Goss v. Knoxville, TN Board of Education Supplemental Brief in Support of Certiorari

    ! X T H E

l&tprpmT (£mxxt nf %  llnxtxb Btutez
O ctober T erm , 1973 

No. 73-661

J o seph in e  G oss, et al.,
Petitioners,

—vs.—

T h e  B oard oe E ducation of t h e  C ity  
op K noxville, T e n n essee , et al.

o n  p e t i t i o n  f o r  w r i t  o f  c e r t i o r a r i  t o  t h e

U N IT E D  STA TES COU RT OF A PPEA L S FOR T H E  S IX T H  C IR C U IT

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF 
IN SUPPORT OF CERTIORARI

Carl A . C owan 
2212 Vine Avenue 
Knoxville, Tennessee 37915

A von N. W illiam s , J r .
1414 Parkway Towers
404 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, Tennessee 37219

J ack Greenberg 
J ames M. N abrit, II I  
N orman J .  Ch a c h k in  
S ylvia D rew

10 Columbus Circle
New York, New York 10019

Attorneys for Petitioners



Isr the

f t̂tpreme ( ta r t  of th? luttpii Stairs
O ctober T eem , 1973

No. 73-661

J o seph in e  G oss, et al.,

-vs.—
Petitioners,

T h e  B oaed of E ducation of t h e  C ity  
of K noxville, T e n n essee , et al.

on petitio n  for w rit of certiorari to th e
U N IT E D  STA TES COU RT OF A PPEA L S FOR T H E  S IX T H  C IR C U IT

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF 
IN SUPPORT OF CERTIORARI

Petitioners in this case, presently pending upon their 
Petition for W rit of Certiorari, file this Supplemental 
Brief pursuant to Rule 24(5) of this Court, in order to 
bring to the Court’s attention a December 28,1973 decision 
of the Court below in another school desegregation case 
which is inconsistent with the ruling of which review is 
sought.

We append to this Supplemental Brief a copy of the 
Sixth Circuit’s December 28 opinion in Newburg Area 
Council, Inc. v. Board of Educ. of Jefferson County, Ken­
tucky, No. 73-1403. This ruling, involving the sufficiency of 
school desegregation in Louisville and surrounding Jeffer­
son County, Kentucky, is fundamentally inconsistent with 
the Sixth Circuit’s per curiam affirmance in this (Goss) 
case. The conflict in approach and holding, which is never



2

alluded to in the Court’s opinions, typifies the frustration 
felt by litigants in the States which compose the Sixth 
Circuit. See Petitioners’ Reply to Brief in Opposition to 
Certiorari, at p. 8 n.3. Comparison of the Goss and New­
bury, etc. opinions makes evident the need for this Court 
to direct the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to 
elucidate and apply a consistent set of constitutional princi­
ples to the decision of school desegregation cases.

We urge this Court to note the following contrasts, among 
others.1 Jefferson County’s school population is 4% black 
(2aa)2 while Knoxville’s is 16.5% black (12a). At the time 
of trial, Jefferson County operated one all-black school 
(Newburg) and two other schools respectively 54.3% and 
49% black (3aa). The District Court in the Kentucky case 
found the all-black school not an unconstitutional vestige 
of previously mandated segregation, citing this Court’s 
comments in Swann about “a small number of virtually one- 
race schools” (4aa). So did the Court of Appeals in Goss 
(3a)—the same Court of Appeals which reversed the Ken­
tucky District Court!

W hat the Sixth Circuit finds significant in both Jefferson 
County and Louisville, were considered of no importance as 
indicating the continued existence of a dual system in 
Knoxville: schools of opposite racial composition within 
three miles of each other (3aa; compare 13a-15a); atten­
dance of a majority of black students in, not all-black, but 
disproportionately black, schools (3aa; compare Petition 
for W rit of Certiorari in Goss, at p. 7); continuation of

1 The Kentucky decision also involves issues before this Court in 
the cases consolidated under Milliken v. Bradley, No. 73-434, but 
those issues do not arise in the Goss case.

2 Citations in the form “—aa” are to the Appendix to this B rief; 
citations given as “—a” are to the Appendix to the Petition, con­
taining the opinions below.



