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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.