidor Chein and the doll studies and interviews of Kennethand Mamie Clark as methodologically flawed and thusopen to other interpretations. Garrett, the state of Virginia’sstar witness, had been the doctoral advisor for Mamie Clarkand a member of the doctoral committees of Chein andKenneth Clark. He viewed his assignment as “ the role ofteacher whose sad duty it was to report that his pupils hadlet their good intentions get in the way of objective sci-ence. . . . [They] were pushing their own political andmoral agenda, dressed in scientific garb” (Jackson, 2000b,p. 241). In his testimony, Garrett characterized BrewsterSmith’s statements about the psychological damage of seg-regation as idealistic and lacking in common sense. Heattacked Chein’s surveys on segregation as yielding resultsthat were dictated solely by the ways the questions wereasked. He disparaged the work of the Clarks, arguing thattheir results were caused by disruptions in the schools thathad preceded the student interviews (Kluger, 1975). Refer-ring to Kenneth Clark’s days as a student at ColumbiaUniversity, Garrett said that he was “none too bright. . . . hewas about a C student, but he’d rank pretty high for aNegro” (quoted in Kluger, 1975, p. 502).

Garrett argued that “ the principle of separation ineducation . . . is long and well established in American life”(Kluger, 1975, p. 502); he supported separate schools forWhites and African Americans, he said, as long as theschools were truly equal. Indeed, Garrett advocatedstrongly for his segregationist beliefs, as described byhistorian of psychology Andrew Winston (1998): “ In the1950s Garrett helped organize an international group ofscholars [the International Association for the Advance-ment of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE)] dedicated topreventing race mixing, preserving segregation, and pro-moting the principles of early 20th century eugenics and

‘ race hygiene’ ” (p. 179). Clearly, in his court testimony,Garrett was pushing his own political agenda.

Undoubtedly, Garrett was not alone in his views onsegregation, and at least one source has suggested that hisviews might have been commonplace among Americanpsychologists in the 1950s. Richards (1997) wrote:

Within American psychology’s institutional structures, notablythe APA, the anti-racist camp had relatively little power. . . .SPSSI could be little more than a specific lobby or interest group.With figures such as Garrett and [Stanley David] Porteus remain-ing eminent and respected within the APA, there was little hopeof engineering any unambiguous, formal anti-racist commitmentfrom the organisation on behalf of U.S. Psychology as a whole.(p. 254)

Although the antiracist group in psychology may havehad little political power, its membership likely exceededRichards’ (1997) claim of “camp” size. Samelson (1978),in an article on the history of the psychology of race,documented the rather dramatic change of American psy-chological opinion from studies of the so-called race prob-lem at the beginning of the 20th century to studies ofprejudice by the 1930s. He noted that the Great Depressiongave “many psychologists a powerful push toward the left”(Samelson, 1978, p. 273). Supporting Samelson’s claim aretwo surveys: The first was of psychologist opinions takenfrom members attending the 1939 APA meeting andshowed their responses to be “ liberal, progressive, demo-cratic” (Gundlach, 1940, p. 620), and the second was asurvey of social psychologists (and other social scientists)that showed 90% believed that “segregation has detrimen-tal psychological effects on members of racial and religiousgroups which are segregated, even if equal facilities areprovided” (Deutscher & Chein, 1948, p. 261). It was thislatter survey that Chein had presented in his Virginia courttestimony and that Garrett had attacked based on the word-ing of the questions. In actuality, the questionnaire was asound one, and the Deutscher and Chein (1948) survey wasone of the studies the Supreme Court chose to list infootnote 11 of the Brown decision.

