School Desegregation: Legal Realism, Reasoned Elaboration, and Social Science Research in the Supreme Court

Chapter 5: Social Science Research in Educational Equity Cases: A Critical Review

“…Yudof (1978) finds the Supreme Court's holding that the scope of the remedy should not exceed the scope of the violation to be in direct contradiction to earlier decisions (e.g. Swann) in which no attempt was made to adhere to this principle.…”

“…John (1975), and Wolf (1972Wolf ( , 1976 would have us believe, and as many legal scholars (Goodman, 1972;Yudof, 1973Yudof, ,1978 and judges seem to believe. It does not seem unwarranted to conclude that if social scientists such as Cohen, Lockheed andLohman (1976), DeVries, Edwards andWells (1974) and Slavin (1977Slavin ( , 1979 can obtain significant, sometimes spectacular, results in laboratory and field experiments by transforming the competitive, individualistic classroom into cooperative teams and by placing low-status students in the role of instructor, it is not the principle of integration which is faulty, but its application.…”

“…Indeed, most commentators believe that the most useful role social science can play is during the remedy stage because the courts are not equipped to draw up a desegregation plan sensitive to educational issues and policy questions (Doyle, 1977;Levin & Moise, 1975;Wisdom, 1975;Yudof, 1973Yudof, , 1978.…”

“…Many legal scholars argue that the result of this convoluted logic is a growing disrespect for the law (Fiss, 1975;Yudof, 1978). Two solutions to this problem come to mind.…”

“…Many legal observers (Taylor, 1978;Yudof, 1978) feel that the 1974 Milliken decision marked the beginning of a period of retreat from the universalistic ethic. In contrast to Yudof, Taylor believes that the Court has not repudiated directly or by implication any doctrine that it had adopted before 1973 to define constitutional violations or determine remedies.…”