Milliken v. Bradley (1974)

Facts of the Case

As “white flight” to the suburbs increased in the 1950s and 1960s, many urban schools found themselves virtually all black or all Hispanic, even though there was not mandated (de jure) segregation. This de facto segregation led to steep racial differences between urban and suburban schools.

Michigan's then-governor William Milliken was named as the defendant in a suit claiming that Detroit public schools were not sufficiently desegregated and that the district remained segregated specifically because of school district policies and practices. Such policies and practices would, if found to be true, establish that the district was engaging in de jure segregation. Although “white flight” certainly contributed to the de facto segregation of the Detroit urban area, the district court ruled that the Detroit Board of Education had, indeed, implemented policies that specifically impeded desegregation.

Consequently, the district court ordered that 85 school districts composing the Detroit metropolitan area would have their boundaries redrawn to force students into different schools via busing, thus achieving desegregation. Ultimately, 53 of the 85 school districts made up the “designated desegregation area” and would be subject to mandatory busing.

To accomplish this logistical challenge, the Detroit School District would have to acquire at least 295 school buses (later estimated to be nearly 1,000) to accomplish the desegregation. Such reorganization posed complicated administrative, financial, and human resource challenges to all of the districts involved, including districts that were not in violation of Brown v. Board of Education.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th District upheld the desegregation and busing plan imposed by the district court. However, the appeals court ruled that outlying school districts affected by this decision should have a right to be heard regarding the “scope and implementation” of the district court's remedy and that the [Page 1465]mandatory bus acquisition be postponed until a later time.

Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court's 5–4 decision illustrates the legal complexity of desegregation questions. A pressing question was whether a school district not engaging in illegal desegregation could, in effect, be punished along with its culpable, neighboring district. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren Burger said

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