Before historical cases like Sheff v. O’Neal and during the Civil Rights Movement, schools began to incorporate racial integration methods that could attempt to undo separate but equal laws in education. Such attempts include bussing minority students to suburban schools that had more funds, was located in a safer environment, and provided a better education. As shown in the photo below African American and Hispanic students began being bused to suburban, and predominantly white, neighborhoods .
Although children were being bused to better schools, schools located in predominantly non-white neighborhoods were being isolated thus denying children of an equal educational opportunity. Supreme Court cases like Sheff v. O’Neal furthered the efforts to achieve equal education opportunity to all children regardless of their ethnic background. In the video below, children, Wildaliz and Eva Bermudez, of the Bermudez (one of the plaintiffs in this case) explain their experience in the public school system in the southern end of Hartford and how their case and the efforts afterwards helped to change the school system in their predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. Eva, being the oldest, saw most of the impact her case had from how her high school Hartford High changed from being on the verge of losing its accreditation to gaining it and being diverse in the ethnicities of the students attending it.
Source: Bermudez, Wildaliz and Eva. Oral history interview on Sheff v. O’Neill school desegregation by Anique Thompson for the Cities, Suburbs, and Schools Project, June 30, 2011. Available from the Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford Connecticut (http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cssp/).
Sheff v. O’Neal Oral Interview with Eva and Wildaliz Bermudez
Wildaliz and Eva Bermudez, June 30, 2011 from Trinity College on Vimeo.