The Charlotte lawsuit raises new doubts about the future of school integration in the United States at a time when national studies show that schools are starting to resegregate.

ECONOMIST: Integration (1)

Forty years ago, progressives were sure that court-ordered busing of school children to achieve racial integration represented a great victory over bigotry and oppression.

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Van Zyl had the pedigree and the guts: She led the integration of Pretoria High School for Girls, the first all-white school in the region to accept black students as the veil of apartheid lifted.

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School busing for integration became widespread in the 1970s after years of unsuccessful challenges to the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision, Brown v Board of Education, which ruled that separate and unequal school systems were unconstitutional.

ECONOMIST: Integration (1)

When there are more applicants than spaces available, and when a school is not considered "racially balanced, " race is one of several "integration tiebreakers" used to achieve diversity.

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