Rose-Colored Views of an All-Black School

That put black strivers who happened to have darker skin at a distinct disadvantage. Had he been around in those days, that category would have included Thomas.

This is especially ironic because, according to "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas," Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher's recent biography of the justice, color divisions within the black community have tormented him for most of his life. Perceived slights by the light-skinned black elite in his home town helped drive his opposition to affirmative action, which he considers something of a spoils system for this group.

All the romantic reverie about the good old days comes to a crashing halt when you bring it back to Dunbar's current challenges. While the old Dunbar was an exception to the rule, today's school looks much more like the educational reality in the rest of black America. About 98 percent of its students are black. It has a well-regarded pre-engineering program, and last year, its students earned $1.5 million in college scholarships. But the school still faces tough obstacles. Slightly more than half its students come from low-income families. Just 29 percent scored as proficient or better in reading; in math, the figure was 27 percent. The last school year saw 27 violent incidents on the school grounds.

"Dunbar has everything," said Joseph Murray, who taught at the high school for 20 years before retiring in 2003. "High achievers, average students and some students who don't want to do anything." It also has its share of social problems outside its doors, including one he noticed a lot over the years: drugs.

This is the reality of education for black children in the 21st century: high levels of achievement, dubious statistics and social problems never faced before. And then there's the constant: segregation. In the end, the shame of it all is that the debate about black children and education is still a racial issue, more than 50 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Thomas is correct: African American children can perform well in racially isolated environments. They have done so before Brown and after Brown. But what does the Dunbar example mean today, when highly qualified black faculty and black middle-class students have so many other options?

It is great for us to bask in the glory of the past. But Thomas and others in the black community who like to romanticize that past must take a long hard look at all of Dunbar's lengthy record -- not just the sunny parts. Only then can we ask ourselves whether policies that tolerate extreme segregation do black children any good.

bgilmore@law.howard.edu

Brian Gilmore teaches at the Clinical Law Center at Howard University.