Resistance to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision terminating segregation placed the schools in the middle of a bitter and sometimes violent dispute. By 1965, when a measure of genuine integration had become a reality in many school districts, the schools again found themselves in the eye of a stormy controversy. This time the question was not which children were going to what schools but what kind of education society should provide for the students; the goal of high academic performance, which had been revived by criticisms and reforms of the 1950s and early 1960s, began to be challenged by demands for more liberal and free schooling.
Many university and some high-school students from all ethnic groups and classes had been growing more and more frustrated—some of them desperately so—over what they felt was a cruel and senseless war in Vietnam and a cruel, discriminatory, competitive, loveless society at home. They demanded curriculum reform, improved teaching methods, and greater stress and action on such problems as overpopulation, pollution, international strife, deadly weaponry, and discrimination. Pressure for reform came not only from students but also from many educators. While students and educators alike spoke of the greater need for what was taught, opinions as to what was relevant varied greatly.