This special issue commemorates and reassesses the educational effects of the Brown decision. The articles are grounded in theories and methods of several disciplines, including law, philosophy, economics, political science, sociology, and public policy. The researchers examine the way the Court frames racial inequality and whether the proposed remedy is consistent with the institutional and legal context at the time of the ruling. In addressing these questions, the authors pay particular attention to the nature of the constitutional argument, use of social evidence in shaping judicial decisions, the political economy of policy development and implementation in addressing racial desegregation, and the ongoing challenge of ensuring equality of schooling opportunity for the increasingly diverse student population.

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“To be up all night in the darkness of your youth but to be ready for the day to come…that was what going to Brown felt like.” —Jeffrey Eugenides In celebration of Brown University’s 250th anniversary, fifty remarkable, prizewinning writers and artists who went to Brown provide unique stories—many published for the first time—about their adventures on College Hill. Funny, poignant, subversive, and nostalgic, the essays, comics, and poems in this collection paint a vivid picture of college life, from the 1950s to the present, at one of America’s most interesting universities. Contributors: Donald Antrim, Robert Arellano, M. Charles Bakst, Amy DuBois Barnett, Lisa Birnbach, Kate Bornstein, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Mary Caponegro, Susan Cheever, Brian Christian, Pamela Constable, Nicole Cooley, Dana Cowin, Spencer R. Crew, Edwidge Danticat, Dilip D’Souza, David Ebershoff, Jeffrey Eugenides, Richard Foreman, Amity Gaige, Robin Green, Andrew Sean Greer, Christina Haag, Joan Hilty, A.J. Jacobs, Sean Kelly, David Klinghoffer, Jincy Willett Kornhauser, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, David Levithan, Mara Liasson, Lois Lowry, Ira C. Magaziner, Madeline Miller, Christine Montross, Rick Moody, Jonathan Mooney, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Dawn Raffel, Bill Reynolds, Marilynne Robinson, Sarah Ruhl, Ariel Sabar, Joanna Scott, Jeff Shesol, David Shields, Krista Tippett, Alfred Uhry, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Meg Wolitzer “At Brown, we felt safely ensconced in a carefree, counterculture cocoon—free to criticize the university president, join a strike by cafeteria workers, break china laughing, or kiss the sky.” —Pamela Constable

The Great Virginia Raid is the story of John Brown’s attempt to seize the United States arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, and free the slaves living in the vicinity. Ten of Brown’s men were killed, Brown himself was arrested, put on trial, found guilty, and was executed. The events occupied a pivotal point in the history of the United States when slavery was readily acceptable by the South. Slavery was about to be overthrown, and the study of John Brown’s actions was classic. In this new book about John Brown, much emphasis was placed upon contemporary newspaper accounts and material obtained from various historical societies and museums.

In this expansive history of South Carolina's commemoration of the Civil War era, Thomas J. Brown uses the lens of place to examine the ways that landmarks of Confederate memory have helped white southerners negotiate their shifting political, social, and economic positions. By looking at prominent sites such as Fort Sumter, Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery, and the South Carolina statehouse, Brown reveals a dynamic pattern of contestation and change. He highlights transformations of gender norms and establishes a fresh perspective on race in Civil War remembrance by emphasizing the fluidity of racial identity within the politics of white supremacy. Despite the conservative ideology that connects these sites, Brown argues that the Confederate canon of memory has adapted to address varied challenges of modernity from the war's end to the present, when enthusiasts turn to fantasy to renew a faded myth while children of the civil rights era look for a usable Confederate past. In surveying a rich, controversial, and sometimes even comical cultural landscape, Brown illuminates the workings of collective memory sustained by engagement with the particularity of place.