Brief of Defendants in Support of Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and the Board's Detroit Plan

    #

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN 

SOUTHERN DIVISION

'
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i

)RONALD BRADLEY, et al, )
)Plaintiffs, )

v. )
)WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al, )
)Defendants, )

and )
)DETRO±T 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

BRIEF
!j OF DEFENDANT DETROIT BOARD OF EDUCATION

AND OTHER DEFENDANTS IN SUPPORT OF PROPOSED 
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 

AND THE BOARD'S METROPOLITAN DETROIT PLAN

jl . PREFACE
;!

On March 22, 1972, the Defendant Detroit Board ofil
!! Education presented to this Honorable Court a Brief entitled, 
jj "Brief on Law In Support of Metropolitan Plan Presented by 
I; Defendant School Board for the City of Detroit and Other Defen-I '
!j dants." This was before the hearing on a Detroit Metropolitan
|| Plan. The Defendant Detroit Board of Education believes that
II
|| the law cited in that Brief, as well as the law cited in the

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iI
i

Board s ODjecuions to the Defendant State Board of Education 
plans filed on March 4, 1972, is applicable and applies directly 
to the evidence elicited in the hearings on the Detroit Metro- 

tan Plan. therefore, the Defendant Detroit Board of Educa­
tion herein incorporates said Briefs and has attached for the 
Court's convenience a copy of said Briefs to this Brief as 
Appendices A and B. This Brief is designed to highlight certain 
salient facts and law which we believe will be helpful to the 
Court. In summary, the Defendant Detroit Board of Education 
takes the position that its Metropolitan Desegregation Plan is 
entitled to preference and should be adopted by the Court 
because (1) it desegregates; (2) does not lead to resegregation; 
(3) it is educationally sound; (4) and it is practical as it 
was developed by educators, both white and black, who are 
intimately familiar with metropolitan Detroit's educational 
problems, logistics and demography.

I. AN ACCEPTABLE PLAN OF DESEGREGATION SUBMITTED
BY THE DEFENDANT DETROIT BOARD OF EDUCATION IS 
ENTITLED TO PREFERENCE OVER ANY OTHER PLANS 
SUBMITTED.I!!u .If it be conceded that this Court was correct in itsh

|i finding that the Defendant Detroit Board of Education and the
i .
i| State of Michigan have deliberately segregated students within
jj
j Detroit, both the Defendant Detroit Board of Education andi
| Defendant State Board of Education have an affirmative duty 
j to come forward with acceptable desegregation plans. The 
I District Court then has the duty to evaluate those plans "in 
| light of the facts at hand and in light of any alternatives 
j which may oe shown as feasible and more promising in their 
I! effectivenss. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County,

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!
!!
i
391 U.S. 430,439 (1968). Nevertheless it is settled that the
initial duty to prepare and to propose a plan is on the Detroit
School Board, not on the Court or the Plaintiffs. Clark v.

i! .jj Board of Education of Little Rock School District, 4'26 F.2d— —  -  -------
|j 1035-1045 (8th Cir.1970) , cert. denied, 402 U.S.952 (1971) ;
I I

| Gordon v. Jefferson Davis Parish School Board, 315 S.Supp.901,
S 002, fn.1(W.D.La.1970), vacated on other grounds, 446 F .2d 266
(5th Cir.1971). When the board's plan offers effective relief,

| should oe adopted, recognizing that the details of a const!—
j tutionally acceptable plan should be left to the body that must
| admxnister it. Allen v. Asheville City Bd. of Educ.,434 F.2d
| .i 002 (4th Cir.1970); Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 325 F.I |
J Supp.828,832.33 (E.D. Va.,1971); Green v. School Bd. of City
i| _Roanoke, 316 F. Supp. 6 (W .D . Va . 19 70) , affirmed in part, vacated
in part on other grounds, 444 F.2d 99 (4th Cir.1971); Moore v. 

j Tagipahoa Parish School Bd.,304 F.Supp. 244 (E.D.Lal969), appeal 
| dism.,421 F.2d 1407 (5th Cir.1969).
I J

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has stated: 1
j! „ . . . :ii Tt 1S initially the responsibility of the Board of Education to !

