Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974) was an important United States Supreme Court case
dealing with the planned forced busing of public school students across district lines among 53 school districts in metropolitan
Detroit. It concerned the plans to integrate public schools in
the United States in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483
(1954) decision. It placed an important limitation on the first major Supreme Court case
concerning school busing, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1
(1971).
The Bench
The makeup of the supreme court and their opinions were:
Opinion
-
Concurring Opinion
- Written by: Justice Stewart
Dissenting
-
- Written by: Justice Marshall
-
- Joined by: Justices Douglas, Brennan and White
The Decision
In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that "[w]ith no showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying school districts and
no evidence of any interdistrict violation or effect," the district court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not justified
by Brown v. Board of Education. The Court noted that desegregation, "in the sense of dismantling a dual school system," did not require "any particular racial
balance in each 'school, grade or classroom.'" The Court also emphasized the importance of local control over the operation of
schools.
This decision exempted suburban districts from assisting in desegregating inner-city schools. This decision reinforced the
existing trend of "white flight" from cities to suburban school
districts.
Justice Douglas' dissenting opinion held that:
- "Today's decision ... means that there is no violation of the Equal Protection Clause though the schools are segregated by
race and though the black schools are not only separate but inferior." (emphasis added)
- "Michigan by one device or another has over the years created black school districts and white school districts, the task of
equity is to provide a unitary system for the affected area where, as here, the State washes its hands of its own
creations."
Despite the Court's decision in Milliken, court-supervised school desegregation plans were implemented regularly
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and remain in effect in a few U.S. cities and metropolitan areas as of 2004.
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