This article explores how districts negotiate the conflict that emerges as they attempt to de-legitimize inequity by prompting institutional and organizational-level changes that create equitable access and outcomes for all children. To this end, this article highlights the contentious nature of this pursuit as well as the intended and unintended consequences of such changes. Specifically, the author addresses how district leaders erode inequity by initiating and addressing instigators for change, altering interpretive schemas, and developing normative understandings. These efforts occur as districts straddle the “margin of tolerance” within a political, social, and economical environment that has not radically shifted its ideas about equity. Consequently, as this discussion illuminates, district efforts must concurrently de-legitimize inequity while legitimizing equitable beliefs, practices, structures, and policies.
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