1971. six SF students are plaintiffs in a lawsuit attempting to change the admissions process at Lowell High, saying the school “systematically excludes low-income minority youth.”

the rest of the article. you can get a sense from the time from the fact that it’s next to an article about people fighting busing

also found this interesting timeline called “sex, race and grades” published by the chronicle in 1995

1968. neighborhood publication “Nueva Mission” writes about how “Brown and Black minorities get a second class education” while being excluded from “elite” Lowell.

1966. the head of the English department at Lowell High says the school has become an “urban-suburban school” where “parents send white children to avoid” them going to school with Black children.

editorials published on the Chronicle in response to the 1971 lawsuit. one opposes the lawsuit because low-income minorities would have the same opportunity to learn “if they chose to do so.” another says the claim of racism “overlooks” the number of Asian students there

the chronicle opposed the 1971 lawsuit, saying “nothing whatsoever prevents any student” from attending Lowell if “his grades are high enough” and that if Lowell spends on “advanced courses for bright students,” other schools spend money on “remedial courses for dull students.”

in the end the lawsuit failed, with the judge arguing that whether or not Lowell should change should be up to a board of education to decide, not a judge.

the NAACP would sue SF for school desegregation later in the decade.