Group 1: Gaines V. Canada (Website)
Our group chose to focus on Gaines v. Canada for a couple of reasons. First, we were inspired by Kimberly Norwood and her talk on Michael Brown and the hidden accreditation system in St. Louis that promotes school segregation. We didn’t realize that school segregation in St. Louis was such a prevalent issue today even though we will all be living in St. Louis for the next three years. When we were thinking about the history of educational equity in St. Louis, we realized that education today continues to be separate but unequal. Does the WashU community have a role in this story and do we as WashU students have a role in this story? Secondly, we each have our individual experiences with learning American history, and we all know that there are hidden stories within American history. For our project, we wanted to bring out those stories and we wanted to influence how teachers of the future will teach history. Our project offers an amazing opportunity to change the way that race and its intersection with the education system are taught in our schools. Although we have achieved amazing things with educational equity, it’s imperative to recognize that we have a long way to go. We chose for our audience to be middle and high schoolers and educators teaching middle school and high school. We chose this audience because they are most impacted by the education system and students often know the least about their rights. Segregation is remerging in our city, and we want to be a part of the change to stop this.