................................................................. ,  !j prepare a feasible means of disestablishing existing segregation i
. . .  !and eliminating its effects within the school system. Ordinarily,

j uhe Court will not substitute its discretion for that of a board 
jj °f education but will adopt a plan proposed by the board if it 
jj fulfills the Court's duty to eliminate the effects of past
Siij illegal conduct." Davis v. School Dist. of City of Pontiac, 
i 443 F .2d 573,577 (6th Cir.1971), cert.denied, 404 U.S. 913 
h (1971). See also Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ.,
ij 306 F.Supp.1291,1297 (W. D . N . C . 19 6 9 ) .jl

The effectiveness of a plan has been defined by the 
| Supreme Court in two complementary ways. "Where the Court 
j finds the board to be acting in good faith and the proposed



i| plan to have real prospects for dismantling the state-imposed
Ij _j! dual system 'at the earliest practicable date, 1 then the plan 
; may be said to provide effective relief." Green v. County School 
! Board of New Kent County, supra. -

In the absence of a single school board with operating 
responsibility for the entire area, the Court should first

j consider any plan proposed by the State Board of Education, but
)
j the Michigan State Board of Education has declined to advocate
| anY Plan it has submitted. As the State Board is unwilling to
j
j! represent to the Court that any of its plans is desirable or
j;|| will be effective, none is entitled to the deference that stems
j . .| from administrative responsibility and preference. There being 
| no other body governing the whole area, the plan of the Defendant 
j Detroit Board of Education is entitled to the deference it wouldJI . . _ .! receive lr a Detroit-only plan were contemplated. The DetroitI
| Board, equally with the State Board, has an affirmative dutyi
to propose a plan. Unlike the State Board, it has done so. It 

|j earnestly asserts the superiority of its Metropolitan Plan over 
jj all other plans suggested. Furthermore, the Detroit Board is 
ji responsible for educating far more children than any otherj{J
jj board in the metropolitan area —  and no other board has suggested 
a plan for the metropolitan area. Because of its central role

;

in any metropolitan plan and its experience in guiding the fourth
largest district in the country, the Detroit Board is keenly

| aware of many of the operating problems to be encountered in|
i the various plans under consideration. Its expertise and pivotal
* iji position entitle its views to the same respect as if it werei ̂ .jj going to operate the entire plan directly.
:

Furthermore, there is no question the Detroit BoardI
j of Education Metropolitan Plan is offered in good faith. The

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jl!iM

j candor and helpfulness of the Board's staff members who have
ti , .I testified in the last few weeks is clear evidence of the Board'sj
j! good faith in proffering its Metropolitan Plan.

J
1

THE ACCEPTABILITY OF THE DEFENDANT DETROIT BOARD 
OF EDUCATION'S METROPOLITAN PLAN IS HIGHLIGHTED 
BY THE FACT THAT IT WAS DRAWN BY EDUCATIONAL 
EXPERTS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE METROPOLITAN 
DETROIT SITUATION.

It should be noted that the plan put forth by the
I| Detroit Board was based on a substantially greater amount of! '
data, and was done with significantly more thoroughness than 

; the other two plans submitted to the Court. This is no reflectio
!ij whatsoever on the skill and industriousness of those who authored 
| and advocated the other plans, it merely illustrates that the
| operating Board of Education is the best equipped to draw a plan,
jj
I and demonstrates the wisdom of the rule giving deference to the!
j Board plan. Both authors, Drs. Morshead and Foster, admitted
| that the Board had used data, particularly SES data, that they
■
| felt was properly included, but which they did not have avail- 
j able at the time they drafted their plans (Morshead, Metro Tr.I(| 45; Foster, Metro Tr.1210). Dr. Foster admitted a lack of famili
\
[ arity with the metropolitan area, indicating that one judgment
1
j involving the exclusion of a particular school district, Utica,: I! jj! from his plan had been made on the mistaken assumption thatj !
jj the district was not served by an expressway (Foster, Metro Tr.
i!ji 1220-4). Under these circumstances, it only makes good sense
iji to defer to the superior knowledge and data base of the Defendantj
it Detroit Board of Education.

