Objections of Detroit Board of Education to the Alleged Plan of Desegregation Filed by Plaintiffs

    R o U m e l l

W A L L A C E  D.  R I L E Y  

G E O R G E  T .  R O U M E L L ,  J R .  , 

D O R O T H Y  C O M S T O C K  R I L E Y  

J A N E  K E L L E R  S O U R I S  

L O U  I S  D .  B  E E R  

K .  P A U L  Z O S E L

R I L EV A ND
A T T O R N E Y S  A N D  C O U N S E L O R S  A T  L A W  

7  t h  F L O O R  F O R D  B U I L D I N G  

D E T R O I T ,  M I C H I G A N  4 8 2 2 6

March 12, 1972

Honorable Stephen J• Roth 
United States District Court 
600 Church Street 
Federal Building 
Flint, Michigan 48502

Re: Bradley v. Milliken; Case No. 35257
Dear Judge Roth:
We take the liberty of enclosing herein original and two 
copies of the Objections of Board of Education for the 
City of Detroit, and other defendants, to the Alleged 
Plan of Desegregation Filed by Plaintiffs. The origi­
nal is for file and two copies are for the convenience 
of the Court.
We cannot over-emphasize the vigor of the Board's objec­
tions to Plaintiffs' plan for desegregation and our strong 
belief that Plaintiffs' plan is unconstitutional and educ­
ationally unsound for all children and is most impractical 
in what we believe to be a community of 4,000,000 people, 
having 1,000,000 children of school age.

GTR:md 
Ends .
Special Delivery 
cc: Mr. Louis R. Lucas

Mr. Wm. E. Caldwell 
Mr. Eugene Krasicky 
Mr. Theodore Sachs 
Mr. Nathaniel R. Jones 
Mr. J. Harold Flannery 
Mr. Paul R. Dimond 

Air Mail - Special Delivery

Mr. E. Winther McCroom 
Mr. Jack Greenberg 
Mr. Norman J. Chachkin 
Mr. Alexander B. Ritchie 
Mr. Bruce A. Miller 
Ms. Lucille Watts 
Mr. Robert Pressman



UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION

—  }

RONALD BRADLEY, et al, )
' )

Plaintiffs, )
vs. ))
WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al, )

- )
Defendants, )

and ))
DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS LOCAL 231, )
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO ) No. 35257

)
Intervening Defendant, )

and ))
DENISE MAGDOWSKI, et al, ))

Intervening defendants. )
)

OBJECTIONS OF BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE CITY OF 
DETROIT AND OTHER DEFENDANTS TO THE ALLEGED PLAN 

OF DESEGREGATION FILED BY PLAINTIFFS_____

The Board of Education of the City of Detroit and 
certain individual defendants by George T. Roumell, Jr., Louis D.
Beer and Riley and Roumell, hereby submits to the Court its objec­
tions to the alleged desegregation plan submitted by Plaintiffs 
and in so doing says as follows:

1 . The Detroit Board of Education objects to the Plaintiffs' 
Plan Because It Would Unconstitutionally Convert the School District 
into a Racially Identifiable School District.

The Detroit Board objects to the Plaintiffs' plan 
because it would turn the Detroit school district into a racially 
identifiable district composed solely of racially identifiable schools 
in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United 
States Constitution. Even if the racial composition of the district



were not likely to change in direct reaction to the adoption of. 
the Plaintiffs' plan, a probability discussed below in Objection II, 
the immediate effect of implementing the Plaintiffs' plan would be 
to create a district composed of schools whose student populations 
would range from 55% black and 45% white to 75% black and 25% white.
In the Detroit Metropolitan Area, a school community with a student 
ratio of approximately 20% black and 80% white, all the schools in 
Detroit would, under Plaintiffs' plan, be identifiably black. Such 
a result, if achieved through state action, would violate the Equal 
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Bradley v.
School Board of the City of Richmond, Va.,___F.Supp.___ (E.D. Va.,
Jan. 5, 1972)(slip op.pp.31;41-2).' Compare Haney V. County Board of 
Education of Sevier County, 369 F.2d 364 (8th Cir., 1970)(totally 
black district within a white one); United States V. Texas, 447 F.2d 
551 (5th Cir.,1971)(totally black districts). In racial matters 
the Fifth Amendment restricts the federal government as the Fourteenth 
does the states. See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 98 L.Ed. 884 
(1954). Consequently, for the United States District Court to order 
an instrumentality of the State of Michigan to adopt the Plaintiffs' 
plan would violate both the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments.

