NEA Diversity Timeline

2003

• May 12, NEA kicked off a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education with a briefing attended by representatives from over 35 organizations, including the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Council of La Raza.
  
  In addition, Cheryl Brown Henderson, one of three daughters of Oliver Brown (one of the original litigants), and now a member of the U.S. Presidential Commission on Brown, was our keynote speaker. Henderson also serves as president of the Brown Foundation. She encouraged all organizations assembled to collaboratively commemorate this historic occasion.

• NEA filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in cases filed against the University of Michigan (Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger) that challenge the university's use of race-conscious measures in student admissions in the undergraduate and law schools. We presented the societal and educational benefits of having racially diverse classrooms. We also argued that America is not a color-blind society and race still matters—notably in public elementary and secondary secondary education—where educational opportunities are inequitably divided and stereotypes and prejudices are distorted.

  NEA cited leading Supreme Court cases including a progeny of Brown, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and 41 books and articles by leading psychologists, sociologists, academicians, and other experts.

• Participants addressed campus diversity as part of our March 2003 NEA Higher Education Conference. Our panel of experts looked at legal and legislative efforts to end, mend, and extend affirmative action in colleges and universities. They also discussed campus climates for minority students as the United States approached the 25th anniversary of Bakke and the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
  
  Civil rights rulings and legislation alone have been insufficient to overcome the culture of adverse actions against minorities by state and local governments. Recent legal cases indicate we have not come as far as we need to in response to discrimination in education.

2002

Reg Weaver became NEA's fifth ethnic minority president (Black).

1987

NEA issued ...And Justice For All, a series of reports on the education of Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander students compiled by Association study committees. These reports were the first to speak directly to the needs of minority students since the educational reform movement of the 1980s began.

1984

The 30th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education was commemorated by NEA with a report on three cities where desegregation had been successful, and where the efforts of local affiliates helped to make the difference.

1983

Mary Hatwood Futrell became NEA’s fourth ethnic minority president (Black).

1975

James Harris became NEA's third ethnic minority president (Black).

1974

NEA publicly supported the position of Chinese students in the Supreme Court case Lau v. Nichols. The Court ruled that the San Francisco school system violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by not providing English-language instruction to approximately 1,800 students of Chinese ancestry. That ruling led to the spread of bilingual education in the United States.

1972

NEA's report on dropouts/pushouts in the public schools in the South showed that alarming numbers of African American students were being suspended, expelled, and injured. NEA called on the U.S. Office of Education and civil rights groups to develop short- and long-range plans to halt these actions.

1968

• NEA's Task Force Report on Human Rights recommended that the Association accelerate efforts to encourage desegregation in the schools and that Association programs be made more relevant to minority members. NEA established a racially-balanced Human Relations Council and staff advisory committee and the Center for Human Relations (known today as the NEA Human and Civil Rights department).

• Elizabeth Duncan Koontz became NEA’s second ethnic minority president (Black).

1967

Braulio Alonso became NEA’s first ethnic minority president (Hispanic).

1966

• NEA sponsored a major Conference on Bilingual Education in Tucson, Ariz., on the needs of Spanish-speaking students. The conference called for the development of appropriate teaching and learning materials and the proper training of teachers of bilingual students. The conference included prominent politicians from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico and led directly to the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968.

• The American Teachers Association (ATA) and NEA merged in 1966 after 40 years of cooperation. Some of the most notable black educators of the nation belonged to and led the ATA.

1963

NEA and state affiliates supported the newly created Prince Edward Free School Association in Virginia, established to provide education for black and white children together, including 1,500 black students denied admission to public schools since 1959. NEA staff raised $75,000 and helped recruit teachers for the schools.

1947

NEA affiliates 18 black associations in states where laws prohibited black teachers from joining white organizations. This was the best way to give black teachers protection and rights under the existing laws. Not until the Supreme Court's 1954 rejection of the doctrine of "separate but equal" did superior legal means to deal with segregation become possible.

1937

NEA research documented evidence of discrimination between white and black schools in the South. NEA found per-pupil expenditures in white Southern schools at $44.31 per year, 250 percent more than comparable expenditures in Black schools.

1910

NEA elected its first woman president, Ella Flagg Young.

1869

NEA sought federal aid for education. One main reason: help the Southern states rebuild education and provide for education of blacks.

1866

Women are admitted to full Association membership.