3

racial identity of p re-Brown segregated schools (8aa; com­
pare 13a-15a). The District Court’s approval of “neighbor­
hood zones” despite continuing disproportionate school en­
rollments in the Kentucky cases was reversed (9aa) hut 
that in Knoxville (24a, 25a) is affirmed—and the author of 
the Kentucky decision would have affirmed on the District 
Court’s opinion (6a), Even the Sixth Circuit’s traditional 
reliance upon the discretionary authority of the District 
Courts (4a-5a; Robinson v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ., 
467 F.2d 1187 [6th Cir. 1972]) goes by the boards in the 
Kentucky ease (lOaa).

Petitioners respectfully submit that these disparate de­
terminations reveal the lack of consistent principles applied 
in school desegregation cases before the Court of Appeals 
for the Sixth Circuit (see Petition for W rit of Certiorari, 
at p. 12; Petitioners’ Reply to Brief in Opposition to 
Certiorari, at pp. 8-9) and add to the compelling need for 
review in this case.

Respectfully submitted,

Carl A. Cowan 
2212 Vine Avenue 
Knoxville, Tennessee 37915

A von N. W illiam s , J b.
1414 Parkway Towers
404 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, Tennessee 37219

J ack Greenberg
J ames M. N abrit, I I I
N orman J . C h a c h k in
S ylvia D rew

10 Columbus Circle
New York, New York 10019

Attorneys for Petitioners



APPENDIX



Nos. 73-1403, 73-1408

UNITED STATES C008T OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

No. 73-1403
N ewburg Area C ouncil, I nc ., e t al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 
v.

Board of E ducation o f  J efferson  
C o u n it , Kentucky, e t a l ,

Vet- idants-.Appellees,

No. "3-1408
John  L. H ayc • , et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 
v.

Board of E ducation of L ouisville,
Kentucky, e t al.,

Dsfenclants-Appellees.

O n  Ap pe a l  from the 
United States District 
Court for the West­
ern District of Ken­
tucky.

Decided and Filed December 28, 1973.

Before: Ph illips , Chief Judge, M cGhee and  M iller , Cir­
cuit Judges.

M iller , Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from a dismissal 
by the district court of two class actions concerning school 
desegregation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. In Neivbnrg 
Area Council, et al., v. Board of Education of Jefferson County, 
No. 73-1403, the plaintiff challenged certain practices of the

laa



Jefferson County School Board with respect to its elementary 
schools. Later another action, Haycraft, et al, v. Board of 
Education of Louisville, Kentucky, ei al., No, 73-1408, was 
filed against the Louisville Board of Education and the Jeffer­
son County Board of Education, seeking the desegregation 
of the Louisville school system with a plan that included dis­
regarding the Louisville and Jefferson County School District 
boundaries. The two suits were consolidated but the Court 
directed separate trials as to the status of each district.

The district court dismissed both actions, holding that the 
Jefferson County School District and tire Louisville Inde­
pendent School District are unitary systems in which all 
vestiges of state-imposed segregation have been eliminated. 
The actions have been consolidated for appeal.

We decide three issues on this appeal: (1) Whether the
district court erred in holding that the Jefferson County School 
District is a unitar)- system in which all vestiges of state- 
imposed segregation have been eliminated; (2) whether the 
district court erred in holding that the Louisville Independent 
School District is a unitary system in which all vestiges of 
state-imposed desegregation have been eliminated; and (3) 
whether a federal district court has the power to disregard 
school district lines within a single county in formulating a 
school desegregation plan.

The Jefferson Count)- School District embraces all of Jef­
ferson County except that portion included within the Louis­
ville Independent School District and the Anchorage Inde­
pendent School District.1 It has close to 96,000 students, ap­
proximately 4% of whom are black.. 657 of all students are

2aa Newburg Council v. Sc/, of Ed. Nos. 73-1403, -1408

J T h e  A nchorage School D istric t is a very  sm all school d is tric t 
opera ting  only one e lem en tary  school located in  the sou theast p o r­
tion of Jefferson  County. It is an  a ll-w h ite  enclave. T he p laintiffs in  
the  Haycraft  case sought to jo in  the A nchorage School D istrict and 
its S upei'in tenden t as parties defendant. W hen the d istric t court 
ru led  in  a p re tr ia l o rd er th a t i t  d id no t have the pow er to cross 
school d istric t lines, i t  dism issed the  proceedings against the A nchorage 
D istric t and its S uperin tenden t. As w e point out la te r, the  A nchor­
age D istric t m ust be rejo ined in  the action.



bussed to the schools they attend. The Board operates 74 
elementary schools, 5 middle schools, 18 combined junior and 
senior high schools, and 6 special schools.

