Ruling on Desegregation Area and Order for Development of Plan of Desegregation

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION

RONALD BRADLEY, et al.,
Plaintiffs

v.

WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al.,

and
Defendants

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

Defendant- 
Intervenor

and
DENISE MAGDOWSKI, et al.,

Defendants-
Intervenor

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CIVIL ACTION NO: 
35257

D A M O N  J. K E I T H
U. S. DIST. JUDGE 

DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48225

RULING ON DESEGREGATION AREA 
AND

ORDER FOR DEVELOPMENT OF PLAN OF DESEGREGATION

On September 27, 1971 the court made its Ruling on 
Issue of Segregation, holding that illegal segregation exists 
in the public schools of the City of Detroit as a result of a 
course of conduct on the part of the State of Michigan and the 
Detroit Board of Education. Having found a constitutional 
violation as established, on October 4, 1971 the court 
directed the school board defendants, City and State, to 
develop and submit plans of desegregation, designed to 
achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation, 
taking into account the practicalities of the situation. The 
directive called for the submission of both a "Detroit-only" 
and a "Metropolitan" plan.



Plans for the desegregation of the Detroit schools 
were submitted by the Detroit Board of Education and by the 
plaintiffs. Following five days of hearings the court found 
that while plaintiffs 1 plan would accomplish more desegregation 
than now obtains in the system, or which would be achieved under 
either Plan A or C of the Detroit Board of Education submissions, 
none of the plans would result in the desegregation of the 
public schools of the Detroit school district. The court, \ 
in its findings of fact and conclusions of law, concluded that 
"relief of segregation in the Detroit public schools cannot V 
be accomplished within the corporate geographical limits of / 
the city," and that it had the authority and the duty to 
look beyond such limits for a solution to the illegal segre­
gation in the Detroit public schools. Accordingly, the court 
ruled,it had to consider a metropolitan remedy for segregation.

The part'ies submitted a number of plans for metropolitan 
desegregation. The State Board of Education submitted six - 
without recommendation, and without indicating any preference.
With the exception of one of these, none could be considered as 
designed to accomplish desegregation. On the other hand 
the proposals of intervening defendant Magdowski, et al., . 
the Detroit Board of Education and the plaintiffs were all 
good faith efforts to accomplish desegregation in the Detroit 
metropolitan area. The three plans submitted by these parties 
have many similarities, and all of them propose to incorporate, 
geographically, most— and in one instance, all— of the three- 
county area of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb.

The hearing on the proposals have set the framework, 
and have articulated the criteria and considerations, for 
developing and evaluating an effective plan of metropolitan 
desegregation. None of the submissions represent a complete

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plan for the effective and equitable desegregation of the 
metropolitan area, capable of implementation in its present 
form. The court will therefore draw upon the resources of 
the parties to devise, pursuant to its direction, a 
constitutional plan of desegregation of the Detroit public 
schools.

Based on the entire record herein, the previous oral 
and written rulings and orders of this court, and the 
Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law filed herewith,

IT IS ORDERED:

I.
A. As a panel charged with the responsibility of 

preparing and submitting an effective desegregation plan in 
accordance with the provisions of this order, the court 
appoints the following:

1. A designee of the State Superintendent of 
Public Instruction;

2. Harold Wagner, Supervisor of the Transportation 
Unit in the Safety and Traffic Education 
Program of the State Department of Education;

3. Merle Henrickson, Detroit Board of Education;
4. Aubrey McCutcheon, Detroit Board of Education;
5. Freeman Flynn, Detroit Board of Education;
6. Gordon Foster, expert for plaintiffs;
7. Richard Morshead, representing defendant 

Magdowski, et al.;
8. A designee of the newly intervening defendants;
9. Rita Scott, of the Michigan Civil Rights 

Commission.

* The designees of the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction and newly intervening defendants shall be communicated 
to the court within seven days of the entry of this order. In 
the event the newly intervening defendants cannot agree upon a 
designee, they may each submit a nominee within seven days from 
the entry of this order, and the court shall select one of the 
nominees as representative of said defendants.

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Should any designated member of this panel be unable 
to serve, the other members of the panel shall elect any 
necessary replacements, upon notice to the court and the 
parties. In the absence of objections within five days of 
the notice, and pending a final ruling, such designated 
replacement shall act as a member of the panel.

