Memorandum in Opposition to Suburban Motions to Dismiss
Public Court Documents
March 16, 1975

6 pages
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Case Files, Milliken Hardbacks. Memorandum in Opposition to Suburban Motions to Dismiss, 1975. 7a53993e-54e9-ef11-a730-7c1e5247dfc0. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/ddbbdd89-a3db-44ae-ada1-2b5494eda644/memorandum-in-opposition-to-suburban-motions-to-dismiss. Accessed June 17, 2025.
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♦ * IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION RONALD BRADLEY, et al., X Plaintiffs, X -vs- X WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, et al., X Defendants. X CIVIL ACTION NO. 35257 MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO SUBURBAN MOTIONS TO DISMISS The defendants who have been referred to generally in this litigation as "suburban defendants" have all filed motions to dismiss. Some of these defendants appear in this cause of action as intervenors. At the time of their intervention, they urged the necessity of their participation and presence at all stages of the proceedings to protect the rights of their clients. It was their position that litigation even though it may have dealt with "Detroit-only" issues substan tially affected their interests and gave them a right to participate. Ultimately they argued that the failure to in clude them from the inception of the litigation violated their right of due process and constituted legal error. Other suburban defendants, referred to in paragraph 9, page 4, of the Amended Complaint filed September 4, 1973, were added at the direction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit pursuant to its Opinion in Bradley v. 1/ Milliken, 484 F.2d 215 (6th Cir. en banc, 1973). 1/That Order and direction of the Sixth Circuit en banc was not reversed by the Supreme Court in Milliken v. Bradley, 414 U.S. 1038 (1974). After the remand the District Court granted leave to file this Amended Complaint. No hearings have been held on the various motions filed or the allegations of that Amended Complaint. Pursuant to the Order of the Court of Appeals, the first Amended Complaint alleged in pertinent part as follows This consistent and repeated discrimination by State officials and agencies, manifested by, among others, the acts listed herein, is causu- ally related in a significant manner to the present, nearly total segregation of black children within the tri-county area . . . . (Emphasis Added). The Supreme Court of the United States said: . . . [I]t must be first shown that there has been a constitutional violation within one district that produces a significant segregative effect in another district. Specifically it must be shown that racially discriminatory acts of the state or local school district or of a single school district have been a substantial cause of inter-district segregation. Milliken v. Bradley, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069, 1091. (Emphasis Added). Plaintiffs have yet to have a hearing on the first Amended Complaint. The quoted allegation which we submit is not incon sistent with the subsequent, Supreme Court mandate, if es tablished by competent evidence or by fact findings based upon the present record would furnish a basis, in whole or in part, for the relief which plaintiffs seek. The first Amended Complaint further alleges: In carrying out this pattern and practice of official segregation, the State and its agencies have advantaged themselves of existing school district lines and jurisdictional boun daries with the effect of further entrenching the containment of black students in black Detroit schools; . . . the prevailing patterns of racially identifiable, virtually all-white schools in the suburbs of Detroit is a result, in part, of the official policies of containment and segregation of black children in racially identifiable and virtually all-black schools within the City of Detroit . . . . •k k k The school and housing opportunities for black citizens in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, however, have been and remain restricted by dis criminatory governmental and private action to separate and distinct areas within the city and a few other areas of historic racial containment in the metropolitan area. * ♦ « The Opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, as a member of the majority in Milliken, makes clear that should this Court reach matters not reached by either the Sixth Circuit or the Supreme Court in the existing record or should it, after re ceipt of additional evidence going to these questions, deter mine that these allegations have been established by competent evidence, plaintiffs would be entitled to relief. Mr. Justice Stewart said: This is not to say, however, that an inter-district remedy of the sort approved by the Court of Appeals would not be proper, or even necessary, in other factual situations. Were it to be shown, for example, that state officials had contributed to the separation of the races. . .; or by purposeful, racially dis criminatory use of state housing or zoning laws, then a decree calling for transfer of pupils across district lines or for restruc turing of district lines might well be appropriate. 41 L .Ed.2d at 1097. The defendants quote at some length from the Supreme Court decision in Milliken, supra. We think it important to note the extreme care which the Supreme Court used in setting out those things which it did not reach. The District Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals were equally explicit in indicating what portions of the evidence which they had considered in reaching their determinations that plaintiffs were entitled to a metropolitan remedy. The Supreme Court said: While specifically acknowledging that the District Court's findings of a condition of segregation were limited to Detroit, the Court of Appeals approved the use of a metropolitan remedy. . . ." 