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III. OF THE PLANS SUBMITTED, THE DETROIT BOARD'S
METROPOLITAN DESEGREGATION PLAN BEST MEETS THE 
THREE ELEMENTS NECESSARY FOR A CONSTITUTIONALLY 
ACCEPTABLE PLAN AND FOR THIS REASON, SHOULD BE 
ADOPTED BY THE COURT.

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At Page Two of the Defendant Detroit Board of Education's 
jjBrief of March 22, 1972, we wrote as follows:

"At least three elements must be present 
for a plan to 'work'. (1) Every'school,or 
almost every school, should contain a mixture 
of the races that roughly approximates the 
makeup of the student community as a whole.

I Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ.,
402^U. S . 1,91 S .Ct.1267, 1280—81 (1971); Davis

1 v. Board of School Comm'rs of Mobile CountvT
402 U.S. 33,91 St.Ct. 1289 at 1292” ( 1971) /
(2) The plan should be educationally sound. See 
5wann, supra, 91 S.Ct. at 1283. (3) The
plan should avoid resegregation. Lemon v.
Bossier Parish School Board, 446 F.2d 911 
(5th Cir. 1971) . . . 751

A- lhe racial mix desegregation. Not only does the 
j Detroit Metropolitan Plan contain a mixture of the races that 
roughly approximates the makeup of the metropolitan Detroit

i student community as a whole, pursuant to Swann and Davis, but 
j! •*-s the only plan advocated to the Court which desegregates
I the community, leaving no court-sanctioned racially identifiable
| schools.!!

We invite the Court's attention to Defendant Detroit
ii .•: Board of Education's proposed findings of fact Nos. 1 through 7
!! .I which clearly establishes that the Detroit metropolitan community 
is Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties. To again make reference 
to the testimony of Dr. Roger Marz, there are networks of trans­
portation, commuting patterns, shopping patterns, distribution 

i areas, absence of geographic barriers, and regional government
j

|cooperation, clearly establishing that the natural metropolitan 
j Detroit community is Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties (City 
j Tr.207) .

j In the metropolitan Detroit community, there are
| some 962,627 students of whom 237,957 are minority students.



This means that in the student community, 24% of the students
1/ iare minority students (See Def.Ex.DM-11 and DM-14) . The

i

clusters presented by the Defendant Detroit Board of Education j
vary, excluding clusters Nos. 12 and 18 from 19.7% (cluster No.l) 
to 29.8% (cluster No.8) of minority students. The average percent 
of the minority student in the clusters, excluding clusters Nos.
12 and 18, is 24.53%. Therefore, quite clearly, the Detroit 
clusters meet the constitutional requirements of Swann and Davis 
and do furnish the required racial mix that approximates the makeup 
of the student community as a whole.

Cluster 12 and 18 are admittedly below the average 
because of the lack of minority students in those particular 
geographic areas. If clusters Nos. 12 and 18 were deleted from 
the Plan, there would be a total of 855,332 students of which 
226,430 are minority students. This would mean that the metro­
politan community would consist of a 26% minority. The clusters, 
as presented by the School Board approximate the racial mix of 
the metropolitan student community.

The clusters, by adopting a racial mix that approximates 
the metropolitan community and by including the entire community 
eliminate unconstitutional racially identifiable schools. See 
Green v. County School Board, 390 U.S. 430, 20 L.Ed 2d 716, 88 
S.Ct.1689.

