Mississippi’s education system is deeply divided by race: the state’s best schools are majority white, while all 19 of the F-graded public school districts are over 80 percent black. But that may soon change — any day now, a federal judge could move forward on a lawsuit arguing that the racial and resource discrepancies across those districts is illegal.The suit, brought against state officials by the Southern Poverty Law Center, takes the surprising strategy of using a 147-year-old federal law. The idea is that this level of segregation is no recent coincidence — it’s a product of entrenched, historical racism.When Mississippi rejoined the Union after the Civil War, the federal government required the state agree to a new constitution in the Readmission Act of 1890. It included an educational clause explicitly providing for a “uniform system of public schools” for all Mississippi citizens. Over decades, Mississippi lawmakers have whittled down the education provision, and, the SPLC argues, loosened their obligations to students , resulting in the decades-long neglect of poor, predominantly black schools.VICE News’ Antonia Hylton spent a day with students who are fighting to get the best possible education in one of the state’s lowest-rated schools.This segment originally aired on November 2, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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A Civil War-era law could help change Mississippi’s segregated school system
The SPLC is using the Reconstruction era 1870 Readmission Act to challenge a system they say has denied the state's black citizens equal access to a good education.