SPEAKER: Integrated school seemed like an impossible pipe dream, except to the Brown family.

LINDA BROWN: Somebody had to start it, my father said. Somebody had to take a stand. I remember that my father took me by the hand and we walked together to Sumner School.

My father tried to enroll me in the school for the next year and they told him that I couldn't go there because I was a Negro. Then he asked to see the principal.

SPEAKER: When the Reverend Oliver Brown returned home that day, he was extremely angry. His simple request had been denied. He also knew he had to do something dramatic if changes were to take place. So they went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-- the NAACP-- for assistance.

They filed a lawsuit in Topeka in order to seek action through the court on the principle that educational facilities for Black children were inadequate. In order to understand what happened next, let me explain some background.

Until the Civil War, most Black Americans had lived under slavery in the South. The few free Blacks in the North usually lived in segregated communities, and this continued until the late 19th century. Twenty years after the Civil War, Southern states began enacting so-called Jim Crow laws. These laws began barring Blacks-- or colored, as they were called then-- from most social interaction with white citizens

SPEAKER: This is a story of Jack Adams and his son Bobby in the PARC versus Commonwealth of Pennsylvania court case.

JACK ADAMS: everyone. My name is Jack Adams and I'm from the small town of Warren, Pennsylvania. I have a wife, Mary, and two children, Bobby and Bella, and this is the story of how my son Bobby persevered and overcame all odds, changing schooling in Pennsylvania for children of the future.

Back in 1971, Bobby was just eight years old, entering the third grade. Mary and I went to register him from school, but something I never expected happened. The school turned us away, refusing to teach and help Bobby. Bobby's teachers said that--

SPEAKER: Pennsylvania state law allows public schools to deny services to children who have not attained a mental age of five years by the start of the first grade or the age of eight.

JACK ADAMS: Bobby was going into third grade, and still had trouble forming words, let alone reading them. Bobby's teacher said he was always behind, but we never imagined the school would refuse to teach him altogether just because of his disability. How is he supposed to learn if no one will teach him? Frustrated and upset, my wife and I knew we had to do something about the situation. After hearing similar stories about this happening to other families, we formed the Pennsylvania chapter of the Association of Retarded Children, also known as PARC.

In 1971, we brought the seminal lawsuit, Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children versus Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the first right to education suit in the country, to overturn that Pennsylvania law and secure quality education for all children.

As parents, we were arguing three main points. First, all children with mental retardation are capable of benefiting from education and training. Second, education cannot be defined as the only provision of academic experiences for children. And third, the earlier these students with mental retardation are afforded an education, the greater the amount of learning that could be predicted.

After several debates and arguments, the court's order was made in final. Three major changes were made to Pennsylvania schools. School districts were required to identify and start teaching all children with mental retardation. School districts were to develop evaluation programs for the most appropriate placement of the children. And on top of that, the state Department of Education was required to submit plans describing available programs, financial arrangements, and teacher recruitment and training efforts to provide education.

Mary and I were thrilled that we were able to not only help out Bobby, but all the children of Pennsylvania who were going through the same thing as well. There's not a day that goes by that Bobby doesn't thank me for what we did for him. We truly made a difference that year, and Pennsylvania schools will forever be changed because of it

[MUSIC PLAYING] MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Good afternoon. My name is Le Ondra Clark, and I am a fourth year doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I am just so pleased and honored to be able to interview Dr. Dent today. Dr. Dent, we want to start off today by asking you a little bit about where you're from. We want to hear your life story and how it's evolved. So where would you like to start?

DR. HAROLD DENT: When I was born. [LAUGHTER] In Southampton, New York. My mother was Shinnecock Indian, so I was born in Southampton Hospital. And Shinnecock Indian reservation is right outside of-- well, Southampton grew up around the Shinnecock Indian reservation. Around the Shinnecock land. And we ended up with the reservation that's surrounded by wealth in Southampton, New York.

So I was born in Southampton. Lived on Long Island to the second grade, and moved to New York City in the second grade, and went through what I consider a very excellent educational public school system. Because I lived in this section of New York City called Greenwich Village, which is upper middle class area, I grew up in that area. My sisters and I were the only Black or minorities in the school system.