B. As soon as possible, but in no event later than 
45 days after the issuance of this order, the panel is to 
develop a plan for the assignment of pupils as set forth below 
in order to provide the maximum actual desegregation, and 
shall develop as well a plan for the transportation of pupils, 
for implementation for all grades, schools and clusters in 
the desegregation area. Insofar as required by the 
circumstances, which are to be detailed in particular, the 
panel may recommend immediate implementation of an interim 
desegregation plan for grades K-6, K-8 or K-9 in all or in 
as many clusters as practicable, with complete and final 
desegregation to proceed in no event later than the fall 
1973 term. In its transportation plan the panel shall, 
to meet the needs of the proposed pupil assignment plan, 
make recommendations, including the shortest possible time­
table, for acquiring sufficient additional transportation 
facilities for any interim or final plan of desegregation.
Such recommendations shall be filed forthwith and in no 
event later than 45 days after the entry of this order.
Should it develop that some additional transportation 
equipment is needed for an interim plan, the panel shall 
make recommendations for such acquisition within 20 days 
of this order.

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c. The parties, their agents, employees, successors, 
and all others having actual notice of this order shall 
cooperate fully with the panel in their assigned mission, 
including, but not limited to, the provision of data and 
reasonable full and part-time staff assistance as requested 
by the panel. The State defendants shall provide support, 
accreditation, funds, and otherwise take all actions necessary 
to insure that local officials and employees cooperate fully 
with the panel. All reasonable costs incurred by the panel 
shall be borne by the State defendants; provided, however, 
that staff assistance or other services provided by any 
school district, its employees or agents, shall be without 
charge, and the cost thereof shall be borne by such school 
district.

II.
A. Pupil reassignment to accomplish desegregation 

of the Detroit public schools is required within the geographical 
area which may be described as encompassing the following 
school districts (see Exhibit P.M. 12), and hereinafter 
referred to as the "desegregation area":

Lakeshore Birmingham Fairlane
Lakeview Hazel Park Garden City
Roseville Highland Park North Dearborn Height
South Lake Royal Oak Cherry Hill
East Detroit Berkley Inkster
Grosse Pointe Ferndale Wayne
Centerline Southfield Westwood
Fitzgerald Bloomfield Hills Ecorse
Van Dyke Oak Park Romulus
Fraser Redford Union Taylor
Harper Woods West Bloomfield River Rouge
Warren Clarenceville Riverview
Warren Woods Farmington Wyandotte
Clawson Livonia Allen park
Hamtramck South Redford Lincoln Park
Lamphere Crestwood Melvindale
Madison Heights Dearborn Southgate
Troy Dearborn Heights Detroit

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Provided, however, that if in the actual assignment of 
pupils it appears necessary and feasible to achieve effective 
and complete racial desegregation to reassign pupils of 
another district or other districts, the desegregation panel 
may, upon notice to the parties, apply to the Court for 
an appropriate modification of this order.

B. Within the limitations of reasonable travel 
time and distance factors, pupil reassignments shall be 
effected within the clusters described in Exhibit P.M. 12
so as to achieve the greatest degree of actual desegregation to 
the end that, upon implementation, no school, grade or class­
room be substantially disproportionate to the overall pupil 
racial composition. The panel may, upon notice to the 
parties, recommend reorganization of clusters within the 
desegregation area in order to minimize administrative 
inconvenience, or time and/or numbers of pupils requiring 
transportation.

C. Appropriate and safe transportation arrangements 
shall be made available without cost to all pupils assigned to 
schools deemed by the panel to be other than "walk-in" 
schools.

D. Consistent with the requirements of maximum 
actual desegregation, every effort should be made to minimize 
the numbers of pupils to be reassigned and requiring trans­
portation, the time pupils spend in transit, and the number 
and cost of new transportation facilities to be acquired by 

’ utilizing such techniques as clustering, the "skip" technique, 
island zoning, reasonable staggering of school hours, and 
maximization of use of existing transportation facilities,

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including buses owned or leased by school districts and 
buses operated by public transit authorities and private 
charter companies. The panel shall develop appropriate 
recommendations for limiting transfers which affect the 
desegregation of particular schools.

E. Transportation and pupil assignment shall,
to the extent consistent with maximum feasible desegregation, 
be a two-way process •with both black and white pupils sharing 
the responsibility for transportation requirements at all 
grade levels. In the determination of the utilization of 
existing, and the construction of new, facilities, care 
shall be taken to randomize the location of particular 
grade levels.

