Objections of Defendants to the Metropolitan Plan Submitted by the State and by Way of an Alternative, Submission of a Metropolitan Detroit Area Integration Plan

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION .

RONALD BRADLEY, et al, ' '
Plaintiffs,

v s .

WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al,
Defendants,

and

DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS LOCAL 231, 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO,

Intervening Defendant,
and
DENISE MAGDOWSKI, et al,

Intervening Defendants.

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No. 35257

OBJECTIONS OF BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE CITY OF DETROIT 
AND OTHER DEFENDANTS TO THE METROPOLITAN PLAN SUBMITTED 
BY THE STATE OF MICHIGAN AND BY WAY OF AN ALTERNATIVE,

A SUBMISSION HEREIN BY SAID BOARD OF A 
METROPOLITAN DETROIT AREA INTEGRATION PLAN

The Board of Education of the City of Detroit and certain 
individual Defendants, by George T. Roumell, Louis D. Beer and Riley 
and Roumell, hereby submits to the Court its objections to the metro 
politan school integration plans submitted by the State Board of Edu 
cation of Michigan and by way of further objection, includes herein 
an alternative plan entitled, "Basic Guidelines For A Metropolitan 
Detroit Area Integration Plan."

I. the DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO THE CONCEPT CONTAINED
IN THE STATE PLAN OF THE "INITIAL OPERATING ZONE."

The Detroit Board of Education believes that the "initial 
operating zone" plan is ill-conceived for a variety of reasons.



Foremost among them is that for as long as the IOZ exists, half 
of the Detroit metropolitan area will remain segregated. "Atten­
dance changes will take place in the IOZ only. School districts 
in the DMEA but outside of the Zone will retain their present 
attendance patterns." Metropolitan School District Reorganization 
Pdan, p.16, Feb. 1, 1972. While the DMEA, which encompasses the 
Wayne, Oakland and Macomb tri-county area, has a student population 
of 982,000, the IOZ would desegregate only 550,000 students. The 
plan submitted by the State Board of Education therefore fails to 
meet the constitutional requirement that racial discrimination be 
"eliminated root and branch." Green v. County School Board of 
New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 89 S.Ct.1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968). 
Under the State plan 100% white schools will continue to function 
outside the IOZ inspite of the fact that 20% of the DMEA student 
population is black.

It is the position of the Detroit Board that the sound 
educational and legal basis for considering a Metropolitan Desegre­
gation Plan is the metropolitan area, which describes the community 
in which residents of the area objectively perceive themselves to 
live. It is the area in which they commute to work, shop and seek 
recreation. In the past, the persons in this area have not thought 
of school attendance in terms more expansive than the immediate 
neighborhood, the "walk-in school" being the norm, supplemented 
by localized bussing. If the common expectation that schools will 
be highly local is to be disturbed, the obvious frame of reference 
changes from the immediate neighborhood to the total community, 
just as the frame of reference of workers changed decades ago when 
they began driving rather than walking to work. Just as neighborhood 
and political boundaries are irrelevant to commuting workers, they 
will, in September 1972, become irrelevant to commuting pupils.



As the tri-county area of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb is the frame 
of reference. ,for workers, shoppers and seekers of recreation, it 
is the natural referrent for education. The IOZ draws a novel and 
arbitrary line through the heart of a community of multiple inter­
actions. It is without basis in logic, history, transportation 
or finance.

Yet it is at this arbitrary line that desegregation 
efforts in the community are to cease. The IOZ expands the area 
within which there is a racial containment, but it does not eliminate 
the containment. There is still a line, albeit a somewhat more 
distant one, which black students realistically may not cross 
and beyond which over 430,000 white students are to remain segre­
gated although for some other purposes they are within the same 
school district. The Supreme Court has said that "Schools all 
or predominately of one race in a district of mixed population 
will require close scrutiny to determine that school assignments 
are not part of state-enforced segregation." Swann v. Charlotte 
Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1,25-26, 91 S.Ct.1267,1281 
(1971). Indeed, where there has been a "history of segregation," 
there is a "presumption against schools that are substantially 
disproportionate in their racial composition." Swann, supra. If 
a highly tangible interstate highway through Mobile, Alabama,was 
insufficient to overcome the presumption and to justify leaving 
nine elementary schools in the district predominately black (see 
Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 402 U.S.
33, 91 S.Ct. 1289 (1971), a fragile and novel line through the DMEA 
is no justification for leaving scores of schools all or predomi­
nately white. To say that the more than 430,000 students who live 
in the proposed DMEA,but outside of the IOZ,are exempt from parti­
cipation in the Plan would be as inpermissible as to have exempted

