Week 7 — Different, Not Finished: Reading the Rules Behind Segregation

Assignment 7 of the term — work this week's dates and the illustrative lending table, read each result as a concept, and explain it to someone who has it wrong.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Community History Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together. It builds on Week 2's line between institutional discrimination and structural inequality, and on Week 6's reading of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the literacy tests written into state law.

The task

The law-and-case timeline is the course's list of dated laws and events, each year taken from the issuing body's own page. The course's lending table is an illustrative model in the style of the 1930s lending maps, built for this course and not a reconstruction of any real city or lender: a city's 50 neighborhoods each carry a rating from A to D, and lenders approve loans by the rating. The course's running archive is an illustrative, unnamed public library's collection; its E2 excerpt comes from a woman whose family moved north in the Great Migration in the 1940s, interviewed in the 1990s, who says there "were neighborhoods where the bank would not lend to us" and that her mother called the new city "different, not finished."

A roommate tells you, "Segregation was only a Southern thing, and the Supreme Court ended it in 1954." Your job is to answer the way an ethnic studies reader would, starting from a few plain dates and the lending table.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. On the law-and-case timeline, Plessy v. Ferguson came in 1896 and Brown v. Board of Education came in 1954. For how many years did the separate but equal doctrine stand in public schools?
2. On the law-and-case timeline, the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870 and the Voting Rights Act came in 1965. How many years passed before the law that enforced the amendment?
3. In the illustrative lending table, lenders approve 180 of 200 applications from A-rated neighborhoods and 20 of 200 from D-rated neighborhoods. What is the gap between the two approval rates?
4. In the illustrative lending table, the 10 A-rated neighborhoods receive 180 approved loans and the 10 D-rated neighborhoods receive 20. How many approved loans does each neighborhood receive on average, and what is the ratio of A-rated to D-rated?

Beside each result, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: state what Brown v. Board of Education (1954) held, and explain why Brown II (1955), with its order to desegregate with all deliberate speed, meant segregation did not end at once.
• Problem 2: explain that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced the 15th Amendment by banning literacy tests, and name the civil rights movement as the organized pressure behind the new laws, with the Montgomery bus boycott as one example.
• Problem 3: name the concept the rule shows, institutional discrimination as in scenario N1, and explain why the gap is measured in percentage points rather than percent.
• Problem 4: read the long result as structural inequality, as in scenario S1, and distinguish de jure from de facto segregation, using the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which made lending discrimination unlawful without undoing what it had built.

Explain it to a non-expert

Write a 3–5 sentence message to your roommate that explains what Brown v. Board of Education (1954) changed and why Brown II (1955) meant it did not end segregation at once, that segregation outside the South was often de facto, built by lending rules like the ones in E2's city, and what the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made unlawful. Name one limit, such as that the lending table is an illustrative model whose numbers are engineered for teaching. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good message is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a coworker who says a store's dress code is fair because the same rule is printed for everyone. Model message: "A rule printed for everyone is a real start, and it is worth saying so. But a rule can land very differently on different people, depending on what it bans and who wrote it. One fair caveat: you would want to see how the rule is applied before deciding."

Use that pattern for your roommate, with your own wording and evidence.

Your reflection. After you revise, write two or three sentences on one of these, your choice: (a) which result, a year count or a lending-table result, changed your thinking more, and why; or (b) which word or phrase in your first draft you replaced, and what the new wording gets right.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four results, the four brief interpretations, and your message to your roommate before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met, and write your reflection.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory, comparative ethnic studies course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about the civil rights and Black freedom movements: Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II, the Montgomery bus boycott, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, redlining and the illustrative lending table, de jure and de facto segregation, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a date, a law, a court holding, a study, or a quotation for any real person, never quote a living person, state documented history plainly, and give no opinion on any current political question, current policy debate, or living politician.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the law-and-case timeline, the course's list of dated laws and events; the illustrative lending table, a model built for this course in which a city's 50 neighborhoods each carry a rating from A to D and lenders approve loans by the rating; and the archive's E2 excerpt, an illustrative account from a woman whose family moved north in the 1940s, who says there "were neighborhoods where the bank would not lend to us" and that her mother called the new city "different, not finished." Course terms: redlining is refusing loans or other credit to people because of the neighborhood they live in, whatever their own creditworthiness; institutional discrimination is when an organization's rules or routine practices produce unequal treatment, whether or not anyone intends it; structural inequality is unequal outcomes built up across many institutions over time; de jure segregation is separation required by law; de facto segregation is separation that exists in practice without a law requiring it, often built by housing patterns and lending; an approval rate is approved loans divided by applications, times 100; a percentage point is the unit for a difference between two percentages.
PROBLEM P1: On the law-and-case timeline, Plessy v. Ferguson came in 1896 and Brown v. Board of Education came in 1954. For how many years did the separate but equal doctrine stand in public schools?
PROBLEM P2: On the law-and-case timeline, the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870 and the Voting Rights Act came in 1965. How many years passed before the law that enforced the amendment?
PROBLEM P3: In the illustrative lending table, lenders approve 180 of 200 applications from A-rated neighborhoods and 20 of 200 from D-rated neighborhoods. What is the gap between the two approval rates?
PROBLEM P4: In the illustrative lending table, the 10 A-rated neighborhoods receive 180 approved loans and the 10 D-rated neighborhoods receive 20. How many approved loans does each neighborhood receive on average, and what is the ratio of A-rated to D-rated?
After the four results, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, what Brown v. Board of Education held plus why Brown II meant segregation did not end at once; for P2, the Voting Rights Act enforcing the 15th Amendment by banning literacy tests plus the civil rights movement as the organized pressure behind the laws; for P3, institutional discrimination as in N1 plus why the gap is in percentage points; for P4, structural inequality as in S1 plus the de jure and de facto line with the Fair Housing Act of 1968. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to my roommate, who says segregation was only Southern and ended in 1954, explaining Brown and Brown II, de facto segregation built by lending, and the 1968 law, with one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words, and then write a short reflection on my revision.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: working the dates and the table (40 points), reading the law and the rule (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 working points, 4 reading points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to my roommate only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
WORKING UNITS: A correct result = 2; the right dates or counts and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong dates, counts, or operation = 0. A gap between two approval rates stated as 80 percent instead of 80 percentage points is a unit error, not a correct result. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
READING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH structural inequality with the de jure and de facto line AND a message to my roommate that separates what the 1954 ruling and the 1968 law changed from what they left in place, with a named limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reading = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and a ruling read as ending segregation at once, redlining read as only private prejudice, de facto segregation read as accidental, or an invented quotation for a real person is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reading error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to ethnic studies, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to my roommate with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable dates or counts and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete date, count, or step = 1; a bare final number or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four results and their brief interpretations AND written my message to my roommate AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my results and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four results, their brief interpretations, your message to your roommate, and your reflection — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled timeline sketch with a short explanation; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 7 skills — placing Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights laws on the timeline, working the illustrative lending table's approval rates, gap, and ratio, reading the rule as institutional discrimination and its long result as structural inequality, and separating de jure from de facto segregation — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, the message to your roommate, and the reflection. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one result or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the record or the table. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The results, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it call the gap a percent, say Brown ended segregation at once, treat redlining as only private prejudice, or invent a quotation for a real person. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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