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Significant Cases

Supreme Court Cases

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) summary
Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, 175 U.S. 528 (1899) summary
Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927) summary
State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938) summary
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950) summary
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950) summary
Henderson v. United States, 339 U.S. 816 (1950) summary
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294 (1954) summary Oral Arguments
Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954) summary
   Oral Arguments  Oral Arguments   Oral Arguments Oral Arguments
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, "Brown II," 349 U.S. 294 (1955) summary
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958) summary
Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward Co., 377 U.S. 218 (1964) summary
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Va., 391 U.S. 430 (1968) summary
Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19 (1969) summary
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) summary
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973) summary
Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, 413 U.S. 921 (1973) summary
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974) summary
Pasadena City Board of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424 (1976) summary
University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) summary
Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 489 U.S. 237 (1991) summary
Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467 (1992) summary
United States v. Fordice, Governor of Mississippi, 505 U.S. 717 (1992) summary
Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 1139 (1995) summary
Grutter v. Bollinger, [02-241] summary
Jennifer Gratz v. Lee Bollinger [02-516] summary

Michigan Court Cases

Joseph Workman v. The Board of Education of Detroit, 18 Mich 400 (1863) summary
Donald Davis, JR., v. School District of the city of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 734 (1970) summary
Barbara Jean Berry v. School District of Benton Harbor 442 F. Supp. 1280; 1977 U.S. Dist. summary
Michelle Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of Education 346 F. Supp. 766; 1971 U.S. Dist. (1983) summary
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Lansing Branch v. Lansing Board of Education 429 F. Supp. 583; 1976 U.S. Dist. and 581 F.2d 115; 1978 U.S. App. summary
Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board 463 F. Supp. 1027 summary



Case Name: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Plaintiffs: Homer Plessy

Defendants: John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal District Court for the parish of Orleans

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Year : Argued: April 13, 1896 Decided: May 18, 1896

Significant Points: Homer Plessy a biracial man challenged a Louisiana law requiring railroad companies in the state to provide "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored race." The court decided 'separate but equal' facilities were constitutional. This ruling was extended to include schools. Justice John Marshall Harlan was the sole dissenting opinion and he wrote "Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among its citizens."


Case Name: Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, 175 U.S. 528 (1899)

Plaintiffs: Cumming, Harper and Ladeveze

Defendants: The Board of Education of Richmond County and Charles S. Bohler, tax collector.

Location: Richmond County Georgia

Year: Argued: October 30, 1899 Decided: December 18, 1899

Significant Points: The Court issued a unanimous opinion that upheld a decision of white officials to close the black high school. The black defendants demanded that the Court grant an injunction that would prevent the use of taxes for the operation of the white high schools until the county reestablished the black high school. This decision gave a green light to school officials to discriminate.


Case Name: Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927)

Plaintiffs: Gong Lum and Martha Lum

Defendants: Superintendent of Education of the State of Mississippi

Location: Mississippi

Year: Argued: October 12, 1927 Decided: November 21, 1927

Significant Points: Gong Lum, a Chinese merchant in Mississippi sent his daughter Martha to a white school, and she was sent home because she was not white. The Court ruled for the state citing Cumming Chief Justice William Howard Taft said the question of who can attend state schools 'has been may times decided to be within the constitutional power of the state legislature to settle without intervention of the federal courts under the Federal Constitution.'


Case Name: State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938)

Plaintiffs: Lloyd Gaines

Defendants: CANADA, REGISTRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

Location: Missouri

Year: Argued: November 9, 1938 Decided: December 12, 1938

Significant Points: The Supreme Court ruled that Missouri could not satisfy its obligation to provide equal protection by sending an African American resident to an out-of-state law school and that Lloyd Gaines must thus be admitted to the all-white University of Missouri School of Law. This case was the beginning of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's effort to chip away at the separate-but-equal doctrine. The State of Missouri set up a separate inferior law school in 1939, forcing the NAACP back to court. However early in 1939 Gaines disappeared never to surface again, some suspected foul play others thought he accepted a bribe. Whatever happened the NAACP was forced to drop the case because it not longer had a plaintiff.


Case Name: Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)

Plaintiffs: Herman Sweatt

Defendants: Theophilus S. Painter, President of The University of Texas

Location: Houston, Texas

Year: Argued: April 4, 1950 Decided: June 5, 1950

Significant Points: In 1946, with the support of the NAACP, Herman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to The University of Texas School of Law. The University registrar rejected his application because Sweatt was an African American and UT was a segregated institution. Sweatt, with NAACP counsel, sued. Although Sweatt lost in state court, the United States Supreme Court in 1950 ordered the integration of The University of Texas School of Law and also The University's Graduate School.


