I'm in New York's northern suburbs this week, reporting a story on a school district struggling to close its achievement gap and maintain integration as it experiences a record influx of Latino immigrants. So I was fascinated to see this Washington Post story on Mendez v. Westminster, a little known 1947 federal case that ruled Latino students in California had the right to attend all-white schools. At the time of the ruling, Earl Warren, later chief justice during Brown, was California's governor. He ended the state's de jure segregation of Asian American and Native American children, as well. Ironically, today the Santa Ana, Calif. middle school named after the Mendez family is 95 percent Latino due to housing patterns. --Dana Goldstein
