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Plessy vs. Ferguson legitimated the doctrine of "separate but equal," although the segregated education that this Jim Crow era law provided was anything but equal.
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Supreme Court ruling stating that segregation based on race in public schools is illegal
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De facto segregation challenged in the Washington,DC public school system in the case of Hobson v. Hansen (1967).
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Dunn's classic critique of special education suggested that the "overrepresentation of ethnic and language minority students in special education classes represented a civil rights and education concern" (Skiba et. al., 265).
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litigation stemming from concerns about racial inequity
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Mercer (1973) found that "public schools tended to identify more children as mentally retarded than any other child service setting" (Skiba et. al., 265).
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Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act, IDEA, Public Law No. 94142, 1975
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Starting in the 1980s, examination of the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights survey data began to produce estimates of the extent and distribution of disproportionality, which have been consistent over time. Three of these surveys are those taken by Chinn and Hughes in 1987, Donovan and Cross in 2002, and Finn in 1982.