Inside Higher Ed: Is the Schoolhouse Door Open?
Forty-three years ago this month, George Wallace fulfilled his campaign promise to stand “in the schoolhouse door” to keep black students out of Alabama’s schools and colleges. Wallace made his stand in the doorway of Foster Auditorium of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.
Wallace failed to keep black students out, but whether the state’s colleges are desegregated remains an open question, even after all these years. A federal judge on Thursday ordered a new trial to take place this fall on whether the state has sufficiently removed vestiges of the segregated system. Alabama officials say that it has, and that the state no longer needs court supervision. The plaintiffs in the case — black citizens — argue that the state has failed in key ways to bring about equity in higher education.
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