The experiences of World War II and Adolf Hitler’svision of a master race also made many Americans, psy-chologists included, reexamine their views on race. Madeaware of the fact that African American members of APAwere being discriminated against in convention hotels,APA’s Council of Representatives adopted a policy in 1950of not meeting at any hotels or other venues where minoritymembers would face discrimination. That policy led to thecancellation of a planned meeting in Miami Beach, Florida,in 1957 when it was determined that some hotels andrestaurants would not accommodate Black psychologists.The meeting was moved to New York City instead (Smith,1992). Still, although both psychology and racial attitudesin America were undergoing change in the 1950s, racialquestions continued to divide psychology’s house. Such adivision made it difficult for APA to speak on political andsocial issues without offending many members. (Note thata 1954 survey of “social attitudes of leading psycholo-gists,” avoided race altogether, focusing instead on atti-


tudes about divorce, the death penalty, euthanasia, andreligion; Keehn, 1955, p. 208.)

APA and Public Statements

Today, APA issues occasional resolutions that address so-cial and political issues. These resolutions are approved bythe Council of Representatives, APA’s policy-makingbody. When the resolutions are approved by council, theyare usually accompanied by a plan of dissemination. In itshistory of making such public statements by means of theseresolutions, APA has typically come under attack each timefrom at least some members who resign because of theresolution or threaten to do so if APA will not ceasemaking such pronouncements. The varied concerns ofthese members include failing to put the issue to the vote ofthe entire membership, making claims that may not be wellsupported by psychological science, or just venturing intopolitical domains where the aggrieved members believeAPA has no business being.

Psychologists’ aversions to political or social pro-nouncements have a long history in American psychology,grounded in part in the belief that science and applicationare separate activities and in the long-standing prejudicesheld against applied work. These forces were part of whatstimulated the founding of SPSSI in the 1930s.

In the midst of the Depression and a host of social illsthat had become more evident during America’s economiccrisis, a group of psychologists had the apparently radicalidea of using psychology to solve some of the problemsfacing society. In 1936, they founded SPSSI to promotesuch social action. Whereas 333 of APA’s nearly 2,000members joined the new organization in its initial year,there were many other APA members who worried aboutits intent. George H. Estabrooks, a psychologist at ColgateUniversity, wrote to Isadore Krechevsky (David Krech),expressing a complaint that was echoed by other psychol-ogists who responded to Krech’s invitation to join the newsociety:

With regard to your mimeographed sheets concerning the partic-ipation of psychologists in the contemporary political world,allow me to register my hearty dissent with approximately every-thing contained therein. If psychologists, as individuals, wish tomake themselves politically vocal on any topic—white, red, orpink—it seems to me that is wholly up to them. . . . If any groupof us wish to organize as a “Committee for the Propagation ofMild Pinkism” , for goodness sakes let us organize ourselves assuch and not in camouflage under the protecting skirts of theAmerican Psychological Association. (Estabrooks, 1936, p. 1)

SPSSI, which joined a reorganized APA in 1945 as Divi-sion 9, was founded in part to use psychological science toaddress social and political issues. In the 1930s, SPSSI hadissued policy statements as a scientific organization, but thesociety evidently changed its policy in the 1940s and 1950s(Jackson, 1998). Perhaps the change came because of itsofficial ties to APA.

APA was reluctant to pursue such pronouncements asa regular part of its agenda, but it did approve and distributeoccasional resolutions such as one in the 1920s on psycho-

logical testing and several in the 1930s on academic free-dom. According to Richards (1997), within APA in the1950s, “a policy of explicit avoidance of political issueswas adopted and adhered to” (p. 254). However, no formalstatement of such a policy could be found in the (incom-plete) records of the APA Council of Representatives orBoard of Directors. Evidence of this policy does exist inseveral letters in the APA Archives and other sources, forexample, a letter from Roger Russell (APA’s executivesecretary, who succeeded Sanford in 1956) to Stuart Cookconcerning requests for comments on a magazine article(McGurk, 1956) asserting the intellectual inferiority ofAfrican Americans: “We were approached by the Associ-ated Press but in line with APA policy referred them toexperts on matters of this kind, including yourself” (Rus-sell, 1956).

