Posted on: May 28, 2019
The term “gerrymander” was originally coined by a political cartoonist to describe the salamander-shaped electoral districts drawn by the political party colleagues of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry in 1812. The word is an amalgamation of the words “Gerry” and “salamander,” and it describes the way politicians divide geographic areas into voting districts that give one party an unfair advantage in elections. (And in case you’re curious, despite the efforts, Governor Gerry lost his bid for re-election.)
![By Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835) (often falsely attributed to Gilbert Stuart)[1] - Originally published in the Boston Centinel, 1812., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6030613](https://atlantaregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.webp)
The authors explain that some school segregation is “the result of America’s history of housing discrimination, in which the government for many years only backed home loans to white families who wanted to live around other white families.” However, other school districts were drawn in such a way that further effectively segregated children based on race. To see how your school district stacks up, check out a nifty calculator by clicking on the image below and scrolling to the end of the article.