And I was fortunate enough to get a good education. I went to a school in New York City called Stuyvesant High School, which has an international reputation. They just found out they're having a Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association in Washington DC.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Oh my goodness.

DR. HAROLD DENT: And all the-- so many bigwigs are in that group. And I was lucky enough to go-- or not lucky enough. I managed to pass all the tests to get into Stuyvesant High School. So I grew up in Stuyvesant High School. And during World War II, just before I graduated, I decided that the military, the army was the place for me.

So at 17, I enlisted in the Army, just before I graduated from high school. I got two GED high school diplomas. But when I came out of the army, I decided to go back to high school, back to Stuyvesant, and get a diploma from Stuyvesant High School, which I did.

In the military, that helped me decide to go back to school. I spent three years as a medic in the army, and spent so much of my time on the psychiatric section. And that's when I decided to go into psychology, because I got a lot of exposure to clinical treatment, and I was very fortunate enough to get to have the psychiatrists who work there are very supportive of me, and helped me learn a lot more about how to deal with patients, and patients who had severe mental disorders.

So when I went to Stuyvesant high school got my diploma and went to NYU. Got a BA in psychology from NYU, and went on to the University of Denver. Got an MA in clinical psychology.

And then I did an internship back in Illinois at Elgin State Hospital in Illinois, and worked for a year after that at St. Charles School For Boys, a correctional institution for teenagers in Illinois, and got so fed up being poor, I decided-- I got married while I was there. And my wife had been a lieutenant in the army. She was a physical therapist.

And she had been stationed in San Francisco Presidio. So we decided to come out to San Francisco. And that's what I did. So we moved out to San Francisco. And then I started looking for a job.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Can you talk for a minute about what it was like kind of during those formative educational years and as you moved through high school, and to your college studies. What was that like as a minority at that time?

DR. HAROLD DENT: As I said, I was-- my sisters and I were about the only Blacks or minorities. My father was African-American. So I'm Black in that regard. But still have my Indian heritage, which I can tell you about later.

We were the only Blacks in our classes all through elementary school, and junior high school. And it was interesting that, as an average kid, I got sent to the principal's office a lot. One of the things that happened was I got to be the principal's official runner to get her lunch every day, because I was sent to her office so often.

Nevertheless, I still got out of grammar school, and went to a junior high school where they had what they call rapid advancement classes, where you do one year in one semester. And the only Black teacher that I had in my entire academic career was a woman by the name of Mrs. Hicks, who I had in 7A.

And she put me in a rapid advance class. And so, therefore, I went to junior high school in two years instead of one year. And she was the only Black teacher that I ever had. But she was the only one who I guess recognized--

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Your potential.

DR. HAROLD DENT: --what skill I had even though I didn't recognize it. And sent me into this rapid advance class. So in New York City, there were five high schools that you had to take exams for, and Stuyvesant high school, the high school that I went to, was one of those schools. And I was helped, that this school was in Greenwich Village, upper middle class. And they selected students to stay after school and tutor them in science and math subjects.

And they were noted for their academic success of the number of students who went to one of these schools. And I happened to take the test and passed. Out of a 22 students, one failed. And I went on to Stuyvesant High School. And as I said, since I just found out just a few months ago that Stuyvesant high school is so well recognized that they're starting an alumni chapter in Washington DC.

The Assistant Attorney General, many people, not just Black, because they were very few Blacks in the school. Now I went to a meeting, and I couldn't believe--

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Very important people in positions now.

DR. HAROLD DENT: --went to Stuyvesant High School.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: So as you went to NYU and continued on into your graduate education. Tell us some about some of those key moments, so those defining moments as a Black student in those programs.

DR. HAROLD DENT: Well, I don't think I can really think of a defining moment during that period of time. As I said, I got exposed to psychology in the army, and was, well, I guess I originally wanted to be a physician, and I knew that my family couldn't afford supporting me through medical school. So before I got off the army, it was a decision to go to become a psychologist, because I found out that you didn't have to go through four years after undergraduate, because I had the GI Bill.

But the idea of what would I do to get through medical school. And I can't say that I looked forward to a scholarship, because I didn't even know about scholarships in those days, particularly for Blacks. And so I decided to go on through psychology. I can't remember any defining moments in psychology when I was an undergraduate.