Case Name: McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950)

Plaintiffs: George McLaurin

Defendants: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education

Location: Oklahoma

Year: Argued: April 3-4, 1950 Decided: June 5, 1950

Significant Points: On January 28, 1948, a black retired professor, George McLaurin, applied to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a Doctorate in Education. School authorities were required to deny him admission solely because of his race under Oklahoma statutes which made it a misdemeanor to maintain or operate, teach, or attend a school at which both whites and African Americans were enrolled or taught. McLaurin filed a complaint to gain admission. On October 6, the Court for the Western District of Oklahoma found unconstitutional those parts of the Oklahoma statute that denied McLaurin admission. With this ruling the University's Board of Regents voted to admit McLaurin, but on a segregated basis.
On October 13, 1948, McLaurin entered the University. He sat at a designated desk on the mezzanine level of Bizzell Library rather than the regular reading room, at a desk in an anteroom adjoining Classroom 104 in Carnegie Hall, and ate at a separate time from the white students in the cafeteria. McLaurin once again filed suit with the District Court. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that as a result of McLaurin's segregation he was "handicapped in his pursuit of effective graduate instruction. Such restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussion and exchange view with other students, and in general to learn his professions." The case became the climax of the NAACP's plans between 1930 and 1950 to overturn the separate but equal doctrine in public education by demanding equality in graduate and professional schools.


Case Name: Henderson v. United States, 339 U.S. 816 (1950)

Plaintiffs: Elmer Henderson

Defendants: Southern Railway and Interstate Commerce Commission

Location: Maryland

Year: Argued: April 3, 1950 Decided: June 5, 1950

Significant Points: Henderson spent eight years challenging both the practice of the Southern Railway restricting and segregating African Americans using its dining cars and the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to approve such a rule.
The railroad at the time allotted 10 tables for white travelers and one for black travelers and separated the races with a curtain. Segregation had been legal for much of the country's history in schools, restaurants, theaters and other public places. Henderson's attorneys asked the court to strike down the ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case that in 1896 had established the principle of separate but equal facilities.
The Supreme Court ultimately held that segregation in dining cars violated the Interstate Commerce Act, under which it was unlawful for a railroad in interstate commerce to subject a passenger to undue or unreasonable disadvantage.


Case Name: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294
Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al.,

Plaintiffs: Harry Briggs (Briggs v. Elliott), Oliver Brown (Brown v. Board), Sarah Bulah (Gebhart, Dorothy E. Davis, (Davis)

Defendants: Roderick Elliott (Briggs), Board of Education of Topeka Kansas (Brown), County School Board of Prince Edward County Virginia (Davis),

Location: Clarendon County, South Carolina (Briggs), Topeka, Kansas (Brown), Prince Edward County Virginia (Davis), Wilmington, Delaware (Gebhart)

Year: Argued: December 9, 1952 Decided: May 17, 1954

Significant Points: Ended de jure school segregation


Case Name: Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954)

Plaintiffs: Spotswood Bolling, Jr.

Defendants: Sharpe

Location: Washington D.C.

Year: Argued: December 10-11. 1952 Decided: May 17, 1954

Significant Points: This is a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education, supra, p 873. In the latter case the Supreme Court held that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools. In the present case, in an opinion by Warren, Ch. J., it was held that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia.


Case Name: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, "Brown II," 349 U.S. 294

Plaintiffs: Oliver Brown

Defendants: Board of Education of Topeka Kansas

Location: Topeka, Kansas

Year: Argued: April 11-15, 1955 Decided: May 31, 1955

Significant Points: The principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional was announced by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (and three companion cases) 347 US 483, 98 L ed 873, 74 S Ct 686, 38 ALR2d 1180 (dealing with state public schools) and in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 US 497, 98 L ed 884, 74 S Ct 693 (dealing with public schools of the District of Columbia). In all these cases the Supreme Court requested further argument on the question of relief.

In a supplemental opinion by Warren, Ch. J., the Supreme Court unanimously reversed those courts below which had permitted racial segregation in public schools, and remanded the cases with directions that these courts, in fashioning and effectuating the decrees, should be guided by equitable principles as defined in the opinion. The most important principle is that the defendants should make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with the decision requiring desegregation and that the burden rests upon them to establish that additional time is necessary in the public interest and is consistent with good-faith compliance at the earliest practicable date. The trial courts are directed to retain jurisdiction of the cases during the period of transition.