The plan of the Detroit Board succeeds in this regard 
where the plans proposed by Plaintiffs and Defendants-Intervenors, 
Denise Magdowski, et al, both fail. Both of those plans exclude 
from consideration a number of school districts which the record

jl/ As a convenience to the Court, copies of Exhibits DM-11 
DM-14 are attached hereto as Appendices C and D.

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•  •

; evidence clearly shows are an integral part of the metropolitan 
1 conimunity. Examples of such districts are Utica, Walled Lake, 
j Plymouth, Woodhaven, Trenton and Grosse lie (Finding of Fact 
j| #30)- These districts are virtually all-white, and,' as the 
| Detroit Board has shown, are so located that they may exchange 
| students with the City of Detroit without unduly disturbing 
I the public convenience and necessity (Finding of Fact #32-3).
j To allow these districts to remain all white is to allow segre-
|| .
|j Uated white enclaves to continue to exist within the Detroit
|
| metropolitan community. Were Plaintiffs' plan to be adopted,
schools in these districts would, by action of the Court, remain
racially identifiable as white. There would then be a fragment

| of the metropolitan community which remained segregated and the
i .
| dictate oi Davis to provide the maximum possible desegregation
j! would not have been met.
1|

The Detroit Board has made clear that for educational'
! , .
reasons it is important that these districts be included, due 
to the extremely valuable contribution they make to the socio­
economic status mix of the community (Finding of Fact #15-18)

| t *
|jHowever, the Detroit Board agrees with Plaintiffs that the
| socio-economic status of these districts is not the ultimate
| constitutional determinent of whether or not they should or
j I
| should not be included. For instance, the Detroit Board has
i suggested the inclusion of the very high socio-economic
i j  .  . '  I
! status district of Ann Arbor for the simple reason that Ann
I hrbor is not properly considered a part of the Detroit metro-i
i pditan community. The basic reasons that the districts in
II , _|question must be included is that they indeed are a part of 
that Detroit metropolitan community and the failure to include 
them would mean that they would remain segregated white
jj enclaves sealed off from the rest of the community (Finding



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f;

of Fact #34-6). The additional fact that they are of high 
socio-economic status underscores and re-emphasizes the educational 
importance of including them, and demonstrates that the constitu- ! 
tional injustice of excluding them would be paralleled by the 
economic injustice which would exist if wealthy districts were 
allowed to remain outside the plan simply because their residents 
had been able to afford to move further from the City of Detroit 
than others not so economically fortunate.

Desegregation. If such unconstitutional white!
| enclaves were permitted to exist, they would provide an open
| invitation to resegregation (Finding of Fact #30). It is a
cardinal principle in school desegregation suits that school
board officials have the duty to fully eradicate the vestiges

! of segregation. Clark v. Board of Educ. of Little Rock Schoolj - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
| 426 F.2d 1035 (8th Cir.1970). As a result, the Fifth
|j Circuit has taken the position that school authorities must
I Cake steps to prevent resegregation by various means. Lemon
| ^ m Bossier Parish School Board, 446 F.2d 911 (5th Cir.1971) .
»

Indeed, it was this problem of resegregation that 
caused the District Court on motion by the school board in 
Richmond to adopt a metropolitan desegregation plan after a cityI
desegregation plan had failed. See Bradley v. School Bd. of the 
City of Richmond, slip op.at p.66.

Certainly, it would be imprudent to suggest that 
|j any psrirnster for any plan would provide an iron-clad guarantee
j j  Chat the phenomenon of resegregation will not occur to some
|j degree. There always has to be a boundary line somewhere, andi

• j Chere is always going to be someone who lives close enough to 
! it, and nas the resources to do so, who will move across it.

