Stern is a historian of education and an assistant professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Policy Studies. He is the author of a 2018 book titled, “Race and Education in New Orleans: Creating the Segregated City, 1764-1960.” His work explains how cities, such as New Orleans, have historically allocated resources and protections disproportionately to white communities, and these practices continue today despite anti-discrimination laws.

Stern shares this op-ed after news that the Orleans Parish School Board and the Housing Authority of New Orleans are potentially exploring a land swap that would provide the new Booker T. Washington High School with a new football field and Uptown with additional mixed-income housing. He calls this a practical response to multiple community needs, but remarks that it does little to compensate black New Orleanians for perpetuating discriminatory school, housing, and land-use policies.

Recalling school and housing policies from the Jim Crow era, Stern explains the community-wide discriminatory practices that lead to neighborhoods with black schools being targeted for “slum clearance” and redevelopment.

Stern remarks that “a key consequence of segregation, like slavery before it, was the redistribution of capital from black to white hands.” He calls for action from the city after 300 years of a persisting wealth gap between black and white New Orleanians.

Read the op-ed on this New Orleans Advocate web page.