Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools. The Court held that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools. This was done to ensure the schools would be "properly" integrated and that all students would receive equal educational opportunities regardless of their race.

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**Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education **

Judge John J. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit interpreted the Brown v. Board of Education _ case as a charge not to segregate rather than an order to integrate. In 1963, the Court ruled in McNeese v. Board of Education and Goss v. Board of Education in favor of integration, and showed impatience with efforts to end segregation.[citation needed
_] In 1968 the Warren Court ruled in _Green v. County School Board _ that freedom of choice plans were insufficient to eliminate segregation ; thus, it was necessary to take proactive steps to integrate schools. In United States v. Montgomery County Board of Education (1969), Judge Frank Minis Johnson 's desegregation order for teachers was upheld, allowing an approximate ratio of the races to be established by a district judge.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 Historical background

  • 1.2 Legal background

• 2 Legal proceedings

• 3 Swann before the Supreme Court

• 4 Timeline of the case being overturned

• 5 Subsequent developments

• 6 See also

• 7 References

• 8 External links

Background

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Historical background

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North Carolina was one of the more moderate Southern states, and its resistance to integration was much weaker than in most other areas of the South . After Brown, it had ended segregation with a school assignment plan based on neighborhoods that was approved by the Court. However, when Charlotte consolidated school districts from the city itself with a surrounding area totaling 550 square miles (1,400 km2), the majority of black students (who lived in central Charlotte) still attended mostly black schools as compared with majority white schools further outside the city.

Legal background

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The desegregation order in Swann was an equitable remedy, and the Supreme Court determined its scope according to traditional principles of equity. Although equitable powers do not derive from § 1983, the statute supplied the necessary cause of action against state officials. William Van Alstyne commented that "the manner in which the statutory authorization to provide equitable relief was construed in Swann was felt by many to go to the very verge of judicial discretion".

Legal proceedings

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The NAACP Legal Defense Fund brought the Swann case on behalf of six-year-old James Swann and nine other families, with Julius L. Chambers presenting the case. Swann was chosen because his father was a theology professor, and was thus unlikely to be economically burdened by local retaliation.

In 1965, Judge J. Braxton Craven decided Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in favor of Charlotte-Mecklenburg , because there was no requirement in the Constitution to act purposely to increase racial mixing.

After the Green ruling, the Swann case was filed again, and this time taken by Judge James Bryan McMillan as his first important case on the federal bench. McMillan had at one point been a public opponent of busing to integrate schools, but when the case was presented to him he said that the facts outweighed his feelings, and busing was the only way to fulfill the constitutional requirement of desegregation.

Experts from Rhode Island College were brought in for the Plaintiff's side to judge the effectiveness of the school board's new plan. From April to November 1969, McMillan repeatedly ordered the board to revise the plan. The Board eventually submitted a plan rezoning neighborhoods into pie-shaped wedges, where blacks living in the center of Charlotte would be divided up and distributed to outlying, formerly white high schools. The school board's plan required busing and would achieve a black population of 2–36% in all ten of the high schools. Due to the greater number of elementary schools, elaborate gerrymandering was required and would achieve greater integration, but would leave more than half of black elementary students at majority-black schools.

The Court rejected the Board's plan in favor of outsider Dr. John Finger's plan. The Finger Plan required busing of an additional 300 black students, established "satellite zones" and required pairing and grouping techniques to achieve even greater integration. As a consequence, McMillan became a local pariah. Chambers' home, office and car were bombed when he first took up the case.

When the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the case was heard _en banc _ by six of the seven judges sitting on the court. The seventh judge Judge J. Braxton Craven , recused himself due to him being the original trial court judge. The opinion was 3–2–1 that the restructured busing orders should be affirmed for older students, but that it be remanded for those of elementary school age. Two dissenters would have affirmed the whole decision, while one would reverse McMillan's ruling in its entirety. McMillan decided to follow his original plan for elementary school students after the case was remanded to him.

Swann before the Supreme Court

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Justice William O. Douglas had previously been strongly opposed to busing. The Court was urged to begin their term early to hear the case, but decided to wait until the first day of their new term to begin.

Despite his relative youth and inexperience, Julius Chambers argued the case, because of his intimate knowledge of the facts involved. Erwin Griswold , the Solicitor General of the United States, represented the federal government, advocating Nixon's "go-slow" policy. Though no official vote was taken, Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Hugo Black wanted to reverse McMillan's order, while Justices Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II , William J. Brennan Jr. ,

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