If the total relevant school population were in 
fact 65% black and 35 % white, the Plaintiffs' plan would obviously 
not be unconstitutional. But for the reasons adduced in the Detroit 
Board's Objections to the State Plan (pp. 2-3), the relevant school 
population is that of the tri-county Detroit Metropolitan Area. With­
in that natural school community the Plaintiffs' plan would carve 
out a racially identifiable, predominately black, district. See 
Haney v. County Board of Education of Sevier County, supra;
Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, Va., supra. It 
would do this by following and reinforcing known patterns of housing.

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See Bradley v. MilTiken, 438 F.2d 9 46 (6th. Cir. , 1971) , Judge 
Keith's ruling in Davis v. School District of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 
734 (E.D.Mich.1970), aff' d 443 F.2d 573, cert, denied, 91 S.Ct. 233 
(1971), is as pertinent to a federal court as to a school board:

"For a school board to acquiesce in a housing 
development pattern and then to disclaim res­
ponsibility for the eventual segregated charac­
teristic that such pattern creates in the 
schools is for the Board to abrogate and ignore 
all power, control and responsibility. A Board 
of Education simply cannot permit a segregated 
situation to come about and then blithely an­
nounce that for a Negro student to gain atten­
dance at a given school all he must do is live 
within the school's attendance area. To 
rationalize thusly is to be blinded to the real­
ities of adult life with its prejudices and op­
position to integrated housing."

See also United States v. School District No. 151, 286 F.Supp. 786, 
799 (N.D. 111.), aff'd 404 F.2d 1125 (7th Cir., 1968); Keyes v. 
School Dist. No. 1, Denver, 303 F. Supp. 279, 289 (D.Colo.), rev'd 
on other grounds, 445 F. 3d 990 (10th Cir., 1971) , cert, granted,
____U.S. ___(1971); Brewer v. School Bd. of City of Norfolk,397 F.2d
37 (4th Cir.1968); Sloan v. Tenth School District of Wilson County, 
443 F.2d 587, 589 (6th Cir.1970).

It is no justification of the Plaintiffs' plan that 
it follows existing political boundaries. While neither the Detroit 
Board nor the State defendants concede the correctness of this 
Court's finding that they have segregated black students, any reme­
dial plan must be discussed on the assumption that the Court's 
finding is warranted. The finding of State involvement in the 
asserted segregation is particularly important as it involves all 
the people of the Detroit Metropolitan Area, through their elected 
representatives, in the creation of the problem. "Where a pattern 
of violation of constitutional rights is established the affirmative 
obligation under the Fourteenth Amendment is imposed on not only 
individual school districts, but upon the State defendants in this 
case." Cooper v. Aaron,35 8 U.S. 1 (1958) ; Griffin v. County School

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Board of Prince Edward County, 377 U.S. 218 (1964). As Judge Merhige 
has noted, the obligation of the various public officials and bodies 
in a metropolitan area "toward the individual school children is 
a shared one." Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, Va., 
51 F.R.D. 139, 143 (1970). As a matter of hornbook law, but par­
ticularly where federal constitutional rights are at stake, "school 
district lines within a state are a matter of political convenience." 
Lee v. Macon County Bd. of Educ., 448 F.2d 746, 752 (5th Cir.,1971). 
"Political subdivisions of states— counties, cities or whatever-- 
never were and never have been considered as sovereign entities" 
and hence may readily be crossed when necessary to vindicate federal 
constitutional rights. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 575 (1964).
See Jenkins v. Township of Morristown School District and Bd. of 
Educ., 279 A.2d 619 (N.J., June 25, 1971). While the Detroit Board 
feels that existing school districts can serve valid functions after 
a remedial decree is issued, it does not see any justification for 
stopping any relief at a political boundary absent valid educational 
or legal reasons to do so. On the contrary it feels reasons of con­
stitutional magnitude require that the entire metropolitan area be 
involved in any remedy.

