Lesson Plan

A Time for Sight: The Debate over Color Blindness and Race-Consciousness in School Integration Policy

Top photo: 101st Airborne Division escorting the Little Rock Nine students into the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957.

GRADE LEVEL: High School

COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language

In light of the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, ADL offers a four-part lesson that examines the debate over school integration within the broader context of the Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 and the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, AK in 1957.

In the activities, students will reflect on their beliefs and attitudes about school integration, explore connections between past and present cases about school desegregation and integration, analyze and consider the impact of a 2007 Supreme Court decision on voluntary school integration.