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half the students in Mecklenburg County from the plan offered in 
Swann, 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267 (1971). Although, under the 
State's IOZ plan, it is the white students living in the areas 
exempted from participation in desegregation rather than Negroes, 
the Davis holding is equally applicable. The racial balance required 
of schools within the IOZ ranges from 45% white: 55% black to 75% 
white: 25% black, but no ratios are established for schools outside 
the IOZ because these schools, in fact, will not be desegregated.
Thus, the schools outside the IOZ are treated as isolated districts 
within the metropolitan area as a whole. As in the Davis case, 
it appears that the State authorities responsible for the Detroit 
metropolitan reorganization plan have not given adequate consideration 
to "the possible use of all available techniques to achieve the 
maximum amount of practicable desegreation." Davis v. Board of 
School Commissioners of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33, 91 S.Ct. 1289 
(1971). '

There are sound practical considerations which support 
this basic legal tenet. One of them that must have high priority 
is the relative unlikelihood that the IOZ would expand by action of 
the Authority at a rate fast enough to insure the constitutional 
rights of those students who fell within it. In large measure, 
the Court's ruling in this case that a right to a remedy exists 
is bottomed on the Court's finding of the failure of the State 
and its agents (including this Defendant) to take actions which 
would alleviate conditions of segregation. "[W]e find that both 
the State of Michigan and the Detroit Board of Education have 
committed acts which have been causal factors in the segregated 
condition of the public schools of the City of Detroit." Bradley 
v. Milliken, D.Mich.,Sept.27,1971 (Civil Action No. 35257) at 21.
While the Detroit Board by no means intends to suggest that whoever

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might be appointed to the Authority, envisioned by the State plan 
would deliberately subvert the rights of students, it would be 
ignoring the obvious not to contemplate the tremendous political 
pressure which would be applied against the Authority by those 
who lived immediately outside the IOZ. The situation might well 
duplicate that which confronts the Court now, in which a whole 
host of pleaders are present to argue that that portion of the 
metropolitan community which experiences interchange with blacks 
should not be expanded beyond its present boundaries.

The Detroit Board would submit that, if the black school 
population of Detroit continued to increase, or if the black 
population of the metropolitan community expanded into suburban 
areas, or equally likely, if the white population of the IOZ 
decreased due to moves by whites to points outside the IOZ, then, 
in all probability the only way in which the boundary of the IOZ 
would change would be by further Court action. The State plan 
places upon its proposed authority all of the political pressures 
placed upon the current state officials. We see no reason to 
predict a different reaction to that pressure than what has occurred 
to date. The danger that the IOZ would result in a piecemeal 
remedy requiring almost continuous supervision if the Court is too 
great to justify the dubious benefits of the IOZ. The Supreme 
Court in Swann has stated its distaste for repeated interventions 
into school district pupil assignment matters, even while asserting 
that the power does exist in appropriate cases. See 402, U.S. 1,
32, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1284 (1971). The problem is compounded by the 
fact that the very existence of the IOZ is likely to require its 
expansion. This Court has concluded that there is a highly inter­
related effect between school patterns and housing patterns. Bradley 
v. Milliken, D.Mich.,Sept. 27,1971 (Civil Action No. 35257) at 10.

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ihe State plan advances no reasons Why this effect would not 
continue within the IOZ. No reason is, given why those whites 
who do not believe that the benefits of desegregated education 
outweigh the burdens, would not tend to move beyond the IOZ and 
thus at least personally preserve the status quo ante litem. They 
would share all the advantages of membership in the metropolitan 
community while avoiding effective inclusion in the solution of 
metropolitan educational problems.

