Defendant's Answer to Plaintiffs' Motion for Order Adjudging Defendant's Detroit Plans to be Legally Insufficient and for Other Relief

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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., . )
)Defendants, )and )
)DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, LOCAL )

231, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, )AFL-CIO, )
)Defendant-Intervenor, ' )and )
)DENISE MAGDOWSKI, et al., )
)Defendants-Intervenor. )et al.  )

Civil Action 
No. 35257

DEFENDANT BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE CITY OF DETROIT 
ANSWER TO PLAINTIFFS 1 MOTION FOR ORDER ADJUDGING 
DEFENDANT'S DETROIT PLANS TO BE LEGALLY 

INSUFFICIENT AND FOR OTHER RELIEF.i ‘ — — ---------------- ----

NOW COMES the Board of Education for the City of 
Detroit and other defendants, by their attorneys, Riley and

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Roumell, and answer Plaintiffs' Motion of March 21, 1972, and 

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j in answer to such Motion, says as follows:

1. Plaintiffs' Motion, and Defendant Detroit Board 
of Education's Motion have, insofar as they deal with motion to 
strike plans, been rendered moot by the Court's ruling of March 
24, 1972. We understand it to be the Court's intent to consider
all plans, to comment on sufficiency or insufficiency of all

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j plans, and to make an appropriate order. If our understanding
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j is correct, we see no purpose to be accomplished by singling 
out any plan for piecemeal prior treatment.



2. Plaintiffs, in requesting the Court to order 
Defendant Detroit Board of Education to take steps to implement 
one plan while hearings continue on others, relies mainly in 
two cases; Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 396 U.S.
226 (1969); and U.S. v. Bd. of Ed., of Baldwin County, 423 F.2d 
1013 (5th Cir.1970). The Baldwin County case is mis-citea, 
and the Carter case is partially cited, out of context. Actually^ 
both cases stand for the position of the Detroit Board of Education.

Plaintiffs leaves the inference that Baldwin County 
stands for the proposition that the Court must select the "best 
available plan of desegregation presently in the record... even if 
such plan is inperfect and not completely adequate." (Memorandum 
in support of motion, March 24, 1972 p.l) In the Baldwin 
County case, the plan selected was imperfect, not because it 
did not provide constitutionally sufficient desegregation, but 
because it was necessarily technically imprecise, due to the 
fact that the "Baldwin County system has no pupil-locator maps, 
so that HEW could draw only approximate zone lines." 423 F.2d 
at 1014. What the Court actually said is since the "HEW plan 
is the only one currently available that gives any promise of 
ending the dual system, we must order its implementation despite 
its defects." Thus, the plan was ordered, not because it had 
beneficial effects which ameliorated but continued existing 
segregation, but because it held out promise of ending it in a 
terminal fashion. The plan ordered in Baldwin County was not 
an interim plan, as Plaintiffs would, suggest to the Court.

It is abundantly apparent that Plaintiffs' plan does 
not fit the Baldwin County formula. No complaint exists of its ! 
technical imprecision, although Plaintiffs admit that some 
modifications might be desirable. Yet Plaintiffs admit, in the 
findings of fact and conclusions of law that they urge upon

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this Court that "no’ Detroit-only plan will provide complete 
and adequate relief for the constitutional violation found in 
this cause." (prop.findings of fact and conclusions of law,p.13) 
By this own admission their plan does not meet the Baldwin 
County standard of "giving any promise of ending the dual svstem" 
and therefore, is not fit for implementation at any time.

Plaintiffs neglect to note that the Carter case, when 
read with Baldwin County suggests precisely what the Court 
should do. In Carter, the Supreme Court said "by way of interim 
relief pending further order of the Court, the respondent school 
boards are directed to take no steps which are inconsistent with 
or which will tend to prejudice or delay a schedule to implement. 
..desegregation plans submitted by the Department of Health, 
Education and Welfare..." 396 U.S. at 228. Plaintiffs'plan 
itself, without doubt, would cause such prejudice or delay of 
the implementation of a plan which would provide clear relief, 
namely a metropolitan plan. The record is clear, that the 
population exodus, the expense, the administrative chaos, the 
disruption of educational program caused by moving tens of 
thousands of children twice, does not lead toward terminal relief 
for the children of this city, it leads away from it. Carter 
does not support such action, it forbids it.

