Bradley v. Milliken, Civ. No. 35257.

Decision Date15 August 1975
Docket NumberCiv. No. 35257.
Citation402 F. Supp. 1096
PartiesRonald BRADLEY et al., Plaintiffs, v. William G. MILLIKEN, Governor of the State of Michigan and Ex-Officio Member of Michigan State Board of Education, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

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Louis R. Lucas, Ratner, Sugarmon & Lucas, Memphis, Tenn., for plaintiffs.

George T. Roumell, Jr., Riley & Roumell, Theodore Sachs, Marston, Sachs, O'Connell, Nunn & Freid, Detroit, Mich., George L. McCargar, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Lansing, Mich., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND REMEDIAL DECREE

(Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law)

DeMASCIO, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Our task in this on-going litigation is to formulate a just, equitable and feasible plan to desegregate the Detroit School System, taking account of the practicalities at hand. We do so in response to a United States Supreme Court mandate that we formulate a "decree directed to eliminating the segregation found to exist in Detroit City Schools." Writing for the majority of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Burger noted that the district court and court of appeals:

"proceeded on an assumption that the Detroit schools could not be truly desegregated — in their view of what constituted desegregation — unless the racial composition of the student body of each school substantially reflected the racial composition of the population of the metropolitan area . . .." Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 740, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 3125, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974).

The Chief Justice then pointed out that Swann v. Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971) "does not require any particular racial balance in each `school, grade or classroom.' . . ." 418 U.S. at 740-41, 94 S.Ct. at 3125. Thus, the Court did not deem it essential to furnish guidelines for desegregating the Detroit School System. Cf. Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colo., 413 U.S. 189, 93 S.Ct. 2686, 37 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973). Rather, it left this court to determine what constitutes desegregation in this particular school district.

In our analysis, we have been mindful that rigid and inflexible desegregation plans too often neglect to treat school children as individuals, instead treating them as pigmented pawns to be shuffled about and counted solely to achieve an abstraction called "racial mix." We recognize that our concern is with the very young and that a just, equitable and feasible desegregation plan should not destroy the educational mission of the schools they attend. We are aware of the adverse educational and psychological impact upon black children compelled to attend segregated schools; to separate them from other children solely because of skin pigmentation is indeed invidious. But although the resulting injury is great, the remedy devised should not inflict sacrifices or penalties upon other innocent children as punishment for the constitutional violations exposed. We must bear in mind that since those committing the grotesque violations are no longer about, any such punishment or sacrifices would fall upon the very young; it is the children for whom the remedy is fashioned who must bear the additional burdens.

The necessity of preserving the educational system for whom this remedy is addressed has compelled us to scrutinize carefully plans that are rigidly structured to achieve a racial mix, that include pairing and clustering of schools, that fracture grade structures and that include massive transportation. All of these techniques require children to spend more time going to school and divert educational dollars and energy from legitimate educational concerns.

If Detroit's school population were more equally divided between black and white or if the desegregation area were sufficiently large to permit greater equalization, it would be possible to diminish the inevitable limitations on the task of eliminating racially identifiable schools in the district. But it is impossible to avoid having a substantial number of all black or nearly all black schools in a school district that is over 70% black. The truth of this statement is best demonstrated by the desegregation plan offered by the plaintiffs in this litigation; while plaintiffs contend that their plan affords the greatest degree of desegregation, their plan leaves the majority of the schools in the district between 75% and 90% black. An appropriate desegregation plan must carefully balance the costs of desegregation techniques against the possible results to be achieved. Where the benefits to be gained are negligible, those techniques should be adopted sparingly.

Finally, an effective and feasible remedy must prevent resegregation at all costs. To ignore the possibility of resegregation would risk further injury to Detroit school children, both black and white. In a school district that is only 26% white, a remedy that does not take account of the possibility of resegregation will be short-lived and useless if that percentage of whites further decreased. A realistic desegregation plan should recognize that abuses such as optional attendance zones, gerrymandered attendance zones, discriminatory assignments, the bussing of black children away from closer white schools and school construction that knowingly tends to have segregative effects are unlikely to recur in a school system that has a majority black board of education and a bi-racial administrative staff.

The guidelines adopted by this court consider the "practicalities of the situation", and at the same time make "every effort to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation . . .." Davis v. School Comm'rs of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33, 37, 91 S.Ct. 1289, 1292, 28 L.Ed.2d 577 (1971). The "practicalities" that an appropriate remedy should consider encompass the legitimate concerns of the school system and the community at large. One legitimate concern deserving of weight is the undesirability of forced reassignment of students achieving only negligible desegregative results. Another of the practicalities is the shifting demography occurring naturally in the school district together with the persistent increase in black student enrollment. Still another of the practicalities to be taken into account is the racial population of the district, which is predominantly black by a wide margin. Further practicalities that must be considered by this court include the declining tax base of the City of Detroit, the depressed economy of the city, and the volatile atmosphere created by the highest rate of unemployment in the nation. Finally, the decree must consider the overriding community concern for the quality of educational services available in the school district. An effective and flexible remedy must contain safeguards that will enhance rather than destroy the quality of the educational services provided in the City of Detroit.

II. PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

The Detroit School Desegregation case has been in litigation for nearly five years. The plaintiffs filed this action on August 18, 1970, naming as defendants the Detroit Board of Education, its members and the Detroit Superintendent of Schools, together with the Governor, Attorney General, State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Michigan. The complaint alleged inter alia that as a result of actions and inactions on the part of all the named defendants, the Detroit Public School System was racially segregated. The complaint further challenged the constitutionality of Act 48 of the Michigan Public Acts of 1970 insofar as that Act precluded implementation of the April 7, 1970, "plan" to desegregate the Detroit Public Schools. The plaintiffs further prayed for a preliminary injunction to restrain the enforcement of Act 48 together with an order requiring the Detroit Board of Education to implement the so-called April 7, 1970, desegregation plan.

The district court ruled that plaintiffs were not entitled to preliminary injunctive relief and declined to rule on the constitutionality of Act 48. At that time the district court granted a motion dismissing the action as to the Governor and the Attorney General. (Rulings dated September 3, 1970.) Upon appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sustained the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction but reversed the district court in part, holding that portions of Act 48 were unconstitutional and at the same time ordering that the Governor and the Attorney General remain as parties to the litigation. Bradley v. Milliken, 433 F.2d 897 (6th Cir. 1970). Although the defendant Detroit Board of Education would have implemented the so-called April 7 desegregation plan upon order of the court or otherwise, the district court did not order implementation of such "plan"; instead as an interim plan, it adopted a plan submitted by the Detroit Board known as the "Magnet Plan." (December 3, 1970, Ruling on School Plans.)

Following a trial on the liability issue, the district court found that the Detroit School District was segregated on the basis of race. The court found that certain conduct on the part of the defendant Detroit Board of Education and the defendant State of Michigan, through its various state officials, fostered segregation in the Detroit Public School System and violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights of Detroit school children. The district court also held that the state was vicariously liable for certain de jure acts of the defendant Detroit Board of Education. The district court specifically found that the state failed until 1971 to provide funds for the transportation of pupils within the Detroit School System regardless of their poverty or distance from the school to which they were assigned, although at the same time the state...

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