Jefferson County Launches Racial ‘Majority to Minority’ Program to ‘Further Desegregation’

The Jefferson County Board of Education (JEFCOED) has launched a program that allows students to transfer from schools where their race is in the majority to schools where their race is in the minority.

According to the district website, the program will allow majority-to-minority (“M-to-M”) transfers for qualifying students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

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On March 4, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama approved a consent decree in Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, a 60-year-old school desegregation case. This transfer process is a part of that decree. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represented the plaintiffs in the case, a group of black families in Jefferson County, the decree will require:

• Expanding the use of majority to minority transfers gives black students more opportunities to attend better schools.

• Requiring the District to implement a robust magnet program to increase opportunities for black students to access themed schools.

• Significant revision of the District’s Code of Conduct and Alternative School policies to reduce racially disparate disciplinary results.

• Changes to the gifted program to hopefully help combat the consistent under-identification of black gifted students.

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