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Anne Richardson Oakes

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Desegregation In Boston: The Lens Of The Present And The Lens Of The Past, Anne Richardson Oakes Jan 2011

Desegregation In Boston: The Lens Of The Present And The Lens Of The Past, Anne Richardson Oakes

Anne Richardson Oakes

When lawyers write about the past they venture upon the territory of historians and encounter new methodological concerns. Both look to the past with the tools of their trade but the former, it is said, use the lens of the present and the latter the lens of the past. In the context of constitutional interpretation the term “law-office history” has highlighted the instrumental nature of legal sensibility but historians have never denied either the historical significance of legal doctrine or the potential of historical study to illuminate current legal problems. If, as this paper considers, the idea of the past …


From Pedagogical Sociology To Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning Of Desegregation In Social Science Research And Law, Anne Richardson Oakes Jul 2008

From Pedagogical Sociology To Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning Of Desegregation In Social Science Research And Law, Anne Richardson Oakes

Anne Richardson Oakes

In the United States following the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) federal judges with responsibility for public school desegregation but no expertise in education or schools management appointed experts from the social sciences to act as court advisors. In Boston, MA, educational sociologists helped Judge W. Arthur Garrity design a plan with educational enhancement at its heart, but the educational outcomes were marginalized by a desegregation jurisprudence conceptualized in terms of race rather than education. This paper explores the frustration of outcomes in Boston by reference to the differing conceptualizations of desegregation in law and social science. …