This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 16, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It's been 60 years since Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,

the case that struck down so-called separate but equal

public schools. A lot has changed in public education, but some things like

school choice have been slower in coming. Neil McCluskey is Associate Director of the Cato Institute's

Center for Educational Freedom. We spoke yesterday.

Before Brown v Board of Education, we had legally mandated racial segregation in the schools in many many states and what

was found was first of all I mean this was abhorrent just based on principle but that

this whole idea that you could have something that was legally separate and

still have it be equal was just incorrect.

There was always going to be a presumption, even if you had equal spending in these schools,

that one group that African Americans were getting a lesser education

and I think the presumption was often that they deserved a lesser education

through this segregation.

And so what Brown did was said this is not constitutional

to have race-based separation legally required in schools.

Since Brown, first of all we learned that absolutely this was something that needed to be eliminated.

That race-based segregation was a horrible thing.

But we also found that it is very hard, it's frankly impossible to force

integration. And so ultimately what we need to do is empower people based on being individuals,

as opposed to based on their group identity, to choose the schools that provide what they want. Now some people that may what they want.

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