The son of one of the lead attorneys for Linda Brown said Friday that his father would be disappointed with the effect the landmark Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling had on race relations.

“It was his hope the Brown case would offer a whole new world for black Americans,” Charles Scott Jr. said. “It was his hope blacks would once and for all be a part of mainstream society. I regret to say Brown is still an ideal to be achieved.”

Scott spoke Friday at Kansas University during a symposium organized by the National Bar Assn., which represents black attorneys. The association is staging its annual Board of Governors meeting and issues symposium in Kansas City, Mo.

Scott was joined at the symposium by Theodore Shaw, deputy director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Ronald Griffin, professor of law at Washburn University.

In the 1954 Brown ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said having separate-but-equal schools for whites and blacks was unconstitutional. The case involved several lawsuits, including the one filed against the Topeka school district by representatives of Linda Brown, the young girl whose father challenged the district’s refusal to enroll his daughter in a white school.

All the speakers Friday said the Brown decision wasn’t the end of segregation in public schools but rather the beginning of desegregation. They cited ongoing lawsuits related to adhering to the Brown decision, including some about busing.

Scott mentioned a 1997 study that showed 70 percent of black children attended schools that were more than 50 percent black. More should be done to integrate schools, he said.

Griffin said Topeka remained segregated today. He said many white residents moved to the city’s fringes to form the Shawnee Heights, Seaman and Washburn Rural school districts.

Shaw urged the approximately 70 attorneys who attended the symposium to view the approaching 50th anniversary of the Brown decision as a commemoration, not a celebration.

“A lot of people are going to try to celebrate it like it’s all been resolved, like we’re all holding hands together,” he said.