Yet APA did take some political stands. In 1949, inthe midst of McCarthyism, APA’s Board of Directors senta letter to President Harry Truman arguing that loyaltyinvestigations should be made fairer by allowing accusedpersons knowledge of the charges and evidence againstthem (Wolfle, 1949). In that same year, APA founded acommittee—the Committee of the Association on Aca-demic Freedom and Civil Liberties—to deal with com-plaints about violations of academic freedom. Perhapssomeone thought the committee name was too broad or toocontroversial. For unknown reasons, it was changed in1951 to the Committee on Academic Freedom and Condi-tions of Employment, the committee that Kenneth Clarkexpressed interest in joining in 1954 (Smith, 1992). More-over, APA approved resolutions in the 1950s, for example,notifying California Governor Earl Warren in 1950 thatbecause of the loyalty oath required by the state, APA wasencouraging its members not to accept teaching or researchpositions there until conditions of academic freedom im-proved (Sargent & Harris, 1986). That resolution broughtobjections from the membership, who wondered, “By whatstatistical formula does a sample of 10 (Board of Directors)represent a population of 8,500 (APA membership)” (Sell,1951, p. 179)?

In 1952, APA wrote to the New York Convention andVisitors Bureau that because of the McCarran-Walter Act(which continued restrictions on immigration to the UnitedStates on the basis of country of origin), the associationwould not invite the International Congress of Psychologyto meet in New York City in 1954 (Sanford, 1952). More-over, in 1953, the APA Board of Directors passed a reso-lution opposed to “ legislation restricting to any one profes-sion the application of psychological techniques andknowledge” (Sanford, 1953b, p. 208).

In summary, it is difficult to argue that APA’s lack ofresponse to Brown was due to a policy of no officialresponses on political matters. Such a policy may havebeen in the official rules that governed APA operations, orthe policy may have been only an unwritten, informal one.Clearly, APA endorsed resolutions in the 1950s. Did theorganization do so inconsistently? It can be argued that theresolutions that were passed dealt principally with issues ofacademic freedom, freedom of scientific interchange, and


the rights of psychologists in professional practice. APAdid not respond officially to the claims in the 1950s aboutinferiority of intelligence in Blacks even when asked to doso. Perhaps APA avoided comment in the belief that theissue was political or social rather than scientific. Theinferiority claims being made, however, were based onallegedly scientific evidence. It seems likely the topic wasavoided largely because of its controversial nature. If so,then APA would have wanted to avoid noting psychology’sinvolvement in Brown v. Board of Education as well.Moreover, if the left-leaning SPSSI was reluctant to issueofficial resolutions on issues such as race, it is not surpris-ing that APA would show a similar reluctance.

SPSSI as a “Communist-Inspired”Organization

We have already indicated that when SPSSI was formed,there were psychologists who refused to join because theyviewed the new society as pink, that is, as having Com-munist leanings or a Communist-inspired agenda (see theEstabrooks [1936] letter quoted earlier). In the SPSSI Pa-pers at the University of Akron, there are several otherletters expressing this concern. One of SPSSI’s founders,Ross Stagner (1986), acknowledged that the initial mem-bership of the society included “Norman Thomas social-ists[,] some sympathizers with the Communist party, somedisciples of Leon Trotsky” (p. 38). Also, as Ben Harris(1980) has reported, the FBI established a file on SPSSI inthe 1930s because of its perceived leftist agenda. AndrewWinston (personal communication, March 4, 2001), in not-ing the juxtaposition of McCarthyism and the work ofpsychologists on the Brown cases, has suggested that be-cause the psychologists who were involved in battlingsegregation were prominent in SPSSI, “ the whole enter-prise was viewed by some psychologists as politicallysuspect.” Thus, APA’s silence on the issues of Brown mayhave had to do with fears about the possible fallout fromsupporting the activities of what was perceived as a leftistorganization or perhaps with the belief of some (many?)psychologists that desegregation efforts were Communistinspired.

