The Chicago Public Schools remain under court supervision on integration matters because of a 1980 case filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
Although Chicago was never found guilty of segregating its schools, it agreed to a number of integration measures to avoid a lengthy court battle. The latest version of the agreement mandates an integrated magnet school system available to a small proportion of the city’s students. Most pupils remain in racially isolated schools.
What was once a black-and-white issue has changed to black and brown because of the city’s changing demographics. The white student population has fallen to 8 percent while Hispanics have become the fastest-growing group in the schools. Although African-American youngsters still comprise the largest racial group in the system at almost 49 percent, Latinos are second at about 38 percent of the city’s 421,000 preschool to 12th-grade students.
