## Facts

- Black Boston public school students and parents sued Boston school officials after a finding that the school system had maintained an official, systemwide policy of intentional segregation in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- After the liability determination, the district court entered comprehensive remedial orders to dismantle segregation and move the system toward unitary status.
- The remedial plan reorganized attendance structures using community school districts and a citywide district for certain grades and programs.
- The plan required mandatory student reassignment and transportation to reduce racial concentration and rejected reliance on voluntary measures and parental choice as insufficient.
- The plan included magnet schools and specialized programs intended to support desegregation and educational offerings.
- The district court addressed operational matters necessary to implement the remedy, including school capacities, closings, and policies affecting selective examination schools.
- The remedial framework included citizen participation, monitoring, and reporting mechanisms to support implementation and compliance.
- Several parties appealed or cross-appealed, arguing the plan was overbroad and should be limited to account for demographic conditions, including predicted “white flight.”

## Issues

1. Whether, after a finding of systemwide intentional segregation, the district court acted within its equitable authority in ordering a comprehensive desegregation plan using reassignment, transportation, district restructuring, magnet programs, and related operational measures.
2. Whether the district court was required to limit or redesign the remedy to reduce anticipated “white flight” and resulting resegregation.
3. Whether the remedial orders were impermissibly broad because they were not confined to correcting only the directly provable effects of specific segregative acts.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s principal remedial orders.
- The court held the plan was within the district court’s broad equitable discretion to remedy a systemwide constitutional violation and to pursue the maximum feasible desegregation under the circumstances.
- The court upheld mandatory reassignment and transportation, along with district reorganization, as permissible remedial tools for dismantling the prior dual system.
- The court approved magnet schools and programmatic measures as legitimate components of a desegregation remedy.
- The court rejected the argument that anticipated opposition or “white flight” required dilution of a constitutionally necessary plan.
- The court declined to require the district court to confine relief to only the demonstrable effects of discrete segregative acts given the systemwide finding of intentional segregation.

## Legal Principles

- Once a court finds systemwide intentional school segregation, it has broad equitable power to eliminate the vestiges of segregation and to require conversion to a unitary system.
- Remedies may be systemwide and need not mirror each discrete violation; courts may employ structural and operational measures reasonably aimed at dismantling the segregated system.
- Mandatory student reassignment and transportation are permissible remedial measures when necessary to achieve desegregation.
- Courts may employ magnet schools and specialized programs as lawful tools to further desegregation objectives.
- Anticipated community resistance, including “white flight,” is not a permissible basis to withhold, weaken, or limit a constitutionally required desegregation remedy.
- After a systemwide violation is established, a court is not required to restrict relief to only those racial imbalances shown to be the direct, provable effects of particular past official acts.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit upheld a comprehensive Boston school desegregation plan as a valid exercise of equitable remedial authority following a systemwide finding of intentional segregation, and it held that predicted “white flight” and related opposition could not justify reducing constitutionally required desegregation measures.


Morgan v. Kerrigan, 530 F.2d 401 (1st Cir. 1976)