I happened to be an active individual, and I was the vice president of the NAACP chapter at NYU. This was in the early '50s. I was chairman of a committee to get race and religion and photographs off the admissions into NYU. And I got written up in all the local papers as a misguided communist-led Black student, because I was chairman of a committee who wanted to take guns away from campus police.

A elderly campus police had shot a Black man and killed him at a street fair at NYU, in New York City. And so we started a campaign to get rid of him, or take the guns away from these police, who were on campus. And then I got written up in all the local newspapers as a misled well-meaning communist-led student.

So that was part of my undergraduate experience as being an activist. But I didn't see it as being an activist. I saw it as responding to some issues that were inappropriate as far as I was concerned. So when I left NYU, when I graduated, I went on to Denver to graduate school.

I went through graduate school, and went on to do my internship in Elgin, Illinois. That was a-- I had some racial experiences there in the hospital itself. Well, I had some-- I was the only Black, again, in this internship program. No, there were two of us.

But because I had said something on my admission, my application, the FBI-- I was called in, and the FBI said that you said no Instead of saying yes to this question. And I'm trying to think of what it was. Having to do with a driver's license, or so forth.

And when the superintendent of the hospital called me in, I didn't know what it was all about. And he introduced me as so and so, and here's Mrs. So-and-so and Mr. So-and-so from the FBI.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Oh my goodness.

DR. HAROLD DENT: And I couldn't believe what was happening to me. And it was all because I had said yes, or no instead of yes on one question on the application. But that was no big deal. But I went through this year of internship training there on Elgin. And it was a Elgin is about 40 miles west of Chicago.

And it was a-- I don't think the best way I can say is a redneck area. And I couldn't get services in restaurants and barbershops in that area. As part of the group of interns, we would hang out together and go to different places. And when we got to restaurants that refused me, the other guys were, we want to get into a fight. I said, come on, let's go. Because I'm not into fighting this way through, because I know what was going on, and it was their first experience.

And that was the only kind of thing that I remember during my internship in Elgin. So much for that. Where do we want to go from here?

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Right. Well, where did you go from there? How did you go-- how did you get involved with ABPsi? How did that take place?

DR. HAROLD DENT: Well, after I went to-- worked in San Francisco, I became active as a-- well, I took a job. I took some civil service exams, and I was offered two different jobs. One in vocational rehabilitation and one in clinical psychology at San Jose's facility, mental health center. And I went to interview at another facility which had just gotten a large grant from the federal government to rehabilitate, to try to rehabilitate or train mentally retarded adults being released from state institutions.

And so when I left, I took that job instead of the other one. And that's when I really got involved in development of myself as a psychologist, because they needed to set up a system of assessing the skills of these individuals coming out of the state institution, and to see which area of vocation we could best suit them for for job placement.

And the person who hired me was the psychologist. But he was the administrator. And he helped me, or allowed me to develop myself and learn how to do this, even though I just had a master's degree in psychology. So I developed the training, the assessment program, without using standardized tests. Work samples, we call them. And designed ways of assessing the attention skills, the skills of people learning, accepting instructions, their physical dexterity, their hand-eye coordination. Skills to be able to help place them in jobs that were suitable for them.

Then we got involved in another larger physical fitness-- not type-- physical disability program involving non-mentally retarded people who were out of work because they had been injured, and were trying to get back into the labor situation. So I became the director of the assessment section not only for the mentally retarded, but for other physically disabled.

And so that was really to my advantage. And during that time, I applied for graduate school at the University of Hawaii and got accepted, and then went to the University of Hawaii for my doctorate.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Wow. And so were you actively involved in ABPsi during this time, or is that something that came up--

DR. HAROLD DENT: This was before ABPsi This was in the early '60s. I went to the University of Hawaii in '63. I graduated in '66. And I took a job as the regional director of programs in what was now called developmental disabilities for the seven Western states in the Department of Health Education and Welfare, which is now HHS.

And I was the director, and I had seven western states that traveled to all the time. And it was in 1968, when APA was here in San Francisco, and that's when ABPsi was started. And I was one of the people who, you know, the word got around, we're having a meeting at so and so's place at 5 o'clock.

