Forty years ago, a commission formed by Lyndon Johnson set out to examine racial inequalities in income, education and employment. The Kerner Commission's 1968 report was the first federal report that identified racism as a problem. The commission set goals for eliminating the inequalities detailed in the report, but the Eisenhower Foundation, which was organized back then to further the commission's work, says in a new report that America gets a D in reaching those 40-year-old goals.

The report finds:

•The poverty gap between blacks and whites has narrowed since 1968 as the percentage of blacks in poverty dropped from 35% to 24%. Still, blacks are three times as likely as whites — and Hispanics twice as likely — to live in extreme poverty.

•School integration has declined in the past two decades. Today, 27% of black students attend mostly white schools, up from 23% in 1968 but down from 37% during the 1980s.*

Well, it clearly is not 1968, anymore. But surely a lot of people back then thought that changes wouldn't take quite so long to happen. Or even worse, that the changes people fought for would begin to reverse. [USAT]

*If this continues to decline, we can thank the Supreme Court.