In short, the probable socio-political impact of creating 
the IOZ upon the ability of the metropolitan community to deliver 
educational services on a desegregated basis would most likely to 
create precisely the situation which exists in the City of Detroit 
today. The IOZ does not solve the problem; it only relieves the 
pressure for a little while. It simply enlarges the school district 
of the City of Detroit and changes its numbers of regions from 
eight to six. It does not offer any change to break the well-known 
cycle: desegregation of a school, white flight, and resegregation
of that school. It only enlarges the geographic area in which that 
phenomenon may operate, so that the problem will reappear in time 
on an even larger and more unmanageable scale.

An analogous process has recently occurred in Richmond, 
Virginia. At a time when Richmond was rapidly becoming a racially 
identifiable predominately black school district, it increased 
its population nearly 20% in one annexation. Although 97.5% of the 
40,000 newly annexed residents were white, the annexation was 
insufficient to avoid a judicial finciing a year later that the 
district was racially identifiable. See Bradley v. School Board 
of the City of Richmond, F.Supp., slip opinion pp. 14; 41 (E.D.
Va. Richmond Div. Jan. 5, 1972). While annexation was expected 
to increase white enrollment by nearly 8,000, one year after

V  Actually the question is not white flight, but middle class 
flight, both white and black, which deprives the district 
of the educationally necessary socio-economic mix.

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annexation there were less than 1,000 more white students in 
Richmond than there had been the year before annexation. Ibid, 
p. 230. The two neighboring county school districts were over 
90% white and were growing rapidly. Ibid, pp. 230-31.

There are in addition sound educational considerations 
which weigh heavily against the IOZ. It is necessary that any 
plan for the desegregation of the metropolitan community which 
contemplates the movement of students out of existing school 
districts must consider the reaction of members of the metropolitan 
community to the plan and the effect which that reaction may have 
upon the learning situation of the students affected. It would 
ignore the obvious not to recognize that any such metropolitan plan 
will generate substantial hostility among some of the citizens of 
the metropolitan community. The Detroit Board does not suggest 
that the mere existence of community hostility should deter the 
Court from protecting the constitutional rights of individual 
citizens but surely, in the interest of the children who may well 
bear the brunt of that hostility, and see their educational environ­
ment damaged as a result, the Court should consider which alternatives 
offer the best chance of lessening that hostility.

The United States Civil Rights Commission has concluded, 
"Another important factor in successful school desegregation is 
the involvement of all schools in the community. Where desegre­
gation affects only part of the community, the affected parents 
may feel resentful at being required to contribute to the solution 
of a problem which other parts of the community remain free to 
ignore." Racial Isolation in the Public Schools, vol. 1, p.156 
(1967). While the Commission did not consider the question, the 
Detroit Board suggests that the IOZ plan proposed by the state 
adds dangerously to parental hostility by adding the ingredient

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of differentiation by socio-economic class. The IOZ includes 
within its boundaries outside the City of Detroit mostly the 
predominately blue collar, and lower—middle class areas adjacent 
to the City, such as Hazel Park, Ferhdale, Roseville, River Rouge, 
Ecorse, Wyandotte, South Warren, East Detroit and the like. With 
L.he exception of Dearborn, Southfield, Oak Park and the Grosse 
Pointes, it excludes middle and upper-middle class areas such as 
Birmingham-Bloomfield, Troy, Rochester, North Warren, Utica, West 
Bloomfield, Farmington and Livonia.

The Detroit Board fears that this situation will suggest 
to the typical resident of these blue collar suburbs, that he is 
being forced to allow his children to participate in this process 
not because he is white and suburban while the City is black, but 
rather because he doesn't have the money to move to Birmingham.
It is not a new observation that too often it is the blue collar 
worker of limited means who is at the cutting edge of social and 
especially racial change. "The wealthy have fled to suburbs or 
placed their children in private schools, so the desegregation 
has affected only the poor." Senator Walter F. Mondale, The New 
Republic, March 4, 1972, p. 16. Senator Mondale is Chairman of 
the Select Committee on Equal Education Opportunities. Often a 
corolary is added that his unwillingness to participate in that 
process is heightened by his recognition that the more affluent 
whites who often propose such change, are able, by their very 
affluence, to escape the impact of the change they espouse.

