“Here could lie a potentially great city!” Memo to Industries- Denver Business and Industrial Community From Denver Chamber of Commerce (undated) Anti-Defamation League Collection, University of Denver Archives Box 17, FF 9

The “Keyes” to Understanding Our Modern Post-Racial, Multi-Racial Moment 1.Denver and its battle for equality of educational opportunity as representative of Color(blindness) in the metropolitan United States. 2.The Rise of the State Managed Color(blind) Metropolis

How I Rode the Bus to Become a Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law: Reflections on Keyes’s Legacy for the Post-Racial, Multiracial, and Metropolitan Twenty-first Century

I. DENVER AS REPRESENTATIVE OF COLOR(BLINDNESS) IN THE METROPOLITAN UNITED STATES “Here could lie a potentially great city!” Memo to Industries- Denver Business and Industrial Community From Denver Chamber of Commerce (undated) Anti-Defamation League Collection, University of Denver Archives Box 17, FF 9

Denver is a beautiful city, the only one of its kind in the United States. It does not have the slums, and disintegration has not gone so far as many older industrial cities... she has everything, wealth, culture, public spirited citizens who have left splendid memorials to their love of Denver. There is climate, close proximity to the mountains, winter sports, in fact, everything to be desired. -Minutes of the Denver Planning Commission, February 16, 1942 Denver Planning Commission Collection, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library Sitting pretty at 5,280 feet in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains... Long a celebrated outdoor recreation mecca, Denver’s cultural attractions and easy urban lifestyle have taken center stage, with old brick industrial buildings sprouting stylish lofts, restaurants, shops and nightclubs. Now, with the world’s second- largest performing arts center and Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the Denver Art Museum, the Mile High City continues to ascend in stature among American cities. - (last accessed Jan. 2013)

Chicago is an industrial center. Such is not the case in Denver, and this calls for a higher class of citizens. You are fortunate not to have strong backs and weak minds.” -Colonel Kellog, Chicago Planning Commission Minutes of the Denver Planning Commission, January 9, A location as dynamic as its people. It’s easy to attract highly skilled workers and expand your operations in Metro Denver...The area is a magnet for young, diverse, and well-educated workers... And Colorado has one of the nation's most educated populations, ranking second among the 50 states (behind Massachusetts) for percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher. -Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, 2010

Since its Wild West beginnings, Denver has attracted all kinds of people... With a population that is 40% Hispanic and 10% African American, Denver is a dynamic city of diverse cultures, rewarding those who visit with a montage of sights, sounds, smells, and flavors - (last accessed Jan. 2013) You just keep reading in the paper how many people are getting killed... It's all these illegals driving around with no identification... Denver is the mecca of all these problems... which I think clearly is a sanctuary city, all they're getting is a small court fine and are allowed to walk out the door. If they don't give police an ID, no one can prove they're an illegal alien. So these people get off the hook. It's unfair! -Dan Hayes, Author of Initiative 100 and 300 Westword, October 27, 2009

“I’ve never been in a city where appreciable numbers of Negro people live and found such indifference in relation to the matter of racial discrimination and segregation.” - Gunnar Myrdal as quoted in Earl Mann, “So They Say: Casey and the News,” Colorado Statesman, February 2, “Fair play reigns” and “the color line does not exist” in Denver. -Isaac Jones, Baltimore Afro-American (1952)

YearAdamsArapahoeBoulderDenverDouglasJefferson Metro Denver Total ,48132,15037,438322,4123,49630,725448, ,23452,12548,296415,7863,50755,687615, ,296113,42674,254493,8874,816127,520934, ,789162,142131,889514,6788,407235,3681,238, ,944293,292189,625492,69425,153371,7531,618, ,038391,511225,339467,61060,391438,4301,848, ,618487,967269,814554,636175,766525,5072,400, ,443584,948299,378619,968292,167539,8842,787,788 Population Denver Metropolitan Area Source: US Census Bureau

Racial Population City and County of Denver

Racial Population Metropolitan Denver

II. THE RISE OF THE STATE-MANAGED COLOR(BLIND) METROPOLIS

It is the public policy of the State of Colorado to recognize that “a person who owns a tract of land... may prefer to have as neighbors persons of the [W]hite, or Caucasian race.” -Chandler v. Ziegler et al, 291 P. 822 (Colo. 1930)

Neighborhoods with highest concentration of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Japanese Americans, and American Indians

-John Bromley, Denver Post, November 18, 1974 “It is, I think, right to suppose that the primary reason for the easy passage of the Poundstone Amendment was the suburbs fear of busing. If, in other words, there is to be a ghetto, and busing is to relieve the pressures and injustice of the ghetto, let it all be within the City and County—and school district—of Denver.”

Racial Population Metropolitan Denver

Denver Metropolitan Area School Districts. Denver Council of Regional Government

The Key[e]s to the Next 40 Years?

Colo. Const. art. IX §2 “The General Assembly shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the State, wherein all residents of the State….may be educated gratuitously.”

NAEP: Exhibit 10,064 27

28 Thorough and Uniform System of Free Public Schools - State Requirements - Opportunities - Outcomes Thorough and Uniform System of Free Public Schools - State Requirements - Opportunities - Outcomes Local Control Public School Finance System Rational Relationship?

-Summer of Colorado Higher Education Institutions Colorado Department of Higher Education