Milliken v. Bradley

Milliken v. Bradley
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 1974 Decided July 25, 1974
Full case name	Milliken, Governor of Michigan, et al. v. Bradley, et al.
Citations	418 U.S. 717 (more) 94 S. Ct. 3112; 41 L. Ed. 2d 1069; 1974 U.S. LEXIS 94
Prior history	Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Holding
The Court held that "[w]ith no showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying school districts and no evidence of any interdistrict violation or effect," the district court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown v. Board of Education.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan, Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell, Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Burger, joined by Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
Concurrence	Stewart
Dissent	Douglas
Dissent	White, joined by Douglas, Brennan, Marshall
Dissent	Marshall, joined by Douglas, Brennan, White
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974), was a significant United States Supreme Court case dealing with the planned desegregation busing of public school students across district lines among 53 school districts in metropolitan Detroit. It concerned the plans to integrate public schools in the United States in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) decision.

It placed an important limitation on the first major Supreme Court case concerning school busing, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971), by holding that such remedies could extend across district lines only where there was actual evidence that multiple districts had deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation.

Decision of the Court

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that "[w]ith no showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying school districts and no evidence of any interdistrict violation or effect," the district court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown v. Board of Education. The Court noted that desegregation, "in the sense of dismantling a dual school system," did not require "any particular racial balance in each 'school, grade or classroom.'" The Court also emphasized the importance of local control over the operation of schools. This decision exempted suburban districts from assisting in the desegregation of inner-city school systems, and subsequently allowed "white flight" from cities to suburban school districts.

Justice Douglas' dissenting opinion held that:

"Today's decision ... means that there is no violation of the Equal Protection Clause though the schools are segregated by race and though the black schools are not only separate but inferior."

"Michigan by one device or another has over the years created black school districts and white school districts, the task of equity is to provide a unitary system for the affected area where, as here, the State washes its hands of its own creations."

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 418
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

References

External links

Works related to Milliken v. Bradley at Wikisource

• Full Text of the decision courtesy of FindLaw.
• http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1976/1976_76_447
• http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1973/1973_73_434