AJC Celebrates 60th Anniversary of Landmark School Desegregation Decision

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May 16, 2014, 02:25 ET

NEW YORK, May 16, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the 60th anniversary of the landmark United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education, AJC celebrates the historic breakthrough in May 1954 and everlasting impact of that case and ruling.

AJC Executive Director David Harris issued the following statement:

"The 'self-evident' claim of the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' was honored more in the breach than the observance until the Supreme Court compelled the nation to honor its promise in Brown v Board of Education.

"Exactly sixty years have passed since that decision ended segregation in public schools. It changed the social and political fabric of our country. Jim Crow's legal regime is long since dead and buried, but the lingering effects of segregation and the racial bias giving rise to it are not. That remains unfinished business that we must address collectively.

"For us at AJC, Brown v Board of Education is more than a landmark case, one in which AJC filed a friend-of-the-court brief. Much of the psychological research on the harmful impact of school segregation on minority children conducted by Professor Kenneth Clark was sponsored by AJC, and Chief Justice Warren cited that study in the decision. We look at that contribution to American society with great pride, indeed, as one of the most important things AJC has ever done."

SOURCE American Jewish Committee