1. Freeman v. Pitts, (1992)
2. Facts: The school board in DeKalb, Ga., had been forcibly integrated from 1969 to 1986. However, instead of becoming more racially integrated, the school district became less racially integrated, due to the demographic change in the area (more blacks) rather than any intentional resistance to desegregation.
3. Procedural Posture: The school board moved to have the remedial order dismissed, and the district court found that it had been complied with in part, but that many areas needed continued supervision. Thus, the district court withdrew from supervision of the areas that it deemed appropriate. The school board still sought total dismissal, and the court of appeals upheld the district court’s holding that some remedial measures were still needed, except that it reversed with respect to the holding that the court could partially dismiss.
4. Issue: Whether the district court has the power to withdraw from supervision of certain facets of a desegregation plan if there are other facets that still require supervision in order to accomplish a “unitary” school system.
5. Holding: Yes.
6. Majority Reasoning: The court may change its remedies to fit the violations. Due to the strong interest a local school district has in self-determination, the court exceeds its remedial powers when it continues supervision of programs that no longer alleviate the initial constitutional violation. This withdrawal may proceed in incremental stages, especially where it is found that the contributing factor to the re-segregation is a change in demographics which is beyond the control of the school board.
7. Concurrence Reasoning: [Scalia] proposed that the time had come to resolve what the court was going to do about terminating the temporary remedial measures, and reinstating the traditional principles of law which require proof of intent and causation. [Souter] indicated that it was possible that the school system’s policies contributed to the change in demographics, in which case, the remedial measures should remain in place. [Blackmun] agreed with Souter and was in favor of remanding the case for the school district to try to prove that the racially identifiable schools are in no way the result of past segregation.
8. Notes: In United States v. Fordice, the court held that the state had an affirmative obligation to dismantle the dual-standard university system as well as the elementary and secondary schools. Regardless of whether an independent and legitimate purpose now existed for the policies that were intentionally discriminatory in the past, they must be dismantled. Note that Justice Thomas felt that there may be a “sound educational justification” for preserving the predominantly black colleges that had done so much for blacks during the years of segregation. In Missouri v. Jenkins (1995), the court again stated that the lower court had exceeded its judicial power, this time in attempting to make one of the local schools spend a considerable amount of money to make it a “magnet school” in order to counteract the effects of white flight. Notably, Justice Thomas again stated that separate education by choice for blacks was not by definition inferior. The equal protection clause only protects from intentional discrimination by the state, not from imagined inferiorities of black educational establishments assumed by social science data studies.
