MILLIKEN v. BRADLEY 418 U.S. 717 (1974) 433 U.S. 267 (1977)

the desegregation of public schools in many large cities poses a problem: the cities are running out of white pupils, as white families move to the suburbs. In the early 1970s, some federal district judges began to insist on desegregation plans embracing not only city districts but also surrounding suburban districts. In the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, the Justices divided 4–4, thus affirming without opinion the decision of the court of appeals, which had reversed the district court's order for metropolitan relief. The case had come from Richmond, Virginia; Justice lewis f. powell, the former president of the Richmond school board, had disqualified himself.

Milliken, the Detroit school desegregation case, came to the Court the next year. Justice Powell participated, and a 5–4 Court held that interdistrict remedies were inappropriate absent some showing of a constitutional violation by the suburban district as well as the city district. Chief Justice warren e. burger wrote for the majority, joined by the other three appointees of President richard m. nixon and by Justice potter stewart. Justices thurgood marshall, byron r. white, and william o. douglas all wrote dissenting opinions, and Justice william j. brennan also dissented.

This decision was the first major setback for school desegregation plaintiffs, but it did not entirely foreclose metropolitan relief. Justice Stewart, who joined the majority opinion, concurred separately as well, saying he would be prepared to accept metropolitan relief not only where a suburban district had committed a constitutional violation, but also where state officials had engaged in racially discriminatory conduct such as racial gerrymandering of district lines or discriminatory application of housing or zoning laws.

When the Detroit case returned to the Court three years later, it added a weapon to the arsenal of desegregation remedies. As part of a desegregation decree, the district court ordered the establishment of remedial education programs; the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed, with the Chief Justice again writing for the Court. The remedy must not exceed the constitutional violation, he wrote, but here, unlike the situation in Milliken I, the remedy was "tailored to cure the condition that offend[ed] the Constitution."

Kenneth L. Karst
(1986)