The adoption of the IOZ would provide a painfully vivid 
illustration of the observations above. One shudders to contemplate 
the compounding of resentment in the working class suburbanite 
which would occur as he heard the slightly condescending words of 
disapproval of his discontent which would emanate from those

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more affluent areas which conveniently rest just outside the IOZ. 
There is simply no reason to risk the venting of that compounded 
resentment upon the children of this community.

Another related educational effect of this elimination 
of many upper-middle class communities from the IOZ is that it 
lessens the number of children of relatively high socio-economic 
status who are available to provide the socio-economic mix which 
is necessary for effectively raising the achievement levels of 
the predominately black, economically deprived minority. The 
trial record amply demonstrates the importance of this mix to 
provide effective quality education.* Simply put, the integration 
of poor or working class black youngsters with white youngsters 
of similar economic status is not as likely to provide an environ­
ment for their educational improvement as is an environment which 
includes a preponderance of youngsters from a middle class back­
ground. See Coleman, Equality of Educational Opportunity, U.S.
Dept, of H.E.W. (1966); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Racial 
Isolation in the Public Schools, vol. 1, pp. 84-87 (1967). Thus, 
just as in Detroit alone, under the State plan, the poor youngster, 
black or white, would be deprived in many instances of the benefit 
of exposure to the full breadth of the communities socio-economic 
spectrum, and would again find himself in schools which would not 
include middle class youngsters. Once again, the IOZ would simulate 
Detroit, and present note a solution, but a replication of the 
problem.

II. THE DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO THE VARIATION .
IN SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS WITHIN THE STATE-
PROPOSED DISTRICTS.

As noted above, there is ample evidence to support the 
importance of the socio-economic status of a youngster's peers

* See testimony of Dr. James W. Guthrie, Transcript 4095-96, 
4099, 4106, 4117, 4121, 4123-24, 4126-28, 4132, 4134, 4190 
and 4199.

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upon his opportunity to learn. In addition to objecting to the 
IOZ itself, the Detroit Board.would note that there is substantial 
variance in SES among the districts proposed. Particularly 
districts one, four and five appear to be largely devoid of 
substantial middle and upper-middle class populations, while what 
middle and upper-middle class population there is within the IOZ 
is grouped in the remaining three districts. It is the position 
of the Detroit Board that this builds in disparity between these 
districts at the outset for no valid reason. If it should be argued 
that disparity may not be avoided without expanding the IOZ, then 
that is another good reason why the IOZ should be expanded to 
include the entire metropolitan community.

III. THE DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO THE GOVERNING
OF THE STATE PLAN BY A THREE-MAN APPOINTED
AUTHORITY.

The Detroit Board believes that the problems and chal­
lenges created by a program of metropolitan desegregation require 
greater rather than less community involvement in the decisions 
which involve the children of the community. If the parameters 
of what is lawfully required are clearly set forth at the outset, 
then that involvement can proceed without fear that it will disrupt 
the intent of the Court and require further judicial intervention.
The Detroit Board would suggest that one way in which that involve­
ment could be increased would be to provide that the Authority be 
representative of the various geographical components of the community, 
rather than appointed by a State, and state-wide, agency.

To be sure, the Detroit Board does not suggest that the 
State Board of Education should not have direct representation 
upon such an authority. Yet, no reason is advanced as to why that 
representation should be exclusive, and the Detroit Board sees none.

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IV. THE DETROIT BOARD- OBJECTS'TO THE INCLUSION
, , IN THE STATE PLAN OF SPECIFIC INSTRUCTION 

REGARDING THE CLOSING OF THREE DETROIT HIGH 
SCHOOLS. ' " . .

The State plan contemplates that Northern, Northeastern, 
and Southeastern High Schools should be closed due to age and lack 
of educational completeness. Although data is appended relating 
to these characteristics of Detroit schools, no comparable data is 
included for suburban schools. The Detroit Board sees no reason 
why it should be assumed a priori that these three schools should 
be closed, absent any indication that there may well be some subur­
ban schools of equal incompleteness, and perhaps of similar age 
which might be considered. Inclusion in a plan which counsel for 
the State Defendants has described as "skeletal" of specific 
direction to close three schools appears highly premature. Surely 
decisions as to what devices will be used to mix students, what 
feeder patterns will be developed and the like, have a bearing on 
which school facilities might be closed. The Detroit Board sees 
no reason to mandate the closing of these particular schools at 
this time.

