Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on Detroit-Only Plans of Desegregation
Public Court Documents
March 28, 1972

7 pages
Cite this item
-
Case Files, Milliken Hardbacks. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on Detroit-Only Plans of Desegregation, 1972. 8e204325-53e9-ef11-a730-7c1e5247dfc0. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/c99e7982-d4ad-4cf8-a3dd-e5b28176bd16/findings-of-fact-and-conclusions-of-law-on-detroit-only-plans-of-desegregation. Accessed May 15, 2025.
Copied!
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION RONALD BRADLEY, et al., Plaintiffsv. WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al., Defendants DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, LOCAL #231, AMERICAN.FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO, Defendant- Intervenorand DENISE MAGDOWSKI, et al., Defendants Intervenoret al. .. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) % ' % CIVIL ACTION NO: 35257 FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW ON . DETROIT-ONLY PLANS OF DESEGREGATION 1^ accordance with orders of the court defendant Detroit Board of Education submitted two plans, limited '-O the corporate limits or the city, for desegregation of the public schools of the city of Detroit, which we will refer to as Plan A and plan C; plaintiffs submitted a similarly limited plan, which will be referred to as the Foster Plan. Hearings were had on said plans on March 14, x5, 16, 17 and 21, 1972. In considering these plans the court coos not limit itself to the proofs offered at the heading just concluded; it considers as part of the evidence bearing on the issue (_i. e. , City-Only Plans) all proofs submitted in the case to this point, and it specifically incorporates herein by reference the Findings and Conclusions contained in its "Ruling on Issue of Segregation, 11 filed September 27, 1971. EXHIBIT C The court makes the following factual findings.- PLAN A . 1. The court finds that this plan is an elabora tion and extension of the so-called Magnet Plan, previously authorized for implementation as an interim plan pending hearing and determination on the issue of segregation. 2. As proposed we find, at the high .school level, that it offers a greater and wider degree of specialization, but any hope that it would be effective to desegregate the public schools of the City of Detroit at that level is virtually ruled out by the failure of the current model to ■ achieve any appreciable success. . 3. We find, at the Middle school level, that the expanded model would affect, directly, about 24,000 pupils of a total of 140,000 in the grades covered; and its effect would be to' set up a school system within the school system, and would intensify the segregation in schools not included in the Middle School program. In this_sense, it would increase segregation. 4. As conceded by its author, Plan A is neither a desegregation nor an integration plan. PLAN C. 1. The court finds that Plan C is a token or part time desegregation effort. 2. We find that ahis plan covers only a portion of the grades and would leave the base schools no less racially identifiable. - 2 - PLAINTIFFS‘ PLAN. 1. The court finds that Plaintiffs' Plan would accomplish more desegregation than now obtains in the system, ' or would be achieved under plan A or Plan C. \ 2'. ̂ We find further that the racial composition of the student body is such that the plan's implementation would clearly make the entire Detroit public school system racially identifiable as Black. 3. The plan would require the development of trans portation on a vast scale which, according to the evidence, could not be furnished, ready for operation, by the opening - or the 1972-73 school year. The plan contemplates the transportation of 82,000 pupils and would require the acquisition of some 900 vehicles, the hiring and training of a great number of drivers, the procurement of space for srorage and maintenance, the recruitment of maintenance personnel and the not negligible task of designing a transportation system to service the schools. 4. The plan would entail an overall recasting or the Detroit school system, when there is little assurance that it would not have to undergo another reorganization if a metropolitan plan is adopted. 5. It would involve the expenditure of vast sums or money and effort which would be wasted or lost. 6. The plan does not lend itself as a building block for a metropolitan plan. 7. The plan would make the Detroit school system more identifiably Black, and leave many of its schools 75 to ■ - 3 - 90 per cent Black. 8. It would change a school system which is now Black and White to one that would be perceived as Black, thereby increasing the flight of Whites from the city and the system, thereby increasing the Black student population. 