Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a significant Supreme Court case from 1974 addressing the issue of school desegregation in the Detroit area, which encompassed both a predominantly Black central city and surrounding predominantly white suburban districts. The case arose when a federal district judge ordered an extensive desegregation plan that included these suburban districts, based on findings of de jure segregation within the Detroit school board. The judge referenced earlier decisions, such as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, to support his decision for a broad busing remedy.
However, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, determined that the judge had overstepped his authority, emphasizing that busing remedies should only be applied when there is clear evidence of discriminatory practices within the specific districts involved. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger highlighted the lack of evidence showing that the suburban districts contributed to segregation. Consequently, Milliken v. Bradley reinforced the distinction between de facto and de jure segregation and established a presumption against interdistrict busing as a remedy for school desegregation.
While the ruling defused some criticism regarding court-ordered busing, it did not fully resolve the controversies surrounding interdistrict desegregation, which continued to provoke strong reactions and tensions in various U.S. cities.
Milliken v. Bradley
Date: July 25, 1974
Citation: 418 U.S. 717
Issue: School integration and busing
Significance: The Supreme Court held that federal judges could not order the busing of students across school district lines into districts that had done nothing to promote racial segregation.
A federal district judge ordered a desegregation plan for the greater Detroit area, which included the predominantly black central city and fifty-three suburban school districts in which the students were mostly white. The judge had found that the Detroit school board had been guilty of practices that constituted de jure segregation. Although there was no evidence that any of the other districts had promoted segregation, he decided that a Detroit-only plan was inadequate to achieve school desegregation. He justified his order by referring to Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), in which the Court had upheld a massive busing plan designed to desegregate an entire urban school district, even though only portions of the large district had been found to have engaged in discriminatory practices.
By a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court held that the district judge had exceeded his authority. Speaking for the Court, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger emphasized that the remedy of busing was appropriate only when a particular district had been found to have engaged in discriminatory practices or policies. Burger observed that the record in the case did not present any evidence that the suburban districts had either caused or contributed to school segregation. Thus, the Milliken decision reaffirmed the validity of the de facto/de jure distinction and established a presumption against the use of interdistrict busing remedies.
Milliken defused the criticism directed at the Court because of the busing issue, but it did not entirely eliminate controversial interdistrict desegregation plans. In Boston and other cities, court-ordered busing produced intense hostility and even violence. In the 1990’s, however, controversy about the issue decreased as busing became much less common.