Evaluations of the Scientific Evidence

The social science evidence presented in the lower courttrials and included in the “Appendix to Appellants’ Briefs”(1975) filed with the suit by the NAACP was attacked fromits very beginnings. The inconsistencies in the Clarks’ dollstudies were particularly criticized by attorneys testifyingfor the defendants at the lower courts and before the Su-preme Court (Newby, 1969; Tucker, 1994). Members ofthe Supreme Court shared some of the concerns about thestatus of psychology as an objective science. In a memo-randum to his fellow justices dated three months before theBrown decision, Justice Robert Jackson wrote:

I do not think we should import into the concept of equal protec-tion of the law these elusive psychological and subjective factors.They are not determinable with satisfactory objectivity or mea-surable with reasonable certainty. If we adhere to objective cri-

teria the judicial process will still be capricious enough. (quotedin Kluger, 1975, p. 689)

After the Court’s decision was announced, RaymondMoley was one of scores of writers to denigrate psychologyas a science. In his column in Newsweek magazine, henoted, “The assumption by the court that these psycholog-ical writings constitute firm and lasting facts determined byscientific methods is nonsense” (Moley, 1956, p. 104).

Many opponents of the Brown decision criticized thepsychologists for acting as social reformers and not asdispassionate scientists (see Jackson, 1998, for a refutationof these charges). Garrett, in particular, had opened thedoor to attacks on the social science cited in Brown, andthere was no shortage of such published accounts, partic-ularly criticizing the doll studies of the Clarks that hadactually begun as Mamie Clark’s master’s thesis research(see Clark, 1986a; Guthrie, 1990) at Howard University inthe late 1930s (see Jackson, 2000b, for an excellent treat-ment of these arguments).

The decision started a new debate over race differ-ences in intelligence (Guthrie, 1998), for example, an arti-cle by Villanova University psychologist and foundingmember of IAAEE Frank McGurk (1956), in the thenprosegregationist magazine U.S. News & World Report,that asserted the intellectual inferiority of African Ameri-cans and their limited capacity for education. This articleelicited many published replies, both pro and con, withrespect to McGurk’s data and his interpretations, but noneof the replies carried an APA endorsement.

Perhaps the attacks on the specific sources cited infootnote 11 of Brown made APA reluctant to respond as anorganization in defense of psychology. Instead, the strategywas to identify psychologists who seemed best suited asexperts to respond and to ask them to write something forpublication.

Summary and ConclusionWe began this article by arguing that the inclusion ofcitations to psychological publications and commentsabout psychological research in the Brown v. Board ofEducation Supreme Court decision of 1954 represented oneof American psychology’s greatest triumphs, arguably itsgreatest. That outcome was the result of individual psy-chologists working with the NAACP with the support ofSPSSI. It was never an APA action.

We have described APA’s response to the Browndecision and the psychologists involved or, more accu-rately, APA’s lack of response. Finally, we have offeredsome explanations for why no official recognition wasforthcoming.

In the years that followed the Court’s decision, Afri-can American psychologists pressed APA for actions im-portant to minority psychologists such as better trainingopportunities for minority graduate students, more involve-ment of minority psychologists on the boards and commit-tees of APA, hiring of minority staffers to work in the APAcentral office, and greater attention to issues of concern forminority psychologists. When it was clear that APA would


not provide the needed support, 200 Black psychologistsmet at the 1968 annual APA convention in San Francisco.By the end of that meeting, they had founded the Associ-ation of Black Psychologists, or ABPsi, as it came to beknown (Guthrie, 1998).

