[okgwwvwn] Top down change

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of racial integration which was forced into practice for schools by the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.  Unfortunately, that dream has failed (or is very slow in coming true) in many areas, with de facto segregated schools between the inner city and white flight to the suburbs.  (Incidentally, who first correctly predicted this outcome?)

You can't make people less racist by merely changing law.  Or, maybe forcing racial integration of schools failed to address deeper problems?  (Which are?)

Citing this as a negative example, under what conditions, if ever, does such a top-down approach work for causing social change?

The topical issue is gay marriage.  Should political effort be spent on federal "top-down" approaches (e.g., repealing DoMA, Supreme Court overturning state constitutional amendments), or is it better spent on formidable "bottom-up", actually trying to change people's opinions toward tolerance?

Unlike racial integration of schools, this one just might work top-down.  We can look to states (and other countries) that have legalized gay marriage to see if something analogous to "white flight" will occur, and I see nothing, though I haven't looked very closely.

There still remains the federalism philosophical objection that the "distant" national government ought not be enacting policies that deeply affect personal actions.  That is the job of the state government, which is nearer.  So, we need to fix bad state government, including the process of state constitutional amendments.  But beware, we would like to preserve the ability for states to experiment, to quickly make positive changes.  Maybe, despite North Carolina, the system is functioning just fine.