## Facts

- The Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, public school system remained heavily racially segregated years after legally mandated segregation ended.
- In the 1968–1969 school year, the district served more than 84,000 students in 107 schools; about 29% of students were Black, and many Black students attended schools that were nearly entirely Black.
- Black parents and students sued in 1965 seeking effective desegregation.
- The school board used neighborhood-based attendance zones and a transfer option that, in practice, left many schools racially identifiable.
- After federal law required effective, results-oriented desegregation, the district court found a continuing dual system and ordered a new plan.
- The district court adopted a plan for elementary schools that used pairing/grouping of schools, revised zones (including noncontiguous assignments), and extensive student transportation to achieve desegregation.

## Issues

1. Whether, after a finding of de jure segregation, a federal district court may use racial ratios as benchmarks in shaping and assessing a desegregation remedy.
2. Whether a court may order or approve student reassignment methods, including redrawing attendance zones (including noncontiguous zones) and pairing/grouping schools, to eliminate a dual system.
3. Whether ordering or approving student transportation (busing) is a permissible remedial tool, and what limits constrain its use.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the district court’s authority to impose a comprehensive remedy to dismantle a dual system.
- The Court approved use of racial ratios as a starting point or index for remedy design and evaluation, not as permanent rigid quotas.
- The Court held that predominantly one-race schools are not automatically unconstitutional, but require close judicial scrutiny once a dual system is shown; school authorities bear the burden to show such composition is not traceable to de jure segregation.
- The Court upheld court-ordered changes to attendance zones, including noncontiguous zoning and pairing/grouping of schools, when reasonably necessary to eliminate vestiges of state-imposed segregation.
- The Court held that transportation is a permissible remedy so long as travel time and distance are not so great as to risk students’ health or substantially impair the educational process.

## Legal Principles

- Once a constitutional violation in school segregation is established and local authorities fail to cure it, federal courts have broad equitable power to craft effective remedies.
- School boards have an affirmative duty to produce and implement a plan that works in practice to eliminate all vestiges of state-imposed segregation.
- Mathematical racial ratios may be used as tools to guide and measure desegregation remedies, but they are not required as fixed, enduring quotas.
- Courts may restructure attendance assignments, including zoning changes, noncontiguous zones, and pairing/grouping, when needed to dismantle a dual system.
- Student transportation may be ordered or approved as part of a desegregation remedy, subject to reasonable limits tied to health and the educational process.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained robust judicial remedial authority to dismantle de jure segregated school systems and held that measures such as zoning changes, pairing/grouping, racial benchmarks, and busing may be used when reasonably necessary to eliminate the remaining effects of state-imposed segregation.


Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1 (1971)