Dave Douglas: Desegregation and Civil Rights Law

“Charlotte went through the largest school desegregation plan in the United States when I was a junior in high school and senior in high school… And this was a huge part of my life… and I knew...when I was in graduate school, I want to write a book about what happened in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. And that was my first book, and I finished it when I was at William & Mary… I wasn't really writing much of it until I got to the law school. But when I had time to do that, that was my first project. And so that began…a strong interest in civil rights law.” -- Dave Douglas, Dean and Professor Emeritus, on his first book Douglas, Davison M. Reading, Writing, and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Davison Douglas published this book after joining the faculty here at William & Mary Law School, but research for it began well before he thought to pursue a career in law. Douglas was student body president at his high school in Charlotte, North Carolina when the district began integrating its schools. He described the discussions they had about integration as highly impactful and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic. It was not until joining the law faculty that Douglas was able to finalize this research for publication, and he credits the project with beginning his interest in civil rights law. Listen to Dave Douglas's oral history online.