## Facts

- Black students and parents challenged classroom-level segregation in the Tate County, Mississippi, public schools.
- After prior litigation, a federal court abolished the district’s “freedom of choice” plan and ordered an end to segregated classrooms.
- The district reassigned students to schools by geographic zones but kept an internal classroom assignment practice described as “faculty-predicted ability grouping” for elementary and junior high grades.
- Teachers recommended student placements based on past performance; principals made final section assignments; students could be moved between sections during the year.
- Entering first-graders were initially placed based on attendance in a public preschool program; high school classes were scheduled largely based on student course requests.
- The assignment practices produced “one to four all-black sections” in each elementary grade and some all-white advanced sections in upper grades.
- Plaintiffs sought contempt and further relief, including a requirement that each classroom’s racial composition match the grade-level ratio.
- The district court found the system unitary in several operational areas, treated the segregated classrooms as a technical noncompliance, and excused officials based partly on its reading of Supreme Court decisions involving large metropolitan systems.

## Issues

1. Whether a classroom assignment plan using ability grouping that produces racially identifiable classrooms in a formerly dual system violates the Constitution and an existing desegregation order absent proof the segregation is not traceable to past discrimination or is a valid remedial measure.
2. Whether the district court erred by excusing noncompliance with a prior injunction against segregated classrooms and by deferring to school officials without requiring an adequate justification for racially identifiable classroom results.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded.
- The court held ability grouping is not per se unconstitutional, but it is impermissible in a district with a history of de jure segregation when it produces racially identifiable classrooms unless the district affirmatively justifies it.
- The district failed to carry its burden to show the racial separation was not a vestige of the prior dual system or that the grouping functioned as a bona fide remedial device.
- The court rejected the district court’s reliance on metropolitan desegregation cases as a basis to excuse racially identifiable classrooms in a system subject to a specific order barring segregated classrooms.
- The court declined to impose an inflexible rule requiring each classroom to mirror grade-level racial ratios, but required reconsideration of classroom assignment methods under stricter standards.

## Legal Principles

- In a school system previously found to be dual, any student assignment method that results in racial segregation, including within-school ability grouping, must receive careful judicial scrutiny.
- When racially identifiable classrooms appear in such a system, school authorities bear the burden to prove the segregation is not caused by past discriminatory practices.
- Ability grouping may be permitted only if the district proves either (a) the racial separation is not traceable to prior de jure segregation, or (b) the grouping operates as a genuine remedial measure that addresses educational disadvantages linked to past discrimination.
- A district court may not excuse noncompliance with a desegregation injunction based on generalized deference to administrators or inapposite precedent; enforcement requires a concrete showing that current practices do not perpetuate the prior dual system.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit required the school district to justify or revise its ability-grouping policy because its operation produced racially identifiable classrooms in a formerly dual system; without proof the results were nonvestigial or truly remedial, the practice could not stand, and the case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with these standards.


McNeal v. Tate Cnty. Sch. Dist., 508 F.2d 1017 (5th Cir. 1975)