Includes bibliographical references and index.

In 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education -- establishing the right to attend a desegregated school as a national constitutional right -- but the decision contained fundamental ambiguities. In close to three dozen decisions on school desegregation, the Supreme Court has never offered a clear definition of what desegregation means or laid out a framework for understanding or adjudicating between competing interpretations. In the 'Crucible of Desegregation', R. Shep Melnick examines the evolution of federal school desegregation policy from 1954 through the termination of desegregation orders in the first decades of the 21st century, combining legal analysis with a focus on institutional relations, particularly the interactions between federal judges and administrators.

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