Law, race, and education in the United States

After describing many of the features that structure educational opportunity, and how race interacts with these structures, we briefly relate a set of important orienting perspectives on the law-race relation. We divide issues of education into three categories: (a) inherently racialized aspects of law and education; (b) aspects of education that intersect race and the law; and (c) emerging issues in race, education, and the law. Treating desegregation, affirmative action, special education, gifted and talented education, tracking, high-stakes accountability, school finance, bilingual education, and legacy admissions, we identify key cases and controversies while critically evaluating relevant social science research. We close with a discussion of the law-race relation as revealed through its operation in the field of education.