41 L.Ed.2d at 1088. The Supreme Court pointed out that plans were re quired to be submitted on a metropolitan basis "despite the fact that there had been no claim that these outlying counties, . . . had committed constitutional violations." The Court also noted the District Court's disclaimer with respect to it's taking of proof with respect to the suburban defendants. 41 L.Ed. 2d at 1082-83. - 3 - * Again-the Court said: No evidence was adduced and no findigs were made in the District Court concerning the activi ties of school officials in districts outside the City of Detroit. 41 L.Ed.2d at 1096. The Court noted that neither the plaintiffs nor the trial judge considered amending the Complaint to embrace the new theory. Milliken, supra. 41 L.Ed.2d at 1095. In summary the Supreme Court, which did not have before it the Amended Complaint and certainly not the second Amended Complaint, concluded, speaking of the trial below: This, again, underscores the crucial fact that the theory upon which the case proceeded related solely to the establishment of Detroit city violations as a basis for desegregating Detroit schools and that, at the time of trial, neither the parties nor the trial judge were concerned with a foundation for inter-district relief. 41 L,Ed.2d 1069 at 1095. The Supreme Court noted that Judge Roth in his formal opinion candidly recognized that: It should be noted that the Court has taken no proofs with respect to the establishment of the boundaries of the 86 public school districts in the counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb, nor on the issue of whether, with the exclusion of the City -of Detroit school district, such school districts have committed acts of de jure segregation. 345 F.Supp. 914,920; 41 L.Ed.2d at 1083 n.ll. Since there was no "trial" on "metro" violation the opinion of the Supreme Court did not determine any metro issue. It did decide that metropolitan relief could not be had solely on a remedy theory. It approved metro when certain facts are found to exist. It carefully pointed out that in this case those facts were not a part of the original Complaint and not a part of the theory of the original trial, therefore no metro relief. We have now the allegations of metro violation and issues to be tried. The parties who insisted their presence was required now want out. / A word about both amended complaints seems in order. There is much in the way of allegations about housing discrim ination. In part the reason may be obvious, however, more - 4- should be said. The importance of housing proof in light of the Sixth Circuit decision in Deal, was in serious question in school cases. School boards, like the Detroit Board, took the position such evidence had no relevance and was in- 2/ admissible. The Boards would almost in the same breath claim that housing segregation was entirely responsible for school segregation. District courts usually permitted some housing proof but relied on such evidence only in a minimal way. For example, in this case the Sixth Circuit said: . . . [w]e have not relied at all upon testimony pertaining to segregated housing except as school construction programs helped cause or maintain such segregation. Bradley v. Milliken, 484 F.2d at, 242. However, Justice Stewart's language and other refer ences in the majority opinion make such proof one of the critical factors which would require or permit metropolitan relief. Both the first and second Amended Complaints stress this type of housing discrimination allegation and in turn the relationship, on an inter-district basis to school segregation. As the Supreme Court noted, the parties have not been heard on inter-district violation. It seems to be with out question that the proof of such violation is bound up in the existing case and the Detroit school district. To say that the Supreme Court has looked at the storm of racial injustice and segregation in Detroit and "blinked" at a remedy is true. But, to say that it has, (and therefore this Court must), shut it's eyes forever is false. Therefore, plaintiffs respectfully submit that the suburbs' Motions to Dismiss should be denied, the Second Amended Complaint allowed, and further proceedings therein be In fact, the Detroit Board's first position was that there was no housing segregation in Detroit. 2/ - 5- ■4 1 < * delayed until the first mandate of the Supreme Court, to im- 3/ plement a desegregation plan for Detroit, be obeyed. Respectfully submitted, LOUIS R. LUCAS RATNER, SUGARMON, LUCAS & SALKY 525 Commerce Title Building Memphis, Tennessee JOHN A. DZIAMBA 746 Main Street Post Office Box D Willimantic, Connecticut 06226 ELLIOTT S. HALL 2755 Guardian Building 500 Griswald Avenue Detroit, Michigan NATHANIEL JONES General Counsel N.A.A.C.P. 1790 Broadway New York, New York 10019 J. HAROLD FLANNERY PAUL DIMOND WILLIAM E. CALDWELL Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law 733 Fifteenth Street, N.W. Suite 520 Washington, D.C. 20005 Counsel for Plaintiffs CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE This is to certify that a copy of the foregoing Memorandum In Opposition To Suburban Motions To Dismiss has been served on all counsel of record by depositing same addressed to them at their office by United States mail, pos- //**>■tage prepaid, this /(<■' day of March, 1975. 3/ "Within a single school district whose officials have been shown to have engaged in unconstitutional racial segregation, a remedial decree that effects every individual school may be dictated by "common sense," see Keyes v. School District No. T~, Denver, Colorado, 413 U.S. 189^ 20 3, 37 L . Ed. 2d 548", 9 3 S.CE7 2686 (1973) , and indeed may provide the only ef fective means to eliminate segregation "root and branch," Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430, 437, 20. L.Ed.2d 716, 88" S.Cti 1689 (1968), and to "effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system." Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294,301, 99 L .Ed. 1083, 75 S.Ct. 753. Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at 198-205, 37 L.Ed.2d 548. Milliken, supra, 41 L.Ed.2d at 1097. (Emphasis Added).