9. It would subject the students and parents, faculty and administration, to the trauma of reassignments, with little likelihood that such reassignments would continue for any appreciable time. In summary, we find that none of the three plans would result in the desegregation of the public schools of the Detroit school district. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 1. The court has continuing jurisdiction of this action for all purposes, including the granting of effective relief. ■ See Ruling on Issue of Segregation, September 27, 1971. 2. On the basis of the court's finding of illegal school segregation, the obligation of the school defendants is to adopt and implement an educationally sound, practicable plan of desegregation that promises realistically to achieve now and hereafter the greatest possible degree of actual school desegregation. Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430; Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19; Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 396 U.S. 290; Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1. - 4 - 3. Detroit Board of Education Plans A and C «re legally insufficient because they do not promise to effect significant desegregation. Green v. County School Board, supra, at 439-440. ^ • Plaintiffs' Plan, while it would provide a racial mix more in keeping with the Black-White proportions of the student population than under either of the Board's plans or as the system now stands, would accentuate the racial identifiability of the district as a Black school system, and would not accomplish desegregation. 5. ihe conclusion, under the evidence in this case, is inescapable that relief of segregation in the public schools or the Crty of Detroit cannot be accomplished within the corporate geographical limits of the city. The Sf-a-t-e. hnwAver,. cannot escape its constitutional duty to desegregate the public schools of the City of Detroit by pleaaing locai authority. As Judge Merhige pointed out Bradley v. Richmond, (slip opinion p. 64): "The power conferred by state law on central and local officials to determine the shape of school attendance units cannot be employed, as it has been here, zor the purpose and with the effect of sealing off white conclaves of a racial composition more appealing to the local electorate and obstructing the desegregation of schools. The equal protection clause has required far greater inroads on local government structure than the relief sought here, which is attainable without deviating from state * statutory forms. Compare Reynolds v. Sims, 377 u.S. _<3~>, Gomillion v. Ligntfoou, 364 U.S. 339; Serrano v. Priest, 40 U.S.L.W. 2128 (Calif. Sup. Ct. Aug. 30, 1971) "In any case, if political boundaries amount to insuperable obstacles to desegregation because of structural reason, such obszacles are self-imposed. Political subdivision lines are creations of the state itself, after all." - 5 - School district lines axe simply matters of political convenience and may not be used to deny constitutional rights. If the boundary lines of the school districts of the city of Detroit and the surround ing suburbs were drawn today few would doubt that they could not withstand constitutional challenge. In seeking for solutions to the problem of school segregation, other federal courts have not "treated as immune from intervention the administrative structure of a state's educational system, no the extent that it affects the capacity to desegregate. Geographically or administratively independent units have been compelled to merge or to inititate or continue cooperative operation as.a single system for school desegregation purposes."1 xhau i_he court must look oeyond the limits of the iX2troiu school district for a solution to the problem of segregation in the Detroit public schools is obvious; '■hat it has the authority, nay more, the duty to (under tne circumstances of this case) do so appears plainly anricipatied by Brown II,2 seventeen years ago. While other school cases have not had to deal with our exact ■ _ • 3situation, the logic of their application of the command of Brown II supports our view of our duty. .onc" • Date: MARCH ^ 0 , 1972. . - 6- r .1 FOOTNOTES 1Bradley v. Richmond, supra (slip opinion p. 68). Brown'v. Bd. of Ed. of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294, pp. 300-301. Haney v. County Board of Education of Sevier County, 410 F.2d 920 (8th Cir. 1969); Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, supra, slip opinion pp. 664-65; Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, 197 F. Supp. 649 (E.D. La. 1961), affd. 287 F.2d 376 (5th Cir. 1961) and 368 U.S. 515 (1962); Lee v. Macon County Bd. of Educ., 448 F.2d 746, 752 (5th Cir. 1971); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960); Turner v. Lirtleton-Lake Gaston School Dist., 442 F.2d 584 (4th Cir. 1971); United States v. Texas, 447 F.2d 551 (5th Cir. 1971); Lemon v. Bossier Parish School Board, 446 . F.2d 911 (5th Cir. 1971). r