To close these three schools, all presently identifiably 
black in student population, without even checking to see if 
similar structures exist in predominatly white suburban districts 
would be calculated to create a suspicion in the black community 
that the age and character of the buildings are less decisive than 
the race of their pupils. For a school board to make race a 
determining factor in the closing of a school building is clearly 
impermissible. Lee v. Macon County Bd. of Educ., 448 F.2d 746, 
753-54 (5th Cir.,1971); Haney v. County Bd. of Educ. of Sevier 
County, 429 F.2d 364 (8th Cir.,1970). The District Court would
want to avoid becoming an inadvertent party to such a decision.



While an unbiased survey of all high schools in the metropolitan
area might conclude that three-- possibly even these three-- high
schools should be closed, no such conclusion can be sustained by 
the partial survey that led to this aspect of the State plan.

V. THE DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO THE UNIVERSAL
EXCLUSION OF K-3 STUDENTS FROM THE STATE PLAN.

While the Detroit Board recognizes and is sympathetic 
to the arguments that sound educational practices might well 
weigh against the transportation of very young children for consi­
derable distances, the Detroit Board sees no reason why that problem 
requires a universal exemption of K-3 students as a solution. While 
it might well be a positive step for the Court to indicate that a 
less stringent standard of racial mixing could be tolerated at this 
level, surely there are many things which can be done to break down 
patterns of racial isolation at this age. Redrawing of elementary 
district boundaries, and careful attention to racial balance in 
the construction of new elementary schools come immediately to 
mind. No valid reason exists for granting the authority a dispen­
sation from responsibility to undertake these steps. On the con­
trary, both educational experience and the holdings of the United 
States Supreme Court indicate that racial mixing should occur as 
early as possible. Educationally there is a correlation between 
the age at which black children are placed in interracial settings 
and their academic success. The earlier the integration, the 
greater the success. Coleman, Equality of Educational Opportunity, 
U.S. Dept, of H.E.W. (1966); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Racial 
Isolation in the Public Schools, vol. 1, pp. 110-114 (1967). See 
Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, Civ. Action No. 
3353, Memorandum, Jan.5,1972, slip opinion, pp.249-251. The Federal

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Courts have repeatedly rejected plans exempting the lower grades 
from integration, relying less on educational data than upon the 
hard legal fact that segregation at any age is a denial of the 
equal protection of the law. See e.g., United States v. Jefferson 
County Bd. of Educ., 372 F.2d 836 (9th Cir.,1966),aff'd. on re­
hearing en banc, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir.1967). To leave grades K 
through 3 exempt from a desegregation plan is not to eliminate 
segregation "root and branch." Green v. County School Board of 
New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968).

Not even a need to transport children to school can 
exempt younger children from integration. It was precisely on 
this point that the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts in 
Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 402, U.S. 
33,28 L.Ed.2d 577 (1971). Age, time and distance are, however, 
relevant in determining the extent of school transportation for 
purposes of integration. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board 
of Education, 402 U.S. 1,28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). The test for 
the permissible extent of transportation is "when the time or 
distance of travel is so great as to risk either the health of 
the children or significantly impinge on the educational process." 
402 U.S. 1,28 L.Ed.2d 554,575 (1971). That threat to education and 
health is one currently guarded against by the State Department of 
Education, which routinely permits and funds school bus trips of as 
much as one and one-half hour without question. In fact, the 
State Department of Education reports that even longer trips are 
"too common." See Hain, Vol.18,Mich.Sch.Bd.J. 18,22 (Dec.1971).

The Detroit Board can only conclude that this aspect 
of the State plan should be replaced by guidelines setting the 
norms and the outer limits of transportation for children of 
various ages, such transportation being, as far as possible, an

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I  : I

adjunct to integration achieved by less drastic means.

VI. ' THE DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO' THE ASSUMPTION IN 
THE STATE PLAN THAT FIRST IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 
PLAN MUST NECESSARILY BE LIMITED TO DETROIT.

