Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Urban Education

Advisor

Jan Valle

Committee Members

Steve Brier

Susan Opotow

Judith Kafka

Subject Categories

Education

Keywords

Educational segregation, Disability Critical Race Theory, Special education history, New York City schools, Emotional disturbance classification, Institutional racism

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the largely erased history of New York City’s 600 schools—segregated public schools created to house students labeled as emotionally disturbed or socially maladjusted. These institutions, operating throughout the mid-20th century, disproportionately served Black and Puerto Rican youth, many of whom were placed in these schools under vague behavioral criteria and with little to no pathway for return to general education settings.

Combining archival research, longitudinal policy analysis, historical media review, and critical race and disability studies frameworks—including DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Theory)—this project situates the 600 schools at the intersection of institutional racism and ableism. It argues that these schools were not peripheral to New York City's educational system but functioned as central mechanisms of racial and behavioral segregation, shaped by broader anxieties about urban disorder, juvenile delinquency, and the limits of desegregation.

The study devotes special attention to the 1965 “Operation Shutdown” boycott led by Rev. Milton Galamison, a pivotal moment in which students from the 600 schools joined a citywide protest against school segregation. Despite their active participation, these students were pathologized in mainstream media and rendered invisible in historical narratives of the civil rights era. Drawing on underutilized sources, including Black community press, firsthand accounts, and state-sponsored evaluations, the dissertation contrasts these portrayals with evidence of student political consciousness and organized resistance.

The work also recovers the contributions of Rhody McCoy, a former 600 school principal and later the administrator of the Ocean Hill–Brownsville community control experiment. His behind-the-scenes support for Operation Shutdown and subsequent leadership in educational self-determination movements challenges conventional depictions of the 600 schools as apolitical or irrelevant to the era’s broader civil rights struggles.

Finally, the dissertation explores the transformation of the 600 schools into what is now District 75—the largest segregated special education district in the country—arguing that the logic of exclusion underpinning the 600 schools persists in contemporary forms. By tracing this lineage, the project not only recovers a hidden history but also redefines the scope of school desegregation narratives to include disability, discipline, and institutionalized forgetting. It contends that recovering the history of the 600 schools is essential to building a fuller, more honest account of racial and educational justice in the United States.

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