Case Name: Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1

Plaintiff: William G. Cooper, President Little Rock School Broad
Virgil Blossom, Superintendent of Schools of Little Rock, Arkansas

Defendants: John Aaron

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas

Year: Argued: September 11, 1958 Decided: September 12, 1958

Significant Points: The School Board and the Superintendent of Schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, filed the present petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking a postponement of a plan for desegregation of public schools which had been adopted by the Board and approved by the appropriate federal courts. The court refused to postpone further desegregation in the face of the official and public hostility that had accompanied the integration the city's Central High School.


Case Name: Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Board of Education, 377 U.S. 218

Plaintiff: Griffin

Defendants: County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia

Location: Prince Edward County, Virginia

Year: Argued: March 30, 1964 Decided: May 25, 1964

Significant Points: In 1959 the County School Board of Prince Edward County closed it public schools rather than desegregate. However all other schools remained open in Virginia. In addition the School Board supported private white schools in the county. The court forced the county to reopen the public schools.


Case Name: Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Va. 391 U.S. 430

Plaintiff: Green

Defendants: County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia

Location: New Kent County, Virginia

Year: Argued: April 3, 1968 Decided: May 27, 1968

Significant Points: The case involved a freedom of choice plan established in 1965 in New Kent County just east of Richmond. The plan resulted in little desegregation. The Court ruled that such plans must be approved only if effective in achieving desegregation.


Case Name: Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19

Plaintiff: Alexander

Defendants: Holmes County Board of Education

Location: Holmes County, Mississippi

Year: Argued: October 23, 1969 Decided: October 29, 1969

Significant Points: President Nixon ordered a delay in court orders that would have forced 33 school districts in Mississippi to produce plans for segregation. The Legal Defense Fund appealed to the Court. The Court ruled the standard of "all deliberate speed" was no longer constitutionally permissible. The Court added, "The obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools…These schools were in which no person is to be effectively excluded from any school because of race or color."


Case Name: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1

Plaintiff: Darius Swann

Defendant: Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education

Location: Charlotte, North Carolina

Year: Argued: October 12, 1970 Decided: April 20, 1971

Significant Points: The Court ruled that a range of tools, including school busing were appropriate to promote racial balance. However Swann did not affect the North.


Case Name: San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1

Plaintiff: Demetrio Rodriguez

Defendant: San Antonio Independent School District

Location: San Antonio, Texas

Year: Argued: October 12, 1972 Decided: March 21, 1973

Significant Points: Demetrio Rodriguez complaint was pointed at the in egalitarian aspect of school funding: public schools supported by local property taxes. School spending differed by as much twice the amount in Alamo Heights as in Edgewood. The Court found no proof the San Antonio's financing system disadvantaged any identifiable group or that the poorest students lived only in the districts with the most badly financed schools. Justice Lewis Powell wrote "The Equal Protection Clause, does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages." He added education was not a fundamental interest under the Constitution and that levels of financing were only a part of what made good schools.


Case Name: Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, 413 U.S. 921

Plaintiff: Keyes

Defendant: Denver School District

Location: Denver, Colorado

Year: 1973

Significant Points: Denver was the first nonsouthern city to have its school policies challenged in the High Court. The Court all but ordered Denver to start citywide busing. However, the Court did say de facto segregation was insufficient grounds for judicial intervention, if a school board could show that it did not intend to segregate. If segregation stemmed from other sources such as housing arising from uncoordinated private decisions.


Case Name: Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717

Plaintiff: Verda Bradley

Defendant: William Milliken, Governor of Michigan

Location: Detroit, Michigan

Year: Argued: February 27, 1974 Decided: July 25, 1974

Significant Points: Overturned a lower court ruling that would have abolished city-suburban school districts around Detroit. The ruling would have affected fifty-three suburban districts and over 300,000 students. Chief Justice Burger wrote "The notion that school district lines may be casually ignored or treated a mere administrative convenience is contrary to the history of public education in our country." The Court sent the case back to lower courts and told them to develop remedies within the city limits.