Prior to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of 
Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the Board maintained a racially- 
segregated school system in accordance with the requirements 
of Kentucky law. It did not provide a high school for black 
students and arranged for their attendance at Central High 
School, the black high school operated by the Louisville Board 
of Education. It operated the Newburg Elementary school, 
grades 1-9. Newburg was located in the one area in the county 
outside of Louisville having any substantial black population. 
It was a pre-Brown black school, and has remained black until 
the present day. Newburg is surrounded by a number of all- 
white or virtually all-white elementary' schools. Within a dis­
tance of three miles from Newburg, there are, in addition to 
Price Elementary School, which will be discussed subsequently, 
nine substantially white elementary schools.

In 1969 Price Elementry School was constructed within a 
mile of Newburg. When Price opened in 1969-70, 33.1% of 
the students were black. The percentage increased to 40.2% 
during 1970-71, to 43.9% during 1971-72, and now stands at 
54.3%. It is practically an all walk-in school, with about 3% 
only of the pupils being bussed.

Cane Run Elementary' School is located in the northwest 
portion of the District close to the Louisville city limits. In 
1966-67 the black student population of Cane Run was 1.2%. 
In 1967-68 it increased to 6.2%, in 1968-69 it increased to 
11.5%, in 1969-70 it increased to 25.5%, in 1970-71 it increased 
to 36.7% and in 1971-72 to 45.5%. In 1972-73 it stood at 
49%. Cane Run was rebuilt on the same site during 1972.

The evidence shows that Newburg, Price and Cane Run 
contain 56% of the black elementary students in the Jefferson 
County School District.

The district court held that the existence of an all black 
school, Newburg, in the Jefferson County School District was

Nos. 73-1403, -1408 Newburg Council v. Ed. of Ed. 3aa



not unconstitutional. The Supreme Court stated in Swann v. 
Charlotte Mecklenburg School District, 402 U.S. 1, 26 (1971), 
that the "'existence of some small number of virtually one race 
schools within a district is not in and of itself the mark of a 
system that still practices segregation.”

As this Court noted in Northcross v. Board of Education of 
Memphis City Schools, 466 F.2d 890, 893 (6th Cir. 1972), 
this language in Swann is "obviously designed to insure that 
tolerances are allowed for practical problems of desegregation 
where an otherwise effective plan for dismantlement of the 
school system has been adopted.” The Jefferson County School 
District thus has three elementary schools that either are or 
are rapidly becoming ‘racially identifiable.” As stated, New­
burg School, a pre-Brown black school, is racially identifiable, 
while Price and Can Run Schools are rapidly becoming racially 
identifiable as black school.s .The duty of the school district 
is to "eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state- 
imposed segregation.” Swann, supra, 402 U. S. at 15. Until 
the dual system is eliminated “root and branch,” Green v. 
County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 
(1968)-, the school district has not conformed to the constitu­
tional standard set forth by Brown nearly 19 years ago.

The Board urges that “white flight,” not school board 
policies, has been responsible for the shift in the racial com­
position of the Price and Cane Run Schools. The district court 
found that the attendance zone for Cane Run had remained 
constant over the years and that as blacks moved into the 
attendance area, the school would naturally become “blacker,” 
particularly since whites would “flee.” Although the decisions 
with respect to Cane Run attendance zone and the rebuilding 
of Cane Run on the same site, considered alone, might not 
compel the conclusion that the Board fostered segregation 
here, its decisions with respect to Cane Run must be related 
to the circumstances surrounding the Newburg and Price 
Schools.

The evidence shows that in 1969-70 Price opened with an

4aa Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. Nos. 73-1403, -140S



Nos. 73-1403, -1408 Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. 5aa

enrollment of 560 and a capacity of 756. Newburg, with a 
capacity of 1242 had an enrollment of 620. Although these 
schools were underutilized, several “racially identifiable” white 
schools were operating with enrollments greater than capacity 
using either portable classrooms or operating double shifts. 
During the 1972-73 school year Newburg’s enrollment had 
declined to 340, and Price’s had declined to 620, while some 
of the nearby “white” schools were operating with over 
capacity. The district judge found no significance in the under­
utilization of nearby white schools. Instead he found that the 
Board was trying to achieve integration in assigning some black 
students in the area to nearby white schools without deter- 

