Educational Rights and Latinos: Tracking as a Form of Second Generation Discrimination

Abstract

The cumulative effects of civil rights laws and policies have substantially eliminated official forms of racial discrimination. However, new forms of bias and discrimination remain firmly intact in institutional practices and procedures.' Moreover, due to their more subtle nature, these insidious forms of racial discrimination constitute barriers to racial justice that are in many ways more difficult to overcome. This is particularly true for Latinos in the area of educational rights. Past efforts to promote civil rights in education focused on issues of access through desegregation of the public schools,2 and to a lesser extent a more equal distribution of resources.3 Current efforts focus on different issues including tracking, the cultural content of curriculum, language rights, educational leadership, and representation.4 Although fundamental principles of fairness and equity remain central to the new civil rights agenda, new complex and controversial issues arise, issues which may be much more difficult to address than the official forms of discrimination targeted by past civil rights efforts. Several important differences between the past and present civil rights struggles in education must be understood. First, the civil rights efforts of the previous generation aimed at eliminating overt forms of blatant dis-