Corzine hosts integration panel

In a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of New Jersey’s schools, students from high schools around the Garden State debated issues surrounding the racial integration of its public schools. The panel discussion was hosted by Gov. Jon Corzine in Richardson Auditorium yesterday.

The event commemorated New Jersey’s pioneering efforts toward racial diversity in education. In 1947, it became the first state to mandate public school integration in its state constitution.

Corzine said that Princeton was a natural place to hold the panel because of its history. When the constitutional convention outlawed segregation, Princeton’s public school system was among the most segregated.

Though many residents anticipated a rocky desegregation process, administrators managed to allay the parents’ and residents’ fears and eventually accomplished a smooth transition. Princeton hence became a model for integrating schools throughout the state. 

“We have been at the forefront, right here in New Jersey, and we have taken that further in trying to get equal education for everyone in the state,” Corzine said. Other panelists, however, noted that despite formal desegregation, housing patterns in the state have caused New Jersey’s public schools to become some of the most segregated in the country.

The effect of integration on the gap in racial achievement, the role of self-segregation in negating the effects of integration and the place of recent immigrants from Africa in the debate on racial equality featured prominently in the discussion.

Panelist and sociology professor Angel Harris maintained that integration of public schools has decreased the gap in performance between black and white students, but progress is being threatened by increased de facto segregation over the past decade. “Right now we are heading towards a disturbing trend where schools are as segregated as they were in the ’60s,” he said.

Longtime Princeton resident Shirley Satterfield, on the other hand, remarked that based on her experience, racial integration in Princeton actually increased the gap between black and white achievement. An African American who grew up in Princeton during the desegregation process, Satterfield said she was forced to compete with better-prepared white students and lacked support from black teachers who had worked in the segregated schools.

“The achievement gap in Princeton actually started when they integrated the schools. We had caring African-American teachers in our schools who worked with students to push them to succeed. We had men studying Greek and Latin. It was when we started going to integrated schools that we got discouraged,” she said.

Satterfield also chided African-American students for failing to take the opportunities offered by today’s public schools. “I notice there are all these opportunities open, but there are very few African-American students in these activities. So we struggled to get you to this point, but now you are not taking advantage of it.” 

The student panelists echoed Satterfield’s concerns over self-segregation and missed opportunities. Moriah Akrung, a junior at Princeton High School, said that though the school is “diverse” and that “everyone’s mingling,” Advanced Placement classes are “all white.”

“I am the only black person in my AP class,” she said.

Marilyn Omanaka, a student at University High School in Newark, raised the issue of recent black immigrants complicating African-American identity. “I tend to notice that the top black students tend to be immigrants. How can we encourage the black community who built America to achieve? Because just being black isn’t good enough.”