Informal pressure and overcrowding, not formal rules, kept schools segregated.

Evidence

Possible explanations for the little numbers of black students attending the predominantly white schools is that the black students who applied for enrollment were either denied because of overcrowding or were “encouraged” by parents of the white school from attending their school (Rossell, 5). — Marcy Crouch, Magnet Schools and Other Means of…, 18

Categorization

• QUESTION: How exactly was the ‘encouragement’ delivered, and by whom — administrators, parents, or both? The scare quotes suggest an understudied mechanism worth chasing.