Case Name: Pasadena City Board of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424

Plaintiff: Spangler

Defendant: Pasadena City Board of Education

Location: Pasadena, California

Year: Argued April 27-28, 1976 Decided: June 28, 1976

Significant Points: The United States District Court for the Central District of California denied motions, made in 1974, to amend its 1970 order for desegregation of the Pasadena Unified School District by eliminating the requirement that there be no school "with a majority of any minority students". The United States Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals' judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. In an opinion by Rehnquist, J., expressing the views of six members of the court, it was held that having established a racially neutral system of student assignment in the school district by its 1970 order, the District Court could not require the school district to rearrange its attendance zones annually so as to insure perpetually a desirable racial mix in the schools


Case Name: Regents of The University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265

Plaintiff: Allen Bakke

Defendant: Regents of The University of California

Location: Davis, California

Year: Argued: October 12, 1977 Decided: June 28, 1978,

Significant Points: A white male who had been denied admission to the medical school at the University of California at Davis for two consecutive years, instituted an action for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Regents of the University in the Superior Court of Yolo County, California, alleging the invalidity--under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a provision of the California Constitution, and the proscription in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against racial discrimination in any program receiving federal financial assistance--of the medical school's special admissions program under which only disadvantaged members of certain minority races were considered for 16 of the 100 places in each year's class, whereas members of any race could qualify under the school's general admissions program for the other 84 places in the class, the plaintiff having been denied admission to the school under the general admissions program even though applicants with substantially lower entrance examination scores had been admitted under the special admissions program. Finding that the special admissions program operated as a racial quota because minority applicants in the special program were rated only against one another and 16 places in the class of 100 were reserved for them, the trial court (1) declared that the school could not take race into account in making admissions decisions, (2) held that the challenged admissions program violated the federal and state constitutions and Title VI, but (3) refused to order the plaintiff's admission because he had failed to prove that he would have been admitted but for the existence of the special program. Justice Blackmun wrote "In order to get beyond race we must first take account of race. There is no other way….In order to treat persons equally, we must treat them differently."


Case Name: Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237

Plaintiff: Board of Education of Oklahoma City

Defendant: Robert L. Dowell

Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Year: Argued: October 2, 1990 Decided: January 15, 1991

Significant Points: In 1972 Oklahoma City responded to a federal court order by establishing a race-based busing plan. Whites left the city causing more busing. In 1985 the school board introduced a student reassignment plan that did away with busing elementary school children. The NAACP opposed the plan and when to court. The federal district court backed the city. The Court said court-ordered busing could be dropped when school districts become resegregated because of private choices, and all 'practicable" were taken to eliminate segregation.


Case Name: Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467

Plaintiff: Robert R. Freeman, Superintendent of DeKalb County Schools

Defendant: Willie Eugene Pitts

Location: De Kalb County, Georgia

Year: Argued: October 7, 1991 Decided: March 31, 1992

Significant Points: In the county, a suburb of Atlanta, resegregation was happening. Fifty percent of the black students in the county were attending schools that were 90 percent black. Justice Kennedy wrote "Where resegregation is a product not of state action but of private choices, it does not have constitutional implications…It is beyond the authority and beyond the practical ability of the federal courts to try to counteract these kinds of continuous and massive demographic shifts."


Case Name: United States v. Fordice, Governor of Mississippi, 505 U.S. 717

Plaintiff: United States Justice Department

Defendant: Kirk Fordice, Governor of Mississippi

Location: Jackson, Mississippi

Year: Argued : November 13, 1991 Decided: June 26, 1992

Significant Points: In 1992 the state of Mississippi still maintained a dual higher education system with five predominantly white institutions and three black institutions. The Court declared that the system sustained racially discriminatory features, and forced the state to take "affirmative steps" to dismantle the system of discrimination in its system of higher education.


Case Name: Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70

Plaintiff: State of Missouri

Defendant: Jenkins

Location: Kansas City, Missouri

Year: Argued: January 11, 1995 Decided: June 12, 1995

Significant Points: The Court defines the point at which a school district can be released from a court ordered desegr Argued January 11, 1995-Decided June 12, 1995 desegregation order. The Court's decision did not dismantle the desegregation plan, stated that state was not forced to pay for the plan. Also Justice Thomas complained about the psychological theories that claimed "any school that black is inferior, and that blacks cannot succeed without the company of whites."


Case Name: Grutter, v. Lee Bollinger, et. al,

Plaintiff: Barbara Grutter

Defendant: Lee Bollinger, President of the University of Michigan

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Year: Argued: April 1, 2003 Decided: June 23, 2003

Significant Points: The Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body is not prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause, Title VI.