- mining why while.students in the aremwere not assigneTT nrtcT 
Newburg and Price. All vestiges of state-imposed segregation 
have noFbeen Eliminated so long as Newburg remains an all 
black school. Where a school district has not yet fully con­
verted to a unitary system, the validity of its actions must be 
judged according to whether they hinder or further the process 
of school desegregation. The School Board is required to take 
affirmative action not only to eliminate the effects of the past 
but also to bar future discrimination. Green, supra, 391 U. S. 
438 n. 4; Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 442 
F.2d 255, 258 (6th Cir. 1971). Since the Jefferson County 
Board has not eliminated all vestiges of state-imposed segre­
gation from the system, it had the affirmative responsibility 
to see that no other school in addition to Newburg would 
become a racially identifiable black school. It could not_ be 
meutxallwith~respect-4o-studextLassigximents at Price or Cane 
Run. It was required to insure that neither school would 
become racially identifiable.

A school system that has had a history of state-imposed 
segregation has not fully converted to a unitary system when 
56%. of .all of.its black elementary students attend three out of 
seventy-four elementary schools. This is particularly so when 
these schools are surrounded by several all-white or virtually 
all-white schools.



The Louisville School District is an independent school 
district established in accordance with the requirements of 
Kentucky Revised Statutes 160.160, which provides for inde­
pendent school districts within a county. It is situated within 
the City of Louisville, a city of the first-class in Jefferson 
County, Kentucky, but its boundaries are not co-terminous 
with the political boundaries of the City of Louisville.2 Ap­
proximately 10,000 children, mostly white, live between the 
boundaries of the Louisville School District and the outer 
boundaries of the City of Louisville. The total enrollment of 
the Louisville School District at the commencement of the 
1972-73 school year was 45,570 pupils, of whom 22,367 were 
white, and 22,933 were black. The trend is definitely toward 
“white flight.” During the 19o6-57 scEboT~yeaxy“there~wefe 
45j84l children enrolled of which 12,010 were black and 
33,831 were white. Thus, from 1956 to the present time, the 
white enrollment has decreased by approximately 11,000 
pupils, and the black enrollment has increased by the same 
number.

Prior to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of 
Topeka, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), the Louisville Board of Educa-. 
tion operated a racially-segregated school system in accordance 
with the requirements of Kentucky law. The Board put a 
plan of pupil desegregation 'into operation at the commence­
ment of the 1958-7 school year. The plan consisted of geo­
graphic attendance zones with an open transfer provision. 
Parents were sent forms to indicate a first, second, and third 
choice of transfer school. In the absence of a parental transfer 
request, the pupils were required to attend schools within 
their assigned zones.

At the commencement of the 1972-73 school year, the Board 
was operating six academic high schools, thirteen junior high

6aa Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. Nos. 73-1403, -1408

2 A n independen t school d is tric t’s boundaries do no t expand  w ith  
the boundaries of th e  city  by  w hich it is em braced. A nnexation  
for educational purposes m ust be considered independen tly  of a n ­
nexation  fo r the expansion of the citv. Spragens  v. Thomas,  308 Ky. 
97. 213 S.W.2d 452 (1948).



Nos. 73-1403, -1408 Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. 7aa

schools and forty-six elementary schools.3 Three of the six 
academic senior high schools, Central, Male and Shawnee, 
have between 94% and 100% black students. Central was a 
pre-Brown black school. Male and Shawnee were pre-Brown 
white schools. Two of the senior high schools, Atherton and 
Iroquois, have 97% and 99% white students. The sixth school, 
Manual, which shares a common attendance zone with Central 
and Male, has 40% black students. Atherton and Manual were 
pre-Brown white schools, and Iroquois was constructed after 
1956.

There are thirteen junior high schools. Five of them, Du- 
Valle, Meyzeek, Parkland, Russell, and Shawnee, have between 
95% and 100% black students. Four of them, Barrett, Gottschalk, • 
Highland and Southern, have between 94% and 99.5% white 
students. The remaining four, Manly, Manual, Western and 
Woemer, have between 25% and 64% black students. DuValle, 
Meyzeek and Russell were pr e-Brown black schools; Park­
land, Shawnee, Bartlett, Highland, Southern, Manly, Manual, 
Western and Woemer, were pre-Brown white schools. Gott­
schalk was constructed after 1956.