The State plan, at page 24, suggests "pupil transfers 
accomplished within Detroit" as Phase IV, while "pupil transfers 
accomplished within the IOZ" are contemplated as Phase IX. The 
Detroit Board sees no reason why initial assignment, if there 
must be an initial phase, should be limited to the City limits 
of Detroit. The Court is well aware of the vast geographical 
extent of the black population areas within the City, and also of 
the fact that in many cases, these areas abut, or nearly abut 
the City's limits. The typical model of "inner city" blacks and 
"outer city" whites is simply no longer applicable in Detroit; for 
many blacks the area of white population nearest their residence 
lies outside the City limits.

While, as stated above, the Detroit Board vigorously 
opposes the notion of "near city only" operation of the plan, the 
Detroit Board equally sees no reason why temporary solutions which 
are more geographically difficult should be mandated simply for 
the administrative purpose of keep Phase IV confined to the City 
of Detroit. Certainly some limited exchange of pupils between 
districts could be included in "Phase IV," if indeed a "Phase IV" 
is necessary, without imposing the hardship of creating an assign­
ment pattern in Detroit for one year which can only be a warped and 
truncated version of the Phase IX to follow.

The objections to such a Phase IV are several, but they 
boil down to the fact that it would maximize hardships and risks 
while minimizing both integration and opportunities for success.
The State plan effectively denies an opportunity truly to desegregate

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(

any of Detroit's black students during Phase IV. No plan that 
deliberately creates a host of predominately black schools in 
the midst of a predominately white community can be called a 
desegregation plan. It is rather a plan to guarantee the racial 
identiflability of the entire Detroit School District.

Even if 67% black schools in a 20% black community 
(Detroit Metropolitan Educational Area) can be called desegregated, 
the 67% level cannot be attained in many Detroit schools without 
assigning students to schools other than those proposed for Phase 
IX. While the Detroit Board completely agrees with the State Board 
that students should not be moved twice in two years, reconciling 
the "one move" value with the desire to act within the City first 
will necessarily mean that relatively few children will be re­
assigned the first year and that even fewer will actually submit 
to reassignment.

The State plan, in suggesting Phase IV, seems to assume 
that equal numbers of students will be exchanged between two schools 
in every instance. This is by no means assured. For example, 
white pupils in an overcrowded high school in the northwest section 
of Detroit might be scheduled into an inner city high school, many 
of whose black pupils are destined for an Oakland County school 
which has excess space. Until all shift, none can. As a further 
example, another objectionable aspect of the State plan, the closing 
of Northern, Northwestern and Southeastern High Schools, when 
coupled with the two-year phasing in of the State plan effectively 
means that no pupils assigned to those three schools will be inte­
grated in Phase IV. When such complications as attendance zone 
changes, grade structure alterations and patterns of over- and 
under-crowding are added, the effect of a Detroit-only plan is 
highly problematical.

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* . 1 . • • • .
■ i ’ ' 1 • - ' ’ , - . • c r

Phase IV, as envisioned by the State plan, is a program 
for unnecessary tension which will effect both Phase IV and Phase 
IX. Under Phase IV, both white and black parents face the prospect 
that their children will become insignificant minorities in estab­
lished student bodies far from home for at least one year. The 
prospect will be an unsettling one. The schools will frequently 
be racially identifiable, both objectively and subjectively. There 
will be little reason to expect progress toward a new student 
community within a school upon the addition of a few new students. 
The knowledge or expectation of many of the "host" students that 
they themselves will be transferred out in another year will remove 
the incentive to develop more than casual relationships with the 
newly arrived students. In deed, the "host" students, apprehensive 
over their own impending transfer to unfamiliar surroundings, may 
well express their tension by hostility toward their temporary new 
schoolmates of a different race. Educationally, such a state of 
affairs would be most undesirable. As the United States Civil 
Rights Commission has noted, racial tension in a school is a serious 
educational impediment. Racial Isolation in the Public Schools, 
vol.1, pp. 157 ff.(1967).