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!
<

!:I Defendant Detroit Board of Education makes no claim that the I
Detroit Metropolitan Desegregation Plan will prevent resegregation’, 
but suggests that it will minimize it substantially more than 
the other plans advocated. -

i!<
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i

The key difference in the possibility for resegre­
gation between the Detroit plan and the Plaintiffs' plan is that 
the Detroit plan includes, within clusters exchanging students 
with Detroit, these recently developed suburban areas which are 
attractive to persons of high socio-economic status. There

jremains little dispute that it is the middle class which is the 
most likely to be both motivated and to have the resources to 
change residence due to the presence of blacks in the school. 
Plaintiffs' plan leaves a number of inviting areas which are 
currently attractive to high SES whites to which such a move 
could be made (Finding of Fact #29-34).

Moreover, since these areas, such as Utica, Plymouth, 
Trenton and Grosse lie are commuting suburbs, high SES whites 
could move there without sacrificing any of the benefits of 
residence in the metropolitan community which they now enjoy 
(Finding of Fact #29-34). It is one thing to suggest that some I
dissident whites might leave the community because of desegregation; 
it is another entirely to provide a large number of places in 
which whites could seal themselves off from desegregation without j 
sacrificing any mobility within the metropolitan area whatsoever.
It is this last circumstance which describes Plaintiffs' plan, 
and which allows it to be fairly described as an unconstitutional j 
open invitation to resegregation.

C. Educational Soundness. No desegregation plan can 
"work" within the meaning of Green unless it is educationally

’ ::

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| sound. See Bradley v. School Bd. of the City of Richmond, F.
Supp.____  (E.B.Va Jan.5,1972) slip op.p.249-50. The educational
soundness of an integration plan depends on its ability to give 
children an opportunity to have stable,mutual, multi-racial

|
! experiences in non-racially identifiable schools.
i

The equal protection of the law with which this 
case is concerned is the right of equal access to educational

| opportunity. It profits no one, especially Plaintiffs, if in
i
the process of desegregating the ability of the schools to 
deliver educational services is diminished.

The record evidence is clear that the ability to 
deliver educational service is significantly dependent on the 
SES mix within a particular school (Finding of Fact #16). The 
ability to maintain a favorable SES mix throughout all of the I

j schools of the community is dependent on the presence within
i
the schools of all economic segments of the community. Obviously, 
if substantial numbers of high SES children are artifically

|
| excluded, the SES mix will, to some degree, suffer.1|

This simply underscores the necessity to drawing a
! P^an which includes within it the total community. If a substan-
1
j tial portion of the high SES areas of that community, which
| happen to be at its periphery are excluded, the educational{ ’ i
! soundness of the plan will be diminished.
|

Plaintiffs tacitly recognize this when they propose j
j Jl ho reach beyond the perimeter proposed by Defendants-Intervenors
and include the extraordinarily-high SES districts of Bloomfield
Hills and West Bloomfield (Finding of Fact #29). Yet, apparently
satisfied with the symbolic inclusion of these wealthy suburbs,

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they fail to include a host of others which are no further distant!
:i _ !

| from Detroit. It should be remembered that Defendant-Intervenor'sj
i . . . !j plan was specifically designed to include districts equi-distant i

|
from Detroit (Flynn, Metro Tr.946). If it is practical to include- 
Bloomfield Hills, it is certainly practical to include the other I
. ihigh SES districts no further from Detroit such as Utica, Chippewa!t

Valley, Plymouth, Trenton, Woodhaven and Grosse lie.
I 1

it would be as gross an oversimplification to assume j 
| that a favorable SES mix insured educational soundness, as it 
would be to assume that a pupil assignment plan alone insured

| desegregation. The Detroit Metropolitan Desegregation Plan is
!
| addressed at some length to a series of other considerations!
| which are of great importance. These need not be discussed at 
| length, for there has been no serious disagreement with the
statements made by witnesses of the Defendant Detroit Board of* '
Education (Finding of Fact #46). Suffice it to say that a plan
which fails to provide for the prevention of intra-school

j resegregation, through "tracking" or testing, which fails to
insure that steps will be taken to provide black youngsters going

j to school in the suburbs with a teaching and administrative
staff which is responsive to their needs, needs which that parti­

