Impact of Brown vs Board of Education

Racial Equality

Like other forms of discrimination and bigotry in the United States, racism has thankfully started to tail off and reduce over the years and generations. However, this is happening at a pace that is frustratingly slow and plodding. Court decisions and new laws passed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries have led to more inclusion and less institutional racism and other bigotry. However, de facto racism and other forms of bigotry still remain present and problematic. This report shall cover a lot of the facets of all of this including how Brown vs. Board of Education changed things, what President Kennedy perhaps should have done at the time of his Presidency to address racism head-on and more adeptly, examples of how things have gotten better, stayed the same or gotten worse, detailed reasons why it is important to keep a keen eye on society and what is going on in the same when it comes to race, six differences between organizational types, the effect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on today\'s society and a few other important topics. While laws and court decisions have done a lot, a culture shift of great magnitude will be required to truly put American society on the course it needs to be on and that shift will involve work from all corners of the country.

Analysis

Brown vs. Board of Education is the Supreme Court of the United States decision that truly called \"separate but equal\" what it truly is and that is government-sanctioned racism. Indeed, separate schools for blacks and whites were encouraged and active even after the abolition of slavery and throughout the Jim Crow days. This continued on and until the Supreme Court had their say in the Brown decision. However, there was not an immediate \"night and day\" difference when that decision came down. First, the order came from the Brown case but it did not take effect right away. Indeed, it took a while for the schools to abide by the ruling and some jurisdictions (mostly in the south) did so only under coercion and fear of prosecution. Further, even if segregation is not supposedly sanctioned or allowed by the United States government and its laws, it still happens all of the time in neighborhoods, schools and businesses around the country. While a lot of that can be attributed to socioeconomic factors, there is still a wealth of information that suggests (or proves, according to whom one asks) that race relations and the equal status of all races is not nearly as close on the horizon of history as it could or should be given that half a century has passed since the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960\'s and more than one and a half centuries has passed since the abolition of slavery (Gale, 2016).

Indeed, Loden and Rosener explained in a book chapter they wrote that diversity is not a panacea to all. Just a few of the lagging and stubborn presumptions about differences and lack of commonality with all people leads to a couple of destructive and ill-minded presumptions. These include that otherness is a source of deficiency, that diversity poses a threat (rather than being an asset) to the effective operations of an organization, that problems with the dominant culture being spoken out loud is over-sensitivity, that members of all diverse groups want to and should become like the dominant group in power, that equal treatment means same treatment and that managing diversity just requires the changing of certain people rather than the organizational culture as a whole. The authors go on to state that otherness being seen as a source of weakness or lack of superiority is clearly specious. However, it happens to be an idea that is pervasive even if it is not uttered out loud at all times (Loden & Rosener, 1991).

As far as what Kennedy could have done (or done better) given what was going on in his time and before his assassination, he actually did quite well in light of what he was up against in terms of racist sentiment and such. Even so, there are perhaps a few things he could have done better or in addition. These would include tying racial harmony with better business and job opportunities for all, less need for public assistance and poverty relief if everyone has a fair shake, a stronger case for women in the workplace and truly making sure that the Constitution was enforced as written rather than there having to be a consistent patchwork of amendments and other changes to entrench the idea that all people are created equal. Indeed, it was clear that this was not the real belief of at least some people (and certainly the dominant people of that day) when it came to blacks and women, at the very least (PBS, 2016).

Things that have gotten better over the years would be rights for minorities (African-Americans in particular), more proportional representation at colleges, more proportional representation in the workplace and more presence in the media sphere. Things that are perhaps roughly the same is the presence of racism with the dominant groups (white males in particular), the presence of infighting within racial minority groups, the overall presence of segregation in all parts of society even if it is not legally sanctioned anymore and the overall economic achievement of a good majority of racial minorities despite ostensible equal (or at least better) access over the years. Things that have gotten worse are overall trust for the police, overall trust in the handling of criminals, trust in how people in poverty (racial minorities in particular), feelings about refugees and feelings about undocumented immigrants. When it comes to the last category, three recommendations that should be employed and looked at include comprehensive immigration reform, effective handling of refugees (with a lot of focus needing to be put on those from the Middle East) and an educational program that deals with both of the prior ones while not forcing people to assimilate and be the \"same\" as everyone in the dominant culture. Also, a lot of the groups above tend to intersect. For example, a rising share of the black population in the United States are people that are not born in the United States (Pew, 2015).

Five reasons why focusing on the trends and changes in organizations is important and should be conducted include that change in organizations and businesses can only be effected from the inside out, change must be based on business and organizational dynamics as they truly exist, the definition of diversity needs to be modulated and sharpened to include (or exclude) the proper people and to look at the results of major demographical shifts such as the migration of blacks to areas like Michigan and other such places in the past and the current migration of Arabs that is happening right now. When it comes to the organizations as they exist right now, there are three basic types. Those would be monolithic, pluralistic and multi-cultural. Monolithic organizations are those that are homogenous in nature and have no real interest in changing that. Plural organizations are those that have a good amount of diversity and are at least trying to get everyone involved even if they have uneven success in doing so. A multi-cultural organization is one that is able to attract a disparate group of diverse individuals and is effective in its implementation of the same (Stahl, Bjorkman & Morris, 2012).

As far as how the demographic shifts across the United States and broader world will change the paradigm when it comes to the workplace and the associated work environment, there will very much be a baptism by fire for a lot of people. Even those that are not inclined to embrace and work with diversity as a mindset will find themselves being forced to change their tune. The current wave of Middle East immigrants and refugees, just to name one group, is going to be a game-changer. While it is no mystery that many people in the Middle East are very anti-American (some say that this is with good reason), there are plenty of others that come to this country to experience the \"American dream\" and those same people do not condone or associate with those that would support terrorism or any lesser level of anti-American hatred. However, 9/11 is still fresh in the minds of many people and this will not change for some time to come. The Arab/Jew dynamic is also something that will flare up (and has in the past) in this country. There are many other examples that one could use. However, this would seem to be the prominent one to look at beyond the plight of more entrenched groups like African-Americans and Latinos. In addition to Arabs, Latinos and African-Americans, women are still actually still playing catchup when it compares to men that have historically forced women to subjugate themselves over the course of most American history, at least in general. When it comes to all of these groups and situations, it has come to be that a culture change in concert with legal changes are all required. Indeed, Europe is already learning this lesson at a frenetic pace (BBC, 2016).

As far as the legal changes go, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was very much a game-changer when it came to the liberty and rights of minorities. While the law can only go so far, the Civil Rights Act was effective and necessary in that it laid down the gauntlet when it came to racism. Up to that point, the laws and rules about racial discrimination were ambiguous at worst and implied at best. The Civil Rights Act changed all that in that it made it abundantly clear that discrimination based on race, gender, etc. was all illegal and would not be tolerated. The effects that this has had in the half century would include better opportunities for African-Americans, better opportunities for women, better chances for religious minorities, legal remedies for those being discriminated against and a clear basis that lower courts could use to demand that racism and sexism, among the other things covered, will not be tolerated. Indeed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the most quintessential examples of racist or incomplete state laws being quashed. In a similar, albeit lesser, way, affirmative action programs have inserted people of color and minority status into positions that they would not have gotten on their own accord and thus this allowed the system to become more integrated by legal mandate (History, 2016).