## Facts

- New Kent County, Virginia operated a two-school public system historically separated by race: New Kent School (white) and George W. Watkins School (Black).
- The schools served the entire county without attendance zones; bus routes overlapped throughout the county, and the county lacked residential segregation.
- After *Brown*, the School Board continued operating a state-imposed dual system for years.
- Black students and parents sued in 1965 seeking injunctive relief to end the dual system.
- In 1965 the Board adopted a “freedom-of-choice” plan allowing most students to choose annually between the two schools; students who did not choose were assigned to their prior school, and certain grades had to make an affirmative choice.
- After three years, no white students attended the historically Black school; although some Black students enrolled in the historically white school, about 85% of Black students remained at the historically Black school.
- The district court approved the plan; the court of appeals allowed the plan’s student-assignment provisions but required further action regarding faculty desegregation.

## Issues

1. Whether a freedom-of-choice student assignment plan constitutes adequate compliance with a school board’s constitutional duty to dismantle a state-imposed dual school system.
2. Whether constitutional compliance turns on a plan’s facial neutrality or on its actual effectiveness in producing a unitary, nonracial system.
3. What obligations district courts and school boards have to implement and supervise measures that promptly eliminate segregation in all aspects of school operations.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the approval of the freedom-of-choice plan and remanded.
- The Court held that the plan did not satisfy the School Board’s duty under the Fourteenth Amendment to dismantle the dual system.
- The Court required the Board to adopt a plan that realistically promises prompt and effective conversion to a unitary, nonracial system.
- The Court directed district courts to evaluate feasible alternatives and retain jurisdiction until state-imposed segregation is fully removed.

## Legal Principles

- School boards that operated dual systems have an affirmative duty to eliminate segregation and establish a unitary, nonracial system.
- The constitutionality of a desegregation plan is measured by its effectiveness in practice, not by formal availability of individual choice.
- The burden rests on the school board to propose and implement a plan that works promptly; a plan that fails to provide meaningful assurance of effective disestablishment is unacceptable.
- Courts must consider feasible, more effective alternatives (including zoning or consolidation) when a proposed plan does not produce desegregation.
- Desegregation obligations extend across key operational areas—commonly assessed through student assignment, faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that New Kent County’s freedom-of-choice plan unlawfully preserved a racially identifiable dual system and reaffirmed that school boards must promptly dismantle segregation and achieve a unitary, nonracial school system under active judicial supervision until the transition is complete.


Green v. County Sch. Bd. of New Kent Cnty., 391 U.S. 430 (1968)