!
cular school may never have had to meet, and which fails to 
provide for the full participation of the community in the devel­
opment of multi-racial learning environments, is highly unlikely 
to ever go beyond mere pupil assignment to the production of true

| equal educational opportunity.
!
i 1i
! IV. DEFENDANT DETROIT BOARD OF EDUCATION'S METROPOLITAN

PLAN INVOLVES REASONABLE AND EDUCATIONALLY ACCEPTABLE 
TRANSPORTATION TIMES, ALL WITHIN TRANSPORTATION 
TIMES CURRENTLY IN EFFECT IN THE DETROIT METROPOLITAN 
AREA •

i
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!
j Metropolitan hearings with regard to transportation times, much
I
jl of way of allusion of the State Defendants and suburbanII| j
Defendants-Intervenors that the travel burdens imposed by any 
metropolitan plan would be unduly severe.

!

i, j
Tne record does not support this allusion. While there

is no direct testimony in the record as to a particular magic
number of minutes on the bus at which point bus transportation
becomes burdensome to the educational process, the Defendant
Detroit Board of Education would submit that sound educational
practice has been defined by the actions regarding busing which
have been taken by suburban districts. The Transportation Survey
filed pursuant to the Order of the Court by the State Defendants

! . . _| is most revealing in this regard. It shows that in a number of 
! districts one-way transportation times of over an hour are now
j
; in operation, and that in fact, there are some youngsters in the
i metropolitan area who now spend one hour and forty—five minutesi .....
| on a school bus every morning. It is of special interest that
|
!| these lengthy bus rides are not limited to the outer periphery
Ij .
|| of the community. Birmingham and Farmington, both "close—in"
•;i suburbs, record one-way runs of close to one hour. Roseville, a 
well-established community in southern Macomb County, records 
two sixty-minute one-way runs for pre-school Headstart programs.

Hazel Park, a district adjacent to the City, records 
|a sixty-minute one-way run taking students to its vocational 
i skills center, meaning rhat this time is in addition to time
I
j| spent getting students from home to school.

A few moments spent leafing through this survey shows 
that the notion that bus rides of forty or fifty minutes, or 
indeed of forty or fifty miles, in the Detroit metropolitan

There has been much discussion in the course of

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I I

i community, are something novel and abhorrent is largely a myth.
J

If it is educationally acceptable to bus a child seventy, 
ninety, or one hundred-five minutes every morning for the purpose 
of serving the convenience and economy of a local school district, 
surely it would be educationally acceptable to expend the same 
amount of time for the purpose of providing that child with a 
constitutionally required, desegregated education. As noted by the 
Supreme Court in Swann, when the time of bus rides compares 
favorably with the bus times currently in effect, there is 
no reason that busing cannot be used as a tool of desegregation. 
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ.,402 U.S. 1,30,23 L.Ed 
554,574-575. We further note that Detroit-area black student, 
Stephen Scott, and white student, Richard Shapero, ride a school 
bus from inner-City Detroit (Scott) one hour and forty-five 
minutes, respectively, each way with students as young as three 
years of age and find no educational disadvantage in doing so 
(Scott,Metro Tr.382; Shapero, Metro Tr.392).

This is by no means to say that the Defendant Detroit 
I Board of Education's Metropolitan Plan proposes to transport 
| children for times even approaching ninety or one hundred-five
j
j minutes one way. The evidence indicates that the greatest 
i distances in each cluster would entail about,at the most, fifty-j .
j five minutes. Plaintiffs' Exhibits show that the very great 
|| majority of students included within the Detroit Board clusters
I ,
j which interchange with Detroit are within fifty minutes of the
j '
j far reaches of downtown, and are, therefore, even less distant|
| in time from their assumed destinations in their cluster. Record
» evidence that travel times under the Detroit plan even begin to 
approach maximums which now exist in this metropolitan community 
simply does not exist.