II. The Detroit Board of Education Objects To Plaintiffs1
Plan Because It Would Not In Fact Provide a Remedy.

Before the implementation of this suit and since,
the Detroit Board has expressed its commitment to ending racial 
separation in schools, regardless of cause. While the Detroit Board 
does not concede that it has committed any acts justifying a judicial 
remedy, it has an obligation to all the people of Detroit to seek 
to assure that any remedy imposed will in fact correct the alleged

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conditions complained of. This obligation is the stronger as 
the Detroit Board may be required to comply with any remedial 
decree while appealing its appropriateness. Alexander y. Holmes 
Bd. of Educ., 396 U.S.19(1969). Just as the Detroit Board has an 
affirmative obligation to propose a meaningful solution, it feels 
it has an obligation to assist the court to fulfill its duty to 
assess the effectiveness of other plans in achieving the constitu­
tionally required unitary system.. Swann v. Charlotte Mechlenburg 
Bd. of Educ., 91 S.Ct.1267 (1971); Davis v. Board of School Commis­
sioners of Mobile County, 91S Ct .1289 (1971) ; Green v. County School 
Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 885 Ct. 1689(1968). Such an 
assessment must be made in light of the existing circumstances and 
the alternatives available in such instance, Swann, supra; Davis, 
supra; Green, supra.

With its obligations to the Court and to the people 
of Detroit firmly in mind, the Detroit Board objects to the Plain­
tiffs1 plan because it would not in fact remedy the separation of 
black pupils from white pupils. It would not eliminate the alleged 
state causation of that separation; it would merely add federal 
causation.

Immediate implementation of the Plaintiffs' plan 
would not eliminate a single identifiably black school in Detroit. 
Rather it would create more. It would make all schools in Detroit 
identifiably black in the perception of both the black and the white 
segments of the community. At the same time it would leave the 
vast majority of white pupils in the metropolitan area in predomi­
nately or totally white public schools, in racially identifiable 
schools. The failure of the Plaintiffs' plan would not only be 
predictable the day it was approved, it would become increasingly

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obvious as the black and white citizens of the Detroit Metropolitan 
Area reacted to it. The reactions of both groups are perfectly 
predictable. Even before the Plaintiffs' plan could be implemented, 
white parents facing the prospect of sending their children to pre­
dominately black Detroit schools would leave Detroit. They would 
not leave the Metropolitan area. They would move to the havens the 
Plaintiffs' plan leaves in the suburbs. As a result, the racial 
ratio for the first year of operation under the Plaintiffs' plan 
would be a good deal less white than the present figures would leave 
one to believe. It is not hyperbole to suggest that hy the time the 
appeals will be concluded, "white flight" would have made the entire 
district closer to the 90% black schools repeatedly referred by by 
plaintiffs counsel and witnesses in examining witnesses. See, eg 
Tr. 836-37; 84 - 43; 854-55.

It is equally predictable that black parents would not 
join the rush to the suburbs. It is a widespread belief in the
local black community that black movement to most suburbs is deli­
berately frustrated in a host of ways and that blacks must pay more 
than whites for such housing as they do have accesss to. Besides, 
with so many whites leaving, housing opportunities for blacks in 
Detroit would improve. This in fact is the well-known pattern 
in neighborhood after neighborhood within Detroit.

Judge Merhige in Bradley v. School Bd. of the City of 
Richmond, Va. could have been describing the Detroit Public Schools 
of 1975 when he wrote: "The departure of whites, as has occurred 
in the City, in the face of an increasing black component, was pre­
dictable, but it was only possible — and only had reason to occur — 
when other facilities, not identifiable as black, existed within 
what was in practical terms, for the family seeking a new residence,

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the same community. School authorities cannot but have been aware 
from their experience of the tendency of individual facilities 
within each segregated system to take on a label of racial identi- 
fiability. Given the shifting demographic patterns it was fully 
foreseeable, and was foreseen, that more and more schools in the 
city, new and old, would become black and in the (suburbs) most 
facilities, including new ones, would be obviously white."

