Memorandum in Opposition to Suburban Motions to Dismiss

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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.



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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.

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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

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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/

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■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).