As philly notes, many magnet/GT programs were designed to keep middle/upper middle-class white families from leaving the public school systems in question, which is an important nuance to recognize, since the article highlights only that many similar programs were designed to evade separate-but-equal legislation by creating de facto segregated schools. Both origins are historically accurate (programs to promote desegregation and programs to segregate), reflecting one of the reasons so many GT programs are educationally unsatisfying for actual GT learners: they weren't designed principally to service their learning needs.
