School Law and the Public Schools: A

Practical Guide for Educational

Leaders
Sixth Edition

Chapter 12

School Desegregation

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De jure segregation
• De jure segregation is segregation that is sanctioned by
law as was the case in Brown I.
• Because the equal protection clause essentially covers
state action, it prohibits state endorsed discrimination.

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Brown v. Board of Education (1 of 2)
Roman numeral five.

• Four separate cases from Kansas, South Carolina,

Virginia, and Delaware were consolidated and decided in
Brown.
• In each case, black students sought admission to
segregated schools in their communities.
• Three states, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware had
statutes that called for segregated schools.

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Brown v. Board of Education (2 of 2)
Roman numeral five.

• Kansas permitted but did not require segregated schools.

The four states relied on the separate but equal decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson to defend their position.
• The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed and held for the
students.
• Students cannot be discriminated against in their attempts
to attend school on the basis of race.
• The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection
under the law for students attending public schools.

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Ferguson
• Segregation sanctioned by a state deprives minority
children equal educational opportunities.
• Separate but equal schools based on race are inherently
unequal and unconstitutional.

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Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II) (1 of 2)
Roman numeral five. Roman numeral two right parenthesis.

• Brown II ’s ruling was fashioned to ensure proper

implementation of Brown I.
• These cases were remanded to federal district courts
based on their proximity to local school districts.
• This ruling mandated that school authorities be delegated
the authority to implement its ruling in good faith and with
all deliberate speed.

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Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II) (2 of 2)
Roman numeral five. Roman numeral two right parenthesis.

• The ruling in Brown II was handed down as a means of

expediting the ruling in Brown I.
• Brown II remanded desegregation cases to federal
district courts because of their close proximity to local
school districts.

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Swann V. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education (1 of 2)
• Swann was a leading case in defining the scope of the
duty to eliminate de jure segregation and a dual school
system.
• The objective in Swann was to ensure that school
authorities excluded no student of a racial minority from
any school directly or indirectly based on race.
• The use of mathematical ratios was only a beginning point
in the process of shaping a remedy for eradicating
segregated schools.

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Swann V. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education (2 of 2)
• If an optional majority to minority transfer provision is
implemented, transferring students must be granted free
transportation.
• Pairing and grouping on noncontiguous school zones is a
permissible tool and should be considered in light of the
objectives sought by the school district.
• An objection to transportation of students may be valid
when the time and distance of travel is so great as to either
risk the health of children or significantly impinge on the
educational process.

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Busing and Desegregation (1 of 2)
• Historically, the courts have viewed busing as an effective
means of achieving desegregated schools.
• It has met opposition by parents and taxpayers who
considered busing to be a threat to the neighborhood
school concept, time-consuming for students, and an
added expense on taxpayers.
• Parents and taxpayers advocated that money be
expended on improving neighborhood schools rather on
busing.

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Busing and Desegregation (2 of 2)
• Several states passed anti-busing legislation to prohibit the
use of busing.
• A number of district courts concluded that allowing
students to attend schools near where they lived would not
effective dismantle dual school systems.
• Busing was considered one viable measure used by the
courts to achieve desegregated schools.

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De Facto Segregation (1 of 3)
• De Facto segregation is present when a substantial
number of students enrolled in a school represent a racial
and ethnic minority.
• This situation developed through no action taken by the
school district.

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De Facto Segregation (2 of 3)
• The courts did, however, mandate that corrective action be
taken in instances where school officials gerrymandered
(altered) school attendance zones to create zones with
large concentrations of black students assigned to
historically black schools within the district.
• District courts may alter attendance zones and may devise
zones based on grouping and pairing schools and may
require busing to achieve desegregation.

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De Facto Segregation (3 of 3)
• District courts may disallow patterns of school construction
and abandonment that create a dual system of education.
• Plans devised that result in substantially segregated
schools are illegal.
• Conduct on the part of the school board that is designed to
create and maintain segregated schools clearly violates
the Fourteenth Amendment and the Brown holding.

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Seeking Unitary Status (1 of 2)
• School districts across the nation have filed for unitary
status.
• They have essentially made the claim that they have
operated in good faith and made a concerted effort to
achieve desegregated schools.
• Based on these efforts, they are requesting that they be
relieved of court supervision.

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Seeking Unitary Status (2 of 2)
• A good faith incremental approach to achieving unitary
status is acceptable by the courts and considered to be
constitutional.
• Achieving unitary status in some areas may lead to
relinquished judicial control, even when some other areas
have not achieved unitary status.
• Through relinquishing control in areas deemed to be
unitary, a school district may effectively focus on the areas
in need of further attention.

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Copyright

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