Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism.(Book review)

Daniel H. Perlstein, Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism. New York: Peter Lang, 2004, pp. xii + 218, notes, index, $29.95 paper.

Almost four decades after the event, the Ocean Hill-Brownsville schools crisis continues to cast its shadow over New York City race relations. On May 9, 1968, a local board established as part of an experiment in community control of schools in the predominantly African-American Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, sent termination letters to nineteen white, mostly Jewish educators. All were members of the union representing New York's public school teachers, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). The UFT attempted to obtain their reinstatement through three citywide teachers' strikes in the fall of 1968. Rife with charges of racism, union busting, and anti-Semitism, they …