Case Name: Jennifer Gratz v. Lee Bollinger,

Plaintiff: Jennifer Gratz

Defendant: Lee Bollinger, President of the University of Michigan

Location: Ann Arbor< Michigan

Year: Argued: April 1, 2003 Decided: June 23, 2003

Significant Points: In an opinion by Rehnquist, Ch. J., joined by O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., the court, applying strict scrutiny, held that the admission policy's automatic distribution of 20 points to every member of an underrepresented minority violated:

(1) The equal protection clause, because the automatic-20-point program was not narrowly tailored to achieve the assertedly compelling interest in educational diversity that the university claimed justified the program, for:

(a) The admissions policy did not provide individualized consideration of each characteristic of a particular applicant.

(b) The college's program--to which most applications were not subjected--under which the file of an applicant who possessed a characteristic deemed important to the composition of the freshman class could be flagged for a review committee's individual consideration without regard to the points system, only emphasized the flaws of the admissions policy as a whole.

(c) The fact that implementation of a program capable of providing individualized consideration might have presented administrative challenges did not render constitutional an otherwise problematic system.

(2) Sections 1981 and 2000d, which the Supreme Court had indicated, in earlier cases, were violated by discrimination that violated the equal protection clause.


Michigan Cases

Case Name: Joseph Workman v. The Board of Education of Detroit, 18 Mich 400

Plaintiffs: Joseph Workman

Defendants: The Board of Education of Detroit

Location: Detroit, Michigan

Year: Argued: May 7,1869 Decided: May 12, 1869

Significant Points: Joseph Workman attempted to enroll his son in the Duffield Union School and the son was denied admission based solely on his race. In 1842, the legislature had given the Detroit Board of Education full power and authority regarding the establishment of schools and educational policies. Detroit had subsequently created two schools specifically for African-American children and had required African Americans to travel, regardless of location, to those schools, which did not have higher-level grades. In 1867, the Michigan legislature enacted the general school law prescribing racial equality in Michigan school districts. The Detroit Board of Education fought this law on the premise that segregation spared African Americans from having to be confronted by "strong prejudice against the colored people among a large majority of the white population" and that the Detroit school charter had been re-enacted after the passage of the law. The Court's decision held that the law superseded the Detroit charter. The Court chose not to discuss arguments of policy and did not address the plaintiff's argument of injustice due to the inequality. This ruling did not provide for integration, but the subsequent segregation that dominated the 20th century was not founded on state law, in part thanks to the decision in Workman v Detroit Board of Education.

The first case, Joseph Workman v. The Board of Education of Detroit,
was the first supreme court case in Michigan dealing with segregation
in the public schools.


Case Name: Donald Davis, Jr. v. School District of the City of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 734, 1970

Plaintiff: Donald Davis, Jr.

Defendant: School District of the City of Pontiac

Location: Pontiac, Michigan

Year: February 17, 1970

Significant Points: Judge Damon Keith ruled that the Pontiac school system's defacto segregration was no different than the past dejure segregration practiced in the past by the Pontiac schools. Keith ordered the schools, faculty and adminstration of the Pontiac schools desegregrated.


Case Name: Barbara Jean Berry v. School District of Benton Harbor 442 F. Supp. 1280; 1977 U.S. Dist.

Plaintiff: Barbara Jean Berry

Defendant: School District of Benton Harbor

Location: Benton Harbor, Michigan

Year: This case was originally filed in 1967 and has continued in the courts until 2002

Significant Points: In 1967 plaintiffs, black school children from the Benton Harbor School District, filed an action in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan alleging, that the predominantly black Benton Harbor Schools were segregated in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs' amended complaint named the Benton Harbor district, school board and supervisor; the Governor of the State of Michigan; the Michigan Attorney General; the Michigan State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Public Education; and the neighboring Coloma and Eau Claire school districts.

A detailed review of the facts may be found in two separate opinions of the District Court, 442 F. Supp. 1280 (W.D. Mich. 1977) and 467 F. Supp. 630 (W.D. Mich. 1978) which determined the liability of each of the defendants. This Court twice affirmed on liability issues. On May 1, 1981 the District Court entered a detailed and thoughtful remedial order. Essentially, the order provided for the creation of several magnet schools which, it was hoped, would result in the voluntary desegregation of the Benton Harbor, Coloma and Eau Claire School districts. The District Court found that two goals needed to be met in order for the Court's desegregation plan to be successful:
"(1) Greater numbers of children in Benton Harbor must be educated in desegregated school environments; (2) Benton Harbor children must be provided with increased opportunities for quality educational experiences with professional and compassionate assistance to enable them to improve their achievement motivation and task performance."