And when we got there, there was a room full of, oh, maybe 60 people, or more than that. So the room was so small, we had to get another room. And that's when ABPsi was started. And the one thing-- well, I remember that we had more than one session. We met early in the afternoon. Then we met that evening, and started to chisel out the name of the organization and the priorities, as we decided, at that time, and they decided on five specific priorities having to do with psychological testing, mental health, research, because we felt that the Black community was being researched with no benefit as a result of that research.

Another area was prisons and training. That is training of psychologists through APA and all the other. So those are the five priorities that we set out when we were organizing APA, I mean, ABPsi at that time. And it was in the first or second year of APA-- ABPsi's development that I was assigned to be the chairman of the testing committee.

So psychological testing became my thing at that time. And that was around 1968, '69, '70, something like that. It was in 1971 when a number of us who lived in the Bay Area had gotten involved in some social action, or community action activities. For example, we worked here with the Oakland Civil Service Commission to change their requirements testing program, so that they could increase the number of Black firefighters they were hiring. And so we helped them design a more suitable civil service exam for Black firefighters.

We also, right here in Oakland, negotiated with Kaiser Permanente HMO to accept their own people who are paying into the system and delivering services to them. Because they had turned away a mother and her child because they thought that the child had been molested. It was a small girl who had been kicked by somebody who-- these kids were playing, and somebody who was, I think, an outpatient in one of the Borden care homes kicked her, because these kids started laughing.

They weren't laughing at him. But he thought they were laughing at him. And he went over and kicked this little young lady Oh, she wasn't a young lady. She was about three or four years, four or five years old. I really don't know how old she was.

But when her mother took her to Kaiser, they refused to see her because they thought that she was a case of molestation rather than just injury. And so we got involved with that family, and we went to negotiate with the head of the HMO system of Kaiser.

The top floor of the Kaiser Foundation building, wherever it is here in Oakland, huge, beautiful, mahogany wall. One window was all glass, and you could look over and see all the Bay Area. We walked in. I think-- I can't remember all the names, but about four of us, from the crisis center in San Francisco, the mental health crisis center.

And we came over. We walked in and started talking with these big wheels. And the door opened, and I can't remember-- I don't remember how many members of the Black Panthers walked in and encircled the room in their black leather jackets, and looked like uniforms, and just stood with their arms folded around this table. And Kaiser agreed to review their policies and change their position on the spot.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: That motivated them.

DR. HAROLD DENT: Yes. [LAUGHS] But those are the kind of experiences we had once we got involved in the community. So it wasn't unusual when some Black parents went to the Urban League in San Francisco and said, our kids are being put in special education classes for the mentally retarded, and we don't believe our kids are retarded.

So the Urban League called us, a few Black psychologists. And that's how we got involved with Larry P. We started negotiating with San Francisco schools, and we found out that the IQ test was the principle reason for the thing being placed. And that the State Department of Education was required-- required this IQ test.

And so we tried to negotiate with them to no avail. And got some lawyers involved. And they said the best thing to do is start a lawsuit. So we then went out several of us one Saturday and tested some of the kids. And I think there were seven kids, and six of them we found should certainly not have been placed in the program.

We found-- two of us saw the same kid and agreed, without each other knowing it, that this kid was appropriate in his placement. So we then got this data and got the parents involved, and the lawsuit was started. I can give you all the dates and details. But it was started in '71. And there were preliminary hearings, and all this. And the case really went to trial in '77.

It took all these years in between for hearings and so forth and so on. In 1977, it went to trial. It was eight months of trial, from October to May of '78. And there was-- and we have all this on record. Over 10,000 pages of testimony.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Oh my goodness.

DR. HAROLD DENT: Eye-witness testimony for the whole trial. It ended in May. And the judge-- May '78-- and the judge issued his decision in, I think, December of '79. And the decision was that IQ tests were culturally biased because they did not account for the background and experience of Black children, that the test had not been validated for the specific purpose for which they're being used, which was the placement of Black kids in special education EMR classes.

EMR being educable mentally retarded, which is different from trainable mentally retarded. Trainable was the more severely disabled child. And educably was there was no physical really basis for it. Just poor functioning. That's called EMR.

And then the other thing was that the tests, as I said, were culturally biased, and that they did not account for-- were not validated. And he banned the use of IQ tests on Black children for the purpose of placing them in special education classes.