The rise of the American civil rights movement in the1960s gave new attention to Kenneth Clark’s work. He hadserved as president of SPSSI in 1960. A new edition of hisbook (Clark, 1963) on raising children without prejudiceappeared in 1963, and his Dark Ghetto (Clark, 1965) waspublished in 1965. The following year, he edited a bookwith Talcott Parsons entitled The Negro American, forwhich President Lyndon Johnson wrote a foreword (Clark& Parsons, 1966). These publications, plus his advocacy inthe 1950s and 1960s and his prominent role in Brown,“ launched him on a path that would culminate in hisbecoming the ‘ reigning academic’ of the civil rights move-ment” (Keppel, 1995, p. 128).

In 1970, Kenneth Clark served as president of APA,the first ethnic minority psychologist to hold that positionand the only African American to have held it to date. ForAPA, part of the legacy of his presidency was the estab-lishment in 1971 of the Board of Social and Ethical Re-sponsibility for Psychology (BSERP), which gave socialand ethical concerns a major position for advocacy withinAPA (see Pickren & Tomes, 2002, this issue). Eventually,BSERP had oversight for APA’s offices of women’s pro-grams, ethnic minority affairs, and ethics.

In 1994, at the 102nd annual meeting of APA andexactly 40 years after the Brown decision, Clark was pre-sented with the APA Award for Outstanding LifetimeContribution to Psychology. He was only the sixth psy-chologist to receive that prestigious award. The citationread in part:

Your contributions to the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board ofEducation were instrumental in having the Court find that racialsegregation in the schools is psychologically damaging to chil-dren and, therefore, unconstitutional. Your contributions alsomarked the first time the Supreme Court considered social scienceresearch in its deliberations, blazing the trail for future contribu-tions and further social action. . . . (quoted by Judy A. Strass-burger, personal communication, September 1, 1999)

Kenneth Clark’s life has been one of scientific advo-cacy on racial issues, especially prejudice and discrimina-tion (see Keppel, 1995; Phillips, 2000, for descriptions ofthat work). Although he has written several books that havecontributed importantly to the debates on civil rights and toan understanding of the Black experience in America, he isclearly best known—as Richard Kluger (1975) has namedhim—as “ the doll man” for his pivotal role in Brown v.Board of Education. It was the defining moment of his life.The elation of that moment in 1954 eventually gave way todespair over the lack of progress in the subsequent decades.Thirty years later, a year after the death of his wife, Clark(1986a), speaking at a conference reflecting on the fate ofthe Brown decision, said:

Thirty years after Brown, I must accept the fact that my wife leftthis earth despondent at seeing that damage to children is being

knowingly and silently accepted by a nation that claims to bedemocratic. Thirty years after Brown, I feel a sense of hopeless-ness, rather than optimism, because the underlying theme ofPlessy and the explicit statements of Dred Scott persist. Themajority of Americans still believe in and vote on the assumptionthat Blacks are not worthy of the respect, and the acceptance oftheir humanity, which our democracy provides to others. (p. 21)

It is a sad fact that the legal decisions on race set in motionby Brown v. Board of Education did not bring about theequality dreamed of by many ethnic minorities (see Kep-pel, 2002, this issue). Yet, as a scientist, Kenneth Clark didhis part to advance toward that hoped-for equality. In doingso, he has enjoyed a moment that few people will everexperience—the knowledge that his and Mamie’s psycho-logical research and work with the NAACP helped tochange the course of American history.

There has been much debate among historians andother scholars in the past 30 years regarding the legacy ofthe Brown decision in affecting racial equality in America.Some have argued that the desegregation of the 1950s and1960s was already underway before the Court decision andwould have progressed better without the bitterness andbacklash aroused by the federal mandate (Klarman, 1994).Others have acknowledged that, although the Court was notable to legislate social change with the Brown decision, theclear legal declaration against segregated schools was thewatershed event stimulating the eventual collapse of manyforms of discrimination (Patterson, 2001). That the task hasyet to be completed almost 50 years later is still “ thesobering meaning of the hour” (Gallagher, 1954, p. 1).

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Brown v. Board - Bruce Makoto Arnold - Cultural Historian

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