I



Several parties have attempted to demonstrate that bus 
times under the plan would have to be in addition to times which

{
youngsters currently spend on the bus, as they would need to
be collected for the purpose of aggregating a busload for1 ' I

j interdistrict transportation. This logic rests on the assumption i 
that the existing transportation pattern now current in each 
district would remain as it is now. That does not necessarily I 
follow. For instance, even if school collection points are

i •j used, there is no reason why the school used must be the one 
which a given student now attends; for instance, secondary student's|
who may attend a more distant high school could be collected 
at neighborhood elementary schools, or children, for whatever

j reason, who now do not attend the school closest to home might
jl
|j meet the bus at a more nearby school.
|

Secondly, it is not necessary that in every case, each
| school bus must be loaded with students from one particular
! . . . ! i| school district. For example, if it were more convenient to run j
| a bus down a north-south artery toward Detroit which passed
i j
| through several school districts rather than having that bus
i . . |
I circulate east to west through a single school system before
i . . jheading south, there is no reason, given the fact that the 
clusters follow arterial highways, that it could not be done.III :Jl .

Thirdly, in many instances it would be possible to bus
I .| children on a "first in-first out" basis. If the bus, beforei
1 traveling between Detroit and the suburbs had first to make a!!: loop, or circular route to collect the busload, there is noi
| reason the loop could not be traversed clockwise in the morning
Ii and counter-clockwise in the afternoon, meaning that no youngster 
jj would have to ride around the loop more than once in a given 
I school day.

■



; These are just examples of ways in which bus times
| . . . ' could be optimized in a Metropolitan Plan. The assumption that
any inter—district bus trip is in addition to existing trans—

| P°^tation time simply is not supportable. - What is supportable is
! the assumption that children who live within acceptable driving
! : , ,j time distances of any school to which they might be sent under
!| the plan can be at that school within that acceptable time.

Inasmuch as the record supports the conclusion that 
bus times proposed within the plan are and can be within 
acceptable educational limits, there is no legal basis for

|| excluding those school districts which Plaintiffs would excludeu
from the plan adopted. As the districts involved are clearly 
part of the community, there is every constitutional reason to 
include them. As they represent a most affluent sector of thei

I community, particularly Utica, Plymouth, Trenton and Grosse lie,i | ' !
|| anĉ  their exclusion would cause substantial educational detriment !
|| . 1 jj to the plan, there is excellent reason for supporting the educa-
|| tional judgment of the Defendant Detroit Board of Education!) !. s
that the benefit to be derived throughout their community from 
their inclusion is worth the extra five minutes on the bus, (Rankini,i
Metro Tr.l412(a).

THE DETROIT BOARD PLAN IS THE MOST PRACTICAL 
PLAN SUBMITTED TO THE COURT.

The three plans advocated to the Court do not vary 
i significantly in terms of the device suggested for the mixing
I . *of students; namely, the establishment of pupil assignment 
patterns which create racial balance. This is preciselv the 
form of mixing device sanctioned in Swann, and really requires 
no further comment.

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|
| suggested by which final detailed pupil assignment plans are to
be created. Plaintiffs, although not precise about this point, j
seem to favor some central body or authority which would be

- responsible for drawing a pupil assignment plan for the entire
. I

metropolitan area. Defendants and Defendant-Intervenor disagree,
both indicating that it is essential that there be intensive

| involvement in the detailing of any plan by all local school
| . Ii drstricts effected.
!I
! xhere is ample justification for this latter approach,
ji both as a matter of law and as a matter of the practicalities 
jl the situation. For just as the Defendants here were entitled
iI| to deference to their judgment in determining what should be done 
at this juncture, so should every affected school district be 

i shown deference in the drawing of pupil assignment plans for
I ' !j their particular district. It is, after all, the people who now j
J . . I« operate the schools who are going to have to continue to operate
I ,
| the schools. The record is clear that the large delegation of 
: authority to them by the State leaves the local districts as the 
only bodies possessed with the necessary knowledge to draw a 
plan which has the best chance to preserve and create educational j 
quality. To cut off their right to participate in the creation 

!| the plan in detail is to cut off a great deal of the assurance 
j that the plan will be educationally successful.