In such an unsettled situation, it is to be expected 
that many parents who have the choice will avoid involving their 
children in Detroit public education for the year Phase IV is in 
operation. The fact that Phase IV applies only to Detroit obviously 
makes the choice more widely available, as there will be a wide 
geographical area into which a family can move to avoid the selec­
tive, chaotic form of "desegregation" to be expected in Phase IV.
Or a child facing a year as a token representative of his race 
in an unstable situation can be sent to a private school, enrolled 
under questionable circumstances in a suburban school, sent to live

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• .. •

with relatives elsewhere or just withheld from school. Burdensome 
as these options obviously are, they are made more bearable by the 
promise of Phase IV that they will last but a year. These perfectly 
predictable reactions will increase the instability of Detroit's 
housing and school patterns while further reducing the already 
limited effectiveness of Phase IV as an integration plan.

The adverse consequences would not be limited to Phase 
IV. All aspects of Phase IV will tend to make Phase IX more diffi­
cult. More white and middle class families will have left the city, 
meaning more transportation will be required in Phase IX to bring 
blacks and whites together. The racial tension in the metropolitan 
area will have continued for a year at an artificially high level, 
subject to sporadic increases as a result of predictable student 
difficulties. Real or imagined horror stories will bolster the 
arguments of intransigent opponents of integration in the rest of 
the Detroit Metropolitan Educational Area.

By far the most likely result of a piecemeal Detroit-only 
plan is a year-long exacerbation of public tensions. Such a plan 
will not "work now" (Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 
391 U.S. 430,439 (1968)) and will make more difficult the imple­
mentation of a metropolitan plan which, if properly designed, does 
promise "realistically to work." Ibid.

VII THE DETROIT BOARD OBJECTS TO THE FAILURE OF
THE STATE PLAN TO REQUIRE THE STATE FULLY TO 
FINANCE SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION DURING ALL PHASES 
OF DESEGREGATION.

This Court has ruled that the State of Michigan has "acted 
directly to control and maintain the pattern of segregation in 
Detroit schools," citing in particular the State's refusal "to pro­
vide authorization or funds for the transportation of pupils within 
Detroit" while treating suburban areas differently. Ruling on Issue

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I

of Segregation, p.14; see also pp.25-26. The State plan does not 
address itself to this discrimination even though the extent of 
school transportation will necessarily be increased by the imple­
mentation of the State plan. At a bare minimum, the Court should 
specify that the State should fund transportation in Detroit as 
generously as elsewhere. To begin to make the Detroit School 
District whole for the past acts of discrimination in transportation 
funding, the Court should go further and order the State to pay 
the entire cost of school transportation in Detroit. Indeed,
State financing is likely to be the only feasible way to provide 
transportation in light of the Board's overwhelming indebtedness. 
Nearly half of that indebtedness, it might be pointed out, is a 
direct result of state-mandated changes in the organization and 
operations of the Detroit School District and the withholding of 
State appropriations due the District.

VIII. THE DETROIT BOARD OF EDUCATION BELIEVES THAT
THE SCHOOL DISTRICT FOR THE CITY OF DETROIT 
CANNOT BE INTEGRATED EXCEPT FOR A METROPOLITAN 
INTEGRATION PLAN WHICH PREVENTS MIDDLE CLASS 
FLIGHT AND PROVIDES FOR A SOCIO-ECONOMIC MIX 
AND THEREFORE, SUBMITS THE ATTACHED PLAN, "BASIC 
GUIDELINES FOR A METROPOLITAN DETROIT AREA 
INTEGRATION PLAN."

As the Supreme Court said, both in Green v. County School 
Board, 391 U.S.430 20 L.Ed. 2d 716 and in Swann v. Charlotte-Meck- 
lenburg Board of Education, 28 L.Ed.554, a school board has the 
burden of coming forth with a desegregation plan. The City of 
Detroit School Board takes this burden seriously and in addition, 
to criticizing the proposed State metropolitan plans, has come 
forward with its own Metropolitan Detroit Area Integration Plan 
entitled, "Basic Guidelines for a Metropolitan Detroit Area Inte­
gration Plan."

The Detroit School Board emphatically takes the position

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that a meaningful integration plan Cannot be accomplished within 
the present boundaries of the school district of the City of Detroit; 
that the only meaningful integration can be accomplished in a metro­
politan Detroit area.