F.Supp. ___(E.D. Va., Jan. 5, 1972) slip op. at p.42.

III. The Detroit Board Objects to the Plaintiffs1 Plan 
Because, Without Adequate Reason, It Fails to Provide the Greatest_
Possible Degree of Actual Desegregation.

"Having once found a violation, the district judge 
or school authorities should make every effort to achieve the great­
est possible degree of actual desegregation,taking into account the 
practicalities of the situation." Davis v. Board of School Commis­
sioners of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33, 91 S.Ct. 1289 at 1292(1971). 
In Metropolitan Detroit desegregation of the entire school community 
would approximate a ratio of 80% white and 20% black. To settle 
for anything less the Court must find major obstacles in "the prac­
ticalities of the situation."

Physical and time obstacles are not significant in 
this area. The Metropolitan Area is generously supplied with free­
ways and other major arteries extending fanlike out of Detroit. 
Travel between the central city and the suburban areas is extensive 
and not overly demanding. In 1965, before the present freeway net 
was completed, the Detroit Regional Transportation and Land Use 
Study (TALUS) concluded,

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, . "The pattern of movement by persons in the
study area... is characterized by uniformly 
heavily loaded links in the central city and 
immediately adjoining suburban areas with the 
most heavily loaded links extending radially 
outward from the CBD (Central Business District)
... The general pattern of movement is one of 
interaction of the suburban counties with the 
central city... A comparison of auto driver 
trip lengths in 1953 and 1965 shows a substan­
tial increase in the average trip length in 
miles for all four trip purposes analyzed....
The increase in trip length measured in minutes, 
however, was much less....The minimal increases 
in travel time despite substantial increases 
in the average distance traveled were made pos­
sible by the development of an extensive free­
way network and by improvements to arterial 
streets."

Base Year Travel Study pp. 11-12 (1969). TALUS was a special project 
of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. The "study area" 
included Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties, as well as portions 
of adjacent counties.

If the highway network is adequate for the other 
business of the area it is adequate for its school affairs as well. 
Nor is time likely to be a factor which would interfere with the 
health or education of the children transported under a metropolitan 
plan. See Swann v. Charlotte -Mechlenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 US 1,
91 S.Ct. 1267 at 1283 (1971) . The State of Michigan routinely funds 
the transportation of children one and a half hours each way without 
noting any hazard to health or education. See Hain, The Law of 
Desegregation, 18 Mich. School Bd. J. 18 (Dec. 1971). In this con­
nection it might be noted that Southeastern Michigan has the mildest 
climate in the state.

Political boundaries are not significant barriers 
either. School district boundaries in Michigan are infrequently 
coterminous with other political boundaries, although Detroit is an 
exception to the rule. Municipal budgets and affairs are not bound

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up with those of school districts in Michigan. The state obviously 
treats school districts as administrative conveniences. See, e g, 
Detroit Bd. of Educ. v. Superintendent of Public Tnstr., 319 Mich.
436 at 449 (1947).

Administrative convenience does not supply the over­
riding state interest necessary to justify infringement on the fund­
amental interest in equal educational opportunity. Compare Reynolds 
v. Sims, 377 US 533(1964)(allocation of voter representation);
Verner Sherbet, 384 U.S. 398, 506-7, 10 L. Ed. 2d 965, 972 (1963) 
(exercise of religion). As early as Brown v. Board of Educ., 349 
U.S. 294 at 300-01, 75 S. Ct. at 756 (1955) the Supreme Court has 
suggested that the revision of school districts might be necessary 
to assure that school systems operate on constitutional principles. 
Where political boundaries effectively allocate separate portions 
of public goods to whites and blacks, courts can redraw them. See 
Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)(municipal boundaries); 
Haney v. County Bd. of Educ. of Sevier County, 364 F2d 364 (8th 
Cir.1970)(school districts); United States v. Texas, 447 F2d 441 
(5th Cir.1971)(school districts) Where proposed new boundaries 
unevenly apportion racial groups among school districts they are 
suspect and may be enjoined. Turner v. Littleton - Lake Gaston 
School Dist. 442 F2d 584 (4th Cir. 1971).