F. Faculty and staff shall be reassigned, in 
keeping with pupil desegregation, so as to prevent the 
creation or continuation of the identification of schools by 
reference to past racial composition, or the continuation of 
substantially disproportionate racial composition of the 
faculty and staffs, of the schools in the desegregation area. 
The faculty and staffs assigned to the schools within the 
desegregation area shall be substantially desegregated, 
bearing in mind, however, that the desideratum is the balance 
of faculty and staff by qualifications for subject and grade 
level, and then by race, experience and sex. In the context 
of the evidence in this case, it is appropriate to require 
assignment of no less than 10% black faculty and staff at 
each school, and where there is more than one building 
administrator, every effort should be made to assign a 
bi-racial administrative team.

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G. In the hiring, assignment, promotion, demotion, 
and dismissal of faculty and staff, racially non-discriminatory 
criteria must be developed and used; provided, however,
there shall be no reduction in efforts to increase minority 
group representation among faculty and staff in the 
desegregation area. Affirmative action shall be taken to 
increase minority employment in all levels of teaching and 
administration.

H. The restructuring of school facility utilization 
necessitated by pupil reassignments should produce schools
of substantially like quality, facilities, extra-curricular 
activities and staffs; and the utilization of existing 
school capacity through the desegregation area shall be 
made on the basis of uniform criteria.

I. The State Board of Education and the State 
Superintendent of Education shall with respect to all school 
construction and expansion, "consider the factor of racial 
balance along with other educational considerations in 
making decisions about new school sites, expansion of
present facilities * * and shall, within the desegregation
area disapprove all proposals for new construction or expansion 
of existing facilities when "housing patterns in an area would 
result in a school largely segregated on racial * * * lines,"
all in accordance with the 1966 directive issued by the State 
Board of Education to local school boards and the State 
Board's "School Plant Planning Handbook" (see Ruling on Issue 
of segregation, p. 13.).

J. Pending further orders of the court, existing 
school district and regional boundaries and school governance



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arrangements will be maintained and continued, except to 
the extent necessary to effect pupil and faculty desegregation 
as set forth herein; provided, however, that existing administra­
tive, financial, contractual, property and governance arrange­
ments shall be examined, and recommendations for their 
temporary and permanent retention or modification shall be 
made, in light of the need to operate an effectively desegregated 
system of schools.

K. At each school within the desegregated area 
provision shall be made to insure that the curriculum, 
activities, and conduct standards respect the diversity of 
students from differing ethnic backgrounds and the dignity and 
safety of each individual, students, faculty, staff and parents.

L. The defendants shall, to insure the effective 
desegregation of the schools in the desegregation area, take 
immediate action including, but not limited to, the 
establishment or expansion of in-service training of faculty 
and staff, create bi-racial committees, employ black counselors, 
and require bi-racial and non-discriminatory extra-curricular 
activities.

III.
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, with 

the assistance of the other state defendants, shall examine, 
and make recommendations, consistent with the principles 
established above, for appropriate interim and final arrange­
ments for the (1) financial, (2) administrative and school 
governance, and (3) contractual arrangements for the operation 
of the schools within the desegregation area, including steps 
for unifying, or otherwise making uniform the personnel

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policies, procedures, contracts, and property arrangements 

of the various school districts.
Within 15 days of the entry of this order, the 

Superintendent shall advise the court and the parties of his 
progress in preparing such recommendations by filing a 
written report with the court and serving it on the parties.
In not later than 45 days after the entry of this order,
the Superintendent shall file with the court his recommendations
for appropriate interim and final relief in these respects.

In his examination and recommendations, the 
Superintendent, consistent with the rulings and orders of this 
court, may be guided, but not limited, by existing state law; 
where state law provides a convenient and adequate framework 
for interim or ultimate relief, it should be followed, where 
state law either is silent or conflicts with what is necessary 
to achieve the objectives of this order, the Superintendent 
shall independently recommend what he deems necessary. In 
particular, the Superintendent shall examine and choose one 
appropriate interim arrangement to oversee the immediate 
implementation of a plan of desegregation.

IV.
Each party may file appropriate plans or proposals 

for inclusion in any final order which may issue in this 
cause. The intent of this order is to permit all the parties 
to proceed apace with the task before us: fashioning an 
effective plan for the desegregation of the Detroit public 

schools.
Fifteen days after the filing of the reports 

required herein, hearings will begin on any proposal to modify 
any interim plan prepared by the panel and all other matters

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which may be incident to the adoption and implementation of 
any interim plan of desegregation submitted. The parties 
are placed on notice that they are to be prepared at that 
time to present their objections, alternatives and modifications. 
At such hearing the court will not consider objections to 
desegregation or proposals offered "instead" of desegregation.

Hearings on a final plan of desegregation will be 
set as circumstances require.

DATE: JUNE 14 , 1972.