The Board further takes the position that it is essential
that the children in the City of Detroit obtain quality education.
The record is clear that a quality education can only be obtained
by the mixing of socio-economic status. The Board takes the position
that the presence of a predominance of middle class students in the
classroom increases the chance for improved achievement by the poor
and does not impede the achievement of the middle class students.
The record thus far made in this case and particularly the testimony
of Dr. James W. Guthrie, that a purely racial mix does not assure
quality education for either the black child or the white child,

*
absent a mixing of socio-economic groups.

It is because of the need of middle class in the class­
room the Board has taken the position that in order to avoid middle 
class flight, whether it be black or white, it is imperative that 
the metropolitan area of desegregation plan include essentially 
all Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, the tri-county area making 
up the metropolitan Detroit area. As the Board has pointed out 
heretofore, the State plans are piecemeal and do not accomplish 
the task needed to be accomplished now.

The appended Plan of the Detroit Board of Education for 
the metropolitan Detroit area integration, we believe, accomplishes 
the best possible integration in the Detroit metropolitan area,

* See testimony of Dr. James W. Guthrie, Transcript 4095-96; 
4099, 4106, 4117, 4121, 4123-24, 4126-28, 4132, 4134, 4190 
and 4199.

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and gives the broadest constitutional rights to all students 
involved. For these reasons, the Detroit Board respectfully 
urges the Court to adopt its attached Plan for metropolitan 
desegregation.' ’ •

CONCLUSION

The Court will note, in addition to the objections 
delineated above, other differences between the alternative advanced 
by the Detroit Board and the State plan. Those differences largely 
result from consideration of the objection mentioned above, and 
the development of a comprehensive plan designed to meet them.

The Detroit Board recognizes that in considering this 
Plan the Court cannot forget that the Detroit Board's primary 
position is that no remedy is required. For that purpose,the Board 
has its appeal. But the Board is acutely aware that a remedial 
plan imprudently applied or adopted could do far more damage than 
no remedy at all. If there is to be a remedy, it is crucial that 
the remedy work, and that school segregation in the community effec­
tively disappear. It is to this purpose that the Detroit Board 
submits the appended Plan.

In so doing, the Board is acutely conscious of the words 
of the Court, "that the fact that the problem may have now become 
more difficult to solve is no reason not to solve it." It would 
ill serve the children of this community, whose rights are at 
issue here, if, in attempting to solve the problem, we merely 
recreated it on a larger scale. Yet this, we fear, is the true 
effect of the State plan.

The Board also remembers well the Court's remonstration 
on December 20, 1971, when counsel were exchanging charges of bad 
faith, that there has been a tremendous investment of time effort,

20-



■ 1 
1

1
and good will on the part of all parties in the case, for the 
purpose of resolving the basic and vital problem before the Court
(see December 20,- 1971 Transcript, pp. 32-37). It would be the 
ultimate tragedy if all of that effort failed to provide either 
an endorsement of the previous practices of the Detroit Board, or 
a course of action which improved upon them. It is for the purpose 
of avoiding that result that the following Plan is submitted.

Respectfully submitted,

RILEY AND ROUMELL

Telephone: 962-8255

Date: March 4, 1972.

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C E R T I F I C A T I O N

This is to certify that a copy of the foregoing Objection 
has been served upon counsel of record by United States Mail, pos­
tage pre-paid, addressed as follows:
LOUIS R. LUCAS 
WILLIAM E. CALDWELL 
525 Commerce Title Building 
Memphis, Tennessee 38103
NATHANIEL R. JONES 
General CounseljN.A.A.C.P. 
1790 Broadway 
New York,New York 10019
E. WINTHER MC CROOM 
3245 Woodburn Avenue 
Cincinnati, Ohio 45207
JACK GREENBERG 
NORMAN J. CHACHKIN 
10 Columbus Circle 
New York, New York 10019
J . HAROLD FLANNERY
PAUL R. DIMOND
ROBERT PRESSMAN
Center for Law & Education
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
02138

EUGENE KRASICKY 
Assistant Attorney General 
Seven Story Office Building 
525 West Ottawa Street 
Lansing, Michigan 48913
THEODORE SACHS 
1000 Farmer
Detroit, Michigan 48226
ALEXANDER B. RITCHIE 
2555 Guardian Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226
BRUCE A. MILLER 
LUCILLE WATTS
2460 First National Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226

Date March 4, 1972