The Court affirmed the District Court's Remedial Order, including those portions of the Order which provided for the affirmative hiring of black staff by the Coloma and Eau Claire districts. By the start of the 1981-1982 academic year Coloma had hired a few black teachers and staff people. A year later, however, the school district was faced with the prospect of faculty layoffs for economic reasons. Coloma returned to the District Court for clarification of the Remedial Order as it applied to the (newly hired) black staff. The Superintendent of the Coloma district testified that a layoff would likely result in the discharge of the black teachers, staff members and aides since they had the least seniority. The Superintendent also stated that it was expected that the layoffs would be permanent, as the district did not anticipate any growth in faculty in the near future. The supplemental order found that "those minority teachers hired subsequent to this Court's May 1, 1981 Order are not subject to layoff procedures should Coloma determine that teacher layoffs are required." (Appendix, 168A) The District Court relied heavily on its prior finding that voluntary desegregation would only succeed in Coloma if the district hired some minority faculty. The Appeals Court reversed the District Court's Remedial Order


Case Name: Michelle Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of Education 346 F. Supp. 766; 1971 U.S. Dist.

Plaintiff: Michelle Oliver

Defendant: Kalamazoo Board of Education

Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan

Year: Argued December 9, 1982, Decided May 6, 1983,
This case was first filed in 1971

Significant Points: The issues presented in this proceeding involve the scope of the district court's remedial powers in a school desegregation case once a constitutional violation has been determined. The primary issue is whether the court has the power, nine years after issuing an injunction desegregating the students, to impose a quota for the hiring of black teachers and, concomitantly, to override the contractual seniority rights and state statutory tenure rights of white teachers in order to prevent the layoff of a disproportionate number of black teachers.

In 1971 the district court held that the students in the Kalamazoo school system were intentionally segregated on the basis of race, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and issued a preliminary injunction effectively desegregating the students. Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of Education, 346 F. Supp. 766 (W.D. Mich.), The Kalamazoo Board of Education (KBE) remains subject to the permanent injunction imposed in 1973, and the parties have returned to the district court a number of times.

The district court erred in imposing a quota system for the hiring and composition of the teaching staff of the Kalamazoo school system. Nullification of the seniority and tenure rights of white teachers was also error.


Case Name: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Lansing Branch
v. Lansing Board of Education 429 F. Supp. 583; 1976 U.S. Dist. and 581 F.2d 115; 1978 U.S. App.

Plaintiff: NAACP, Lansing Branch

Defendant: Lansing, Michigan Board of Education

Location: Lansing, Michigan

Year: February 8, 1978

Significant Points: This school desegregation suit was commenced in 1972 to determine whether the Lansing Board of Education violated the constitutional rights of the district's schoolchildren by denying them equal educational opportunity on the basis of race. The court found a newly elected school board's
rejection of a previous board's desegregation was fostering dejure segregation.


Case Name: Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board 463 F. Supp. 1027

Plaintiff: Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children

Defendant: Ann Arbor School District Board

Location; Ann Arbor, Michigan

Year: July 12, 1979

Significant Points: It was alleged that the children speak a version of "black English," "black vernacular" or "black dialect" as their home and community language that impedes their equal participation in
the instructional programs, and that the school has not taken appropriate action to overcome the barrier. This case was not an effort on the part of the plaintiffs to require that they be taught "black English" or that their instruction throughout their schooling be in "black English," or that a dual language program be provided.
It was a straightforward effort to require the court to intervene on the children's behalf to require the Ann Arbor School District Board to take appropriate action to teach them to read in the standard
English of the school, the commercial world, the arts, science and professions. This action was a cry for judicial help in opening the doors to the establishment. It was an action to keep another generation
from becoming functionally illiterate.

The court required that the Board take "appropriate action" to overcome language barriers which impede equal participation in instructional programs. The court found that a language barrier exists which impedes the teachers' attempts to teach reading of standard English to students who speak "black English" in their
homes. Therefore, directed the School District Board to provide a plan that the Board considers "appropriate action." Since the language barrier was found to be a barrier on the part of the teachers, the court suggested that the plan should be directed at assisting the teacher.

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