Keyes-v.-School-District-no-1:: School integration, from 'racial balance' to equality of opportunity in 'voluntary segregation', 1969-1995

By examining the implementation of the Supreme Court decision Keyes v School District no 1 (1973) in the Denver school district, this article aims at highlighting how the concept of integration has been defined and redefined over the last thirty years. It also aims at underlining the notable 'shift in meaning' this concept has undergone in the 1990s. As a matter of fact, integration has been successively defined as 'racial balance', 'equal opportunities', equality in school performance', and finally 'equality of performance in a separate environment', i.e., 'separate but equal'. This doctrine dates back to the end of the nineteenth century with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896. Thus, the coming back of such a doctrine a hundred years later epitomizes the failure of a color-blind society and the persistence of racism, with multi-culturalism in school programs being the seemingly positive side of the coin.