North Carolina schools have become segregated while the state's become more diverse

Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education ruled it unconstitutional to separate schools on the basis of race, schools in North Carolina have become segregated once again even as the state has become more racially diverse .

Why it matters: North Carolina's public schools were a model for desegregation in the 1980s and 1990s, but various court decisions and policies have led to a 21st-century reversion.

• The effects on communities are widespread, experts say, because well-integrated schools lead to beneficial academic and personal outcomes for students from all backgrounds.

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By the numbers: In North Carolina, one in four Black students and nearly one in five Hispanic students now attend "an intensely segregated school of color," defined as schools that are 90-100% nonwhite students.

• That's according to a new study from the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA in collaboration with researchers at N.C. State.
• In the late 1980s, less than 5% of Black students attended highly segregated schools, per the study.
• Within intensely segregated schools of color, in 2021 82.6% of the students were recipients of free and reduced-priced lunch, indicating a "double segregation" of students by race and poverty, per the study.

Data: Stanford Education Data Archive ; Note: Index ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 denotes no segregation (all schools have identical proportions of Black and white students) while 1 denotes complete segregation (no Black student attends a school with any white students, and vice versa); Map: Axios Visuals

The big picture: Jennifer Ayscue, an assistant professor of education at N.C. State University and one of the report's co-authors, notes three major causes of re-segregation of public schools in North Carolina:

• A shifting legal landscape, meaning many school districts, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, have been released from mandatory school desegregation plans .
• The expansion of school choice without civil rights protections, which in North Carolina means the expansion of charter schools and voucher programs .
• Residential segregation, meaning districts have student assignment policies and boundaries drawn in ways that facilitate more segregation.

Zoom out: What's happening in North Carolina mirrors a national trend. In 1988, about 7.4% of the nation's schools were intensely segregated, Axios' Russell Contreras reported , citing a UCLA analysis of federal data.

• By 2021, that number was about 20%.

What they're saying: "Unfortunately, the trend we see in North Carolina is consistent with what's going on across the nation," Ayscue tells Axios. "What we've seen historically is when school districts aren't intentional about focusing on desegregation, they tend to become more segregated."

The other side: Debbie Veney of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools said neighborhood schools and charters are not causing racial segregation, but simply serving the students who appear at their doorsteps.

• "The researchers might instead focus on why white families move from neighborhoods and pull their children out of schools when too many Black, Brown or low-income kids start showing up. When we try to integrate, they leave."

Flashback: The landmark Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education decision of 1971 mandated Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to integrate.

• The ruling found that busing was an appropriate means to achieve integration, so that's what the district began to do.
• "The peak of desegregation for Black students across the U.S. was in 1988 and we saw a lot of that progress was in the South," Ayscue says.

Between the lines: Unlike CMS, Wake County was never bound by court-ordered desegregation. The consolidation of Wake County and Raleigh City Schools in the 1970s helped integrate schools, as did busing Black children students to white schools, WUNC reported .

• But like other districts, Wake County schools have also re-segregated.
• The Wake County Board of Education has committed in recent years to voluntarily reintegrating schools through efforts like exploring equitable distribution of funds , so students across all schools have access to quality resources regardless of PTAs.

The bottom line: Segregated schools are associated with lower academic outcomes, less qualified teachers, higher teacher and student turnover, and higher dropout rates, among other harms, Ayscue says.

• Conversely, integrated schools are associated with higher academic achievement, lower dropout rates, improved critical thinking and reduction in prejudices. And long term, Ayscue adds, students tend to have better-paying jobs, lower incarceration rates and better health outcomes.