Baldwin and Carter properly read make clear what is 
the proper course of action for the Court to follow: to order
as rapidly as possible terminal constitutional relief; namely, 
a metropolitan plan of desegregation. Baldwin authorizes the 
Court to order such a plan even if it is not technically precise, 
if, in fact, it offers promise of finally ending a dual system. 
But both cases mandate that the trip should be rapid and direct, 
and unencumbered by side trips to other plans offering only the 
illusion of relief which actually leave the children of this

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city farther from the goal of true desegregation than they are 
now. Plaintiffs' plan is such a side trip and should not be 
ordered for any purpose.

3. Insofar as Plaintiffs' Motion suggests that the 
Defendant Detroit Board of Education should come forward with 
a plan for partial metropolitan implementation in 1972, Defendant 
Detroit Board of Education does not oppose it. Not only would 
such action conform to the cases cited above, but in fact the 
Defendant Detroit Board of Education is already engaged in such 
activity without any prodding from Plaintiffs. Defendants do 
object, however, if the intent of this part of Plaintiffs's 
Motion is meant to confine such efforts to modification of 
Plaintiffs' plan. Such a limitation would serve only to compli­
cate planning efforts. There is simply no reason to assume move­
ment of children for planning purposes, and then to assume 
moving them from the new assumed location to an ultimate real 
location. The planning effort will be more rapid, direct and 
beneficial if the Defendant Detroit Board of Education is simply 
allowed to deal with the world as it is. It is submitted that 
the course which leads most directly to constitutional relief, 
is (1) the holding of hearings and the adoption by the Court of a 
metropolitan plan; (2) presentation to the Court by Defendants 
of a plan for partial implementation of the adopted terminal 
plan in September of 1972; (3) approval by the Court of this
or some other partial plan specifically designed to facilitate 
the terminal plan as it has been adopted by the Court in that 
it does not impede or prejudice ultimate relief; (4) implementation 
in full of the terminal plan as soon as possible. It is sub­
mitted that this course meets directly the dictates of Carter

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

; This is to certify that a cony of the foregoing
i Defendant Board of Education for the City of Detroit Answer 
| to Plaintiffs' Motion for Order Adjudging Defendant's Detroit 
} Plans to be Legally Insufficient and For Other Relief has been 

served upon counsel of record by United States Mail, postage
pre-paid, addressed as follows:
LOUIS R. LUCAS .
WILLIAM E. CALDWELL 
525 Commerce Title Building . 
Memphis, Tennessee 38103
NATHANIEL R. JONES 
General Counsel, NAACP 
1790 Broadway 
New York, New York 10019
E. WINTHER MC CROOM 

j 3245 Woodburn Avenue 
j Cincinnati, Ohio 45207
JACK GREENBERG
NORMAN J. CHACHKIN .
10 Columbus Circle
New York, New York 10019

DOUGLAS K. WEST 
ROBERT B. WEBSTER 
3700 Penobscot Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226
WILLIAM M. SAXTON
1881 First National Building
Detroit, Michigan 48226
EUGENE KRASICKY 
Assistant Attorney General 
Seven Story Office Building 
525 West Ottawa Street 
Lansing, Michigan 48913
THEODORE SACHS 
1000 Farmer
Detroit, Michigan 48226

J. HAROLD FLANNERY
PAUL R. DIMOND
ROBERT PRESSMAN
Center for Law & Education
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
02138
ROBERT J. LORD
8388 Dixie Highway
Fair Haven, Michigan 48023

Of Counsel:
PAUL R. VELLA 
EUGENE R. BOLANOWSKI 
30009 Schoenherr Road 
Warren, Michigan 48093

ALEXANDER B. RITCHIE 
2555 Guardian Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226
BRUCE A. MILLER 
LUCILLE WATTS
2460 First National Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226
RICHARD P. CONDIT 
Long Lake Building 
860 West Long Lake Road 
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 4
KENNETH B. MC CONNELL 
74 West Long Lake Road 
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 
48013

PROFESSOR DAVID HOOD
Wayne State University Law School
468 West Ferry
Detroit, Michigan 48202

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Respectfully submitted,
RILEY AND ROUMELL -j
By: C i c . ,  - J  , 1

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

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Date: March 27, 1972.