There are forty-six elementary schools. Nineteen have be­
tween 82% and 100% black students. Twenty-one have be­
tween 89% and 100% white students. The remaining six have 
between 16% and 55% black students. The twenty-one schools 
that have between 89% and 100% white students,' were pre- 
Brown \vEIte~schools;-

A large number' of racially identifiable schools in a school 
district that formerly practiced segregation by lawr gives rise 
to li presiirriptidirthaf albve.stigerof state--impo.sed segregation 
hav£_not been__eliminated. Swann, supra. This shifts the bur­
den to the School Board to prove that the racially-identifiable 
character of the schools is not in any way the product of past 
or present discriminatory conduct on its part. Northcross v.

3 In  addition the B oard operates tw o vocational schools, a re s i­
den tia l m anpow er cen te r in Shelby County K entucky, and a th re e -  
level school for g ifted children.



8a,a Newbiirg Council v. Bd. of Ed. Nos. 73-1403, -1403

Board of Education of the Memphis City Schools, 466 F.2d 
890 (6th Cir. 1972). In Northcross this Court said:

“It is the defendant School Board’s contention that not­
withstanding the fact that some 79% of its schools have 
an essentially monolithic racial structure it has satis­
factorily cured the violation of law involved in its past 
de jure segregation and has, in fact, established a unitary 
school system. We cannot accept this contention.”

Id at 893.
Although we are cognizant of the Board’s caveat against 

playing the “numbers game,” statistics do provide an invaluable 
source of information for analysis andrrranpgriSon. The evi­
dence indicatesTthatover 80% of the schools in Louisville are 
racially identifiable. As in Northcross, the effectiveness of the 
Board’s purported desegregation “can be gauged by a quick 
look at the vital statistics of the (school) system as it now 
ovists.” Id. at 892. An examination of these statistics estab­
lishes that five out of the six academic senior high schools, 
nine out of the thirteen junior high schools and forty out of 
the forty-six elementary schools are racially identifiable 
schools. As previously mentioned, fifty-six of the sixty-five 
academic senior high schools, junior high schools and elemen­
tary' schools currently operated by the Board were in opera­
tion prior to Broom as legally-segregated schools.4 Thirty-five 
of these fifty-six schools have never changed their racial com­
position. Regardless of any explanation for the racial compo­
sition of any of the other schools in the system, the thirty-- 
five pre-Brown schools that have retained their pre-Brown 
racial identification to the present day stand out as clear 
vestiges of state-imposed segregation. J h s Board must show 
that the racial composition of these schools is not the result 
of past discriminatory action on its part. Swann v. Charlotte-

4 T he p a tte rn  of school construction  and site selection since B row n  
has closely follow ed the  “neighborhood school” concept. H owever, 
of the n ine new  schools constructed  since B row n  six  w ere  rac ia lly  
identifiable w ith  respect to s tuden t com position upon opening.



Mecklenburg Board of Education, supra, 402 U.S. a t -26. Tins 
it has not done. However laudable their motives and intentions, 
the Board’s desegregaSorTplan Eas not been effective. Moti- 
vallomismot tfie"conSoiling factor. Wright v. Council of the 
City of Emporia, 407 U.S. 451 (1972). The geographic zone 
assignment or “neighborhood school system” adopted by 
the Board, as mentioned earlier, was modified by a Transfer 

.provision. Since the pre-Brown white-schools were generally 
in white residential areas and the pre-Brown black schools were 
generally in black residential areas, geographic zoning would 
cause these schools to retain their former racial identification. 
The transfer provision would enable whites who were assigned 
to pre-Brown black schools to transfer put. It also enabled 
blacks who were apprehensive about going to pre-Brown 
white schools to return to the black schools with which they 
were familiar.

The Board urges that changing residential patterns in the 
Louisville School District has contributed to the continued 
existence of racially identifiable schools. However, population 
shifts that changed the racial composition of some schools 
does not affect the Board’s duty to convert fully to a unitary 
school system. See Kelly v. Metropolitan County Board of 
Education, 463 F.2d 732, 744 (6th Cir.) cert, denied, 409 U.S. 
1001 (1972). This duty has never been fully met.