In 1979, well, they went through all sorts of appellate levels, and the two appellate levels all reviewed the case and agreed on the decision of Judge Peckinpah, agreed on his remedies. And then a couple of years later, somebody else, a Black parent in Southern California was told that her child was not mentally retarded. He was learning disabled.

And so they sued on the basis of-- and they couldn't treat him, couldn't do anything for him, because they couldn't use IQ tests. So they went back into court. But this time, I always say, the attorney general didn't ask those of us who had helped the Larry P. case. And they lost that case again.

And the only modification was that Black parents who want their children tested could do it only on the basis of their agreement that they could use the test. The school district couldn't do it without the parent's demand for them to do it. So that's the only way that the case was modified. And that was the result-- that happened in 1988.

Since than, more people have tried to overturn the Larry P. decision. But so far, they have not. And it still stands. Unfortunately, there is no enforcement of that. So school districts can slip and slide in California, and all across the country it doesn't apply, because it was only applicable to the state of California.

But there should be more lawsuits. And this is what I'm going to ask ABPsi to keep doing, to generate more lawsuits and to help parents recognize that they can be better advocates for their kids by going through the cases and taking this over.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Wow.

DR. HAROLD DENT: What else?

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Such a rich-- wow. I'm just, I'm blown away. It's such a rich history. And your involvement with the case is just a really seminal involvement, and to look at how the climate has evolved since then. And so today, looking at some of the issues that we as Black people face, what do you think are the main issues?

DR. HAROLD DENT: I could go on forever.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Yeah. Put us on the case.

DR. HAROLD DENT: But as a psychologist, I'm still focused on the issue of testing. I believe ABPsi should take the leadership, and I've said this over and over again, in bringing about change. Because right now, we are in the midst of a campaign where both candidates talk about change. And we should get on that change bandwagon and say, it's time for ABPsi to generate change in how tests are used with Black people, particularly standardized tests.

Because it's the standardization of the test that's built in cultural bias. And we should train other psychologists in how to recognize that, and we should help parents become advocates for their kids by starting lawsuits. Because the federal government and state organizations are not going to go into a school and say, you're doing it wrong.

We have to bring this to their attention. And we have the data, and all the foundation for winning these cases, if we just did more of it. In other words, we might have to hook up with some lawyers. And there are lots of pro bono lawyers and organizations who probably would be willing to hook up with us to do that. But it's only going to happen if somebody makes the effort and stimulates this process.

Because there are laws, like the ones that occurred while Larry P. was in process. Public law 94-142, which is a law that says tests should be non-discriminatory. It should be selected and administered in a fashion that's non-discriminatory. And that the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Public Law 93-112, says that every instrument used in the assessment of handicapped individuals must be validated for the specific purpose for which they use.

No standardized test is validated for placing kids in special education or any other purpose being used today in employment, or otherwise. And standardized tests, by their very composition and construction, are biased against minorities.

And anybody who is not white middle class, the items just don't fit. And I can give you examples that would go on forever. But we've got to help people understand that. We cannot generate-- we cannot engage in a lawsuit unless it's generated by a parent. And we've got to educate parents to do that.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Yes, we do. I agree. Thank you, Dr. Dent, for sharing with us today. I've learned a lot from you. And your work is very, very important.

DR. HAROLD DENT: Thank you.

MS. LE ONDRA CLARK: Thank you very much. This is Le Ondra Clark. I've enjoyed and it's been an honor to interview Dr. Dent today. Thank you. Thank you.

DR. HAROLD DENT: You're welcome.

[MUSIC PLAYING

[BELL RINGING] SPEAKER: Did you know that the F in FAPE stands for Free Appropriate Public Education? That means all education and related services you and your child's team determine are necessary to address his needs must be provided at no cost to you. This may include things like curriculum and materials, related services like OT, PT, and speech, assistive technology, building modifications, transportation, one-on-one aides and more.

A solid Individualized Education Program, or IEP, is the key to ensuring that your child receives a Free Appropriate Public Education. Learn how to develop an IEP that will help your child reach his full potential. For ideas, information, and support, contact the Peal Center at www.pealcenter.org or 1-866-950-1040.