THE EXPERT WITNESS IN UNITARY HEARINGS: THE SIX GREEN FACTORS AND SPATIAL-DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

Brown v. Board of Education was conceived in a time of judicial activism and a demographic context that reflected two nations, one white and one black. Forty years after Brown, the legal climate and the demographic composition of the United States are quite different. The 1990s are judicially conservative and the cities in particular are more diverse demographically. The intersection of a restrained court and fundamental demographic shifts has changed the agenda and raised issues of how to proceed toward the continuing objective of societal integration. Recent court decisions about unitary status and the return to local control have directed attention to the clash between spatial demographic change and legal intervention. Geography and demography have modified the effect of Brown and the potential for future judicial intervention in school systems. Whatever our ideological perspective, the intersection of geography and demography, and individual responses to legal action, clearly have limited the possibilities of change through legal intervention.