Geographic zoning assignment is not a permissible method 
for a school board to employ in dismantling the dual system 
and eliminating all vestiges of state-imposed segr egatim JfLit, 
does not work. The measure of any plan is its effectiveness 
in accomplishing desegregation. Davis v. Board of School 
Commissioners of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33, 37 (1971). 
Because of the residual effects of past discrimination, the 
Louisville zoning assignment plan has not been effective 
despite the good intentions of the school board. As the Su­
preme Court stated in Swann:

“All tilings being equal, with no history of discrimination,
it might well be desirable to assign pupils to schools near

Nos. 73-1403, -1408 Newburg Council v. Bel. of Ed. 9aa



lO aa Newburg Council v. Bel. of Ed. Nos. 73-1403, -1403

est their homes. But all things are not equal in a system 
that has been deliberately constructed and maintained to 
enforce racial segregation. . . .”

402 U.S. at 28.

For the reasons mentioned, we find that the district court 
erred in holding that the Louisville Independent School Dis­
trict is a unitary system in which all vestiges of state-enforced 
discrimination have been eliminated.

Intervening plaintiffs, black and white citizen parents, 
filed complaints seeking desegregation of the Louisville Inde­
pendent School System, and as part of the desegregation they 
sought the merger of the Louisville system with the Jefferson 
County School District and the Anchorage Independent School 
District, to insure complete desegregation of the entire county. 
The district court in dismissing the action against Anchorage, 
stated:

“Prior to the trial hereof, we entered certain threshold 
orders, to the effect that this Court lacked the judicial 
power to order a crossing of political boundaries as be­
tween the Jefferson County, Louisville and Anchorage 
Schools Districts, and, since the Anchorage School District 
(a very small school district located in the northeast por­
tion of the county) was totally white, the Court, by final 
order with respect thereto [dismissed the action as to 
Anchorage].

The court below relied on Bradley v. School Board, City of 
Richmond, 462 F.2d 1058 (4th Cir. 1972), (aff’d —  U.S. 
—  (1973) by an equally divided court), in holding 
that the court had no judicial power to cross political bound­
aries in this case. The court’s reliance on Richmond was mis­
placed. In Bradley v. Milliken, 484 F.2d 215 (6th Cir. 1973), 
cert, granted----U.S. —  (1973), this Court held that a fed­
eral court is not restrained by state-created political boundaries 
in formulating a constitutionally acceptable desegregation plan. 
The present case is clearly distinguishable from Richmond. In



Nos. 73-1403, -1408 Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. l l a a

Richmond, the rejected desegregation plan involved consoli­
dation of three school systems, even_though each districtjvas 
a unitary system. In the present case, both the Louisville 
Independent School District"and“thB' Jefferson- County-School 
District are„jaot -operating-unitary school systems. Milliken 
involved the power of district courts to disregard state-created 
school district lines in order to achieve a unitary system in 
Detroit.

There is nothing so sacrosanct about tire school district 
lines in this case that they may be permitted to curtail the 
broad equity powers of the federal court in implementing a 
mandate of the federal Constitution. If it were otherwise the 
supremacy clause of our fundamental charter would be a 
dead letter and we would revert, to the “state sovereignty'’ 
principle of the long discarded Articles of Confederation. The 
school district lines have been disregarded in the past in con­
forming to state-enforced segregation. For example, in pre- 
Brotvn days, black high school students in the Jefferson County 
system attended Louisville’s Central High School on a tuition 
basis.

The crossing of school district lines in this case involves 
only a single county, the basic educational unit in Kentucky. 
Where there are separate school districts in a single county 
and tlie districts are not unitary systems, a federal district 
court may fashion an appropriate remedy without being con­
strained by school district lines created by state law. Cf. 
Wright v. Council of City of Emporia, 407 U.S. 451 (1972); 
United States v. Scotland City Board of Education, 407 U.S. 
484 (1972); Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 448 
F.2d 746 ( 5th Cir. 1971).

For the reasons stated herein, the judgments of the district 
court are reversed. The case is remanded to the district court 
for proceedings to formulate a desegregation plan for all 
school districts in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The district 
court should join all necessary parties including the previously 
dismissed Anchorage Independent School District. By what­



ever means the district court deems appropriate in the exercise 
of its equity powers, see Brown v. Board of Education, 349 
U.S. 294 (1955), all vestiges of state-imposed segregation must 
he eliminated within each school district in the county. To 
accomplish such purpose, state-created school district lines 
shall impose no barrier. We do not require use of any par­
ticular method nor approve in advance the use of any par­
ticular device. Any plan of desegregation is to be effective for 
the 1974-75 academic year.

12a,a Newburg Council v. Bd. of Ed. Nos.*73-1403, -1408



\