Finally, suburban opposition to integration, cannot be 
considered a barrier to court-ordered integration. Even violent 
opposition is insufficent justification for the denial of a full 
measure of constitutional rights. Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958).

No other practical objections springing readily to mind, 
the Detroit Board objects to the inadequate degree of actual dese­
gregation proposed by the Plaintiffs' plan.

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IV. The Detroit Board Objects to the Plaintiffs'
Plan Because it Is Not Desicrned for Transition to a Metropolitan 
Plan.

The Detroit Board believes the only practical plan 
and the only constitutional plan is a metropolitan plan. Yet con­
ceding that an interim plan may be desirable (a question upon which 
it has major reservations), it asserts that the true test of any 
interim plan must be whether it will enhance or retard the imple­
mentation of a final plan. The Plaintiffs* plan is, by admission, 
not designed to lead to a metropolitan plan. See Desegregation 
Plan, Detroit Public Schools (February 22, 1972) p.4. In fact, it 
is so inconsistent with any metropolitan plan that might be envi­
sioned that it could only cause a period of upset between the termi­
nation of litigation and the beginning of a truly effective plan.
In this respect it can only increase the tensions and apprehensions 
of the community. It would lack the sense of finality so important 
in persuading students and the general public to accept the change 
and to build constructive new relationships. In this respect the 
Plaintiffs' plan is far more undesirable than the State Plan to 
which the Detroit Board has objected already.

Any interim plan which creates a pupil population in any 
school for the interim period substantially at a variance from the 
pupil population expected for that school under the ultimate plan 
is an unsatisfactory plan. It will leave the students at that 
school in a state of unrest and uncertainty which is hostile to the
educational goals of cognitive learning and inter-racial amity. A
Year spent waiting for the other shoe to fall will be, at best, an 
unfruitful year. More likely it will be a barrier to progress.

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V
Plan Because it Will Lead to Systematically Inferior Education 
for Black Students.

An identifiably black school district, such as the 
Plaintiffs' plan would create, would have a harmful effect on the 
black students of Detroit. Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Robert Green, 
testified to the importance of mutli-racial classes (Tr. 982-3).
He asserted that decentralization along racial lines would be 
"disfunctional", while "multi-racialism" would make decentraliza­
tion acceptable. (Tr. 1019) . Dr. Green expressed his expert 
opinion that attendance at racially identifiable schools adversely 
affects the black students' academic and occupational aspirations. 
(Tr. 866-68). Similar poor performance can, Dr. Green said, be 
expected from integrating low socio-economic status whites and low 
socio-economic status blacks.(Tr. 1009-10) A high percentage of 
those whites left in Detroit are of low socio-economic status.
Dr. Green also asserted that racially identifiable schools are 
perceived by black persons, students and adults, as related to allo­
cations of resources skewed unfavorably to blacks. (Tr. 869-71).
As Dr. Green's discussion of attendance zones (Tr. 1023-25) and 
decentralization (Tr. 911-13; 1019) indicates, the existence of 
political boundaries is unlikely to alter the unfavorable percep­
tions by blacks. Indeed this Court, by its findings in this case, 
has confirmed suspicion that the State as a whole might discriminate 
against black students or the Detroit School District. Ruling on 
Issue of Segregation, pp. 14-15, September 27, 1971. Finally, the 
Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Green, has testified that teacher attitudes 
are worse and their expectations for their students are lower in 
predominately black schools. (Tr. 863-64; 921; 988-92; 1032-36).
Low teacher expectations translate into low student performance.

• The Detroit Board Objects to the Plaintiffs'

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In sum, the Detroit Board of Education opposes
implementation of the Plaintiffs' plan on the grounds that it 
would create a segregated school district offering an inferior edu­
cation. Dr. Green labeled the political concept of community control 
"a policy of despair" (Tr. 912-13). Adoption of the Plaintiffs’ 
plan would be a similar policy.

Respectfully submitted,

RILEY AND ROUMELL

And Louis D. Beer 
720 Ford Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226 
Telephone: 962-8255

Date: March 12,1972

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