By Joel McNally

Many suspect the over-representation of African Americans in special education really began to grow after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools to be desegregated in 1954.

Five of the seven states today with the highest over-representation of African Americans labeled mentally retarded are Southern states where the races were once separated by law — Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

But Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, said racial inequities have become so pervasive that no region can afford to be smug.

"One of the things our study suggests is that nobody should be assuming that racial inequity in special education is somebody else's problem until they look at their own data," Orfield said. "We really see it everywhere we look. It's happening lots of places that have a progressive image."

Wisconsin is a good example of a Northern state with a good reputation for the quality of its education overall, that also turns out to be among the leaders nationally in racial disparities in special education.