Where the plans differ is in the methods which are

In addition, this Court is properly concerned with the 
acceptance of any plan by the community. While it is beyond 
argument that lack of community approval of the desegregation 
process is no reason to refrain from desegregating, on an occasion1 
when the Court is faced with options one of which will substantially 
improve the measure of community acceptance, and therefore, the

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probability that the plan will be educationally successful, and 
-another which will diminish that probability, there is no reason 
for the Court to deliberately flaunt community opinion and make 

jieven more abrasive the transition to desegregated schools. Parti­
cipation in the process of choosing a pupil assignment plan for
!j . . . . . .the individual school districts is that option which improves the 
measure of community acceptance and raises the probability of

<ii: success. Surely, in this time of crisis and tension over the

fi

'issues facea in this trial, it is no time to shut off individual 
citizens and their immediately-elected local officials from 
participation in the affairs of their schools.

Thus, the Detroit Board reiterates its strong belief
that the success of any plan of desegregation, both as a matter
of objectively creating the best possible plan with the best
available data, and as a matter of the best possible climate

j _ _
I for implementation is dependent upon the intensive involvement 
| of local school districts. In doing so, the Detroit Board
jrecognizes that this may not be the easiest or most easilyj
j managed way of creating a pupil assignment plan. It is, however,
|the only way to create the best possible plan. As the testimonyI
| suggests, if there is to be metropolitan school desegregation, 
it must be done right (Rankin, Metro Tr.467). With the 
educational opportunities of nearly a million youngsters hanging 
in the balance,it is unthinkable to disagree.

CONCLUSION

The goal of the Defendant Detroit Board of Education 
in proposing a plan and advocating it can be succinctly stated:

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If we are going to do it, let's do it right." It is with that 
purpose in mind that we submit the findings of fact, conclusions 
of law, and proposed order which will follow.

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Respectfully submitted,

RILEY AND ROUMELL

And:
Louis D. Beer 
Attorneys for Defendant Detroit 

Board of Education 
720 Ford Building 
Detroit, Michigan 48226 
Telephone: 962-8255

Date: May 5, 1972.

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I

R I C A I O N

jt _ - certify that a copy of the foregoing Briefi|Of Defendant Detroit Board of Education and Other Defendants in 
jjSupport of Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and 
,,tne Board s Metropolitan Detroit Plan has been served upon counsel 
jOf record by United States Mail, postage pre-paid, addressed as follows:

S| LOUIS R. LUCAS 
j WILLIAM E. CALDWELL 
| 525 Commerce Title Building 
I Memphis, Tennessee 38103
jl , . _ ....|j NATHANIEL R. JONES 
ij General Counsel, NAACP 
jj 1750 Broadway
ji New York, New York 100191 I
jj E. WINTHER MC CROOM 
jj 324 5 Woodburn Avenue 
:l Cincinnati, Ohio 45207
ji
ij JACK GREENBERG 
jj NORMAN J. CHACUXIN 
jj 10 Columbus Circle 
jj New York, New York 10 019

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

jj J. HAROLD FLANNERY
jj PAUL R. DIMOND
jj ROBERT PRESSMAN
j; Center for Law & Education
ji Harvard University
j: Cambridge, Massachusetts
ji 02138j
ROBERT J. LORD 
8388 Dixie Highway 

j Fair Haven, Michigan 48023
!
ij Of Counsel:
I! 'jj PAUL R. VELLA : 
jj EUGENE R. 30LAN0WSKI 
jj 30009 Schoenherr Road 
jj 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
48013
KENNETH 3. MC CONNELL 
74 West Long Lake Road 
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 
48013

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Date: May 1972,

Respectfully submitted,
RILEY AND*ROUMELL

By: -RLouis D . Beer
720 Ford Building
Detroit, Michigan 48226
Telephone: 962-8255 ” *

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