Racial Inequality and the Economic Contradictions of the US Education System

• In Event: Racial Capitalism and Urban Politics

Abstract

Since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965, the federal government has endorsed, both explicitly and implicitly, the idea that racial inequality should be combatted through the education system. Due, however, to what I call the education paradox—education is, at once, both a means through which people seek competitive advantage, creating inequality on the one hand, while also being the primary domain in which antiracist claims (demands for racial equality) are articulated on the other—the education system is, I argue, ill-suited to address structural racial inequality. Relying on archival and macroeconomic data to underscore how the education paradox works in practice, fortifying structural racial inequality in the process, I show that if racial inequality is to be meaningfully addressed, then we must look beyond education.

Author

• Jared K. Clemons, Princeton University