1. Milliken v. Bradley, (1974)
2. Facts: A particular urban school district in Detroit was found to have de jure segregation. There were other school districts in the suburban areas.
3. Procedural Posture: The lower court found that the appropriate remedy would be interdistrict in nature, including busing of suburban outlying school districts. They based this holding on the notion that school district lines were a matter of political convenience, and may not be used by the state to deny constitutional rights.
4. Issue: Whether the remedy for unconstitutional de jure segregation found in a particular public school district may include busing the suburban school districts also.
5. Holding: No.
6. Majority Reasoning: The scope of the lower court’s remedy exceeded the scope of the constitutional violation. The remedy must not be interdistrict if the violation was not interdistrict. Since only one particular school district was found to have de jure segregation, it was the only district to which remedies were appropriate. There was no finding that the other school districts contributed to the segregation.
7. Dissent Reasoning: [Marshall] The decision of the majority emasculates the equal protection. Where de jure segregation is found, it is the duty of the court to eliminate it “root and branch” which requires the greatest degree of actual desegregation. There is no reason why the drawing of the school district lines should sheild the state. [White] stated that the result is that the state can sheild itself from constitutional attack by vesting more power in its individual school districts. The majority’s plan will result in even more white flight.
8. Notes: However, in Hills v. Gautreaux, in deciding that the court could validly take remedial measures against HUD beyond the city boundaries, the court stated that nothing in Miliken suggests a per se rule that federal courts lack the power to order parties found to have violated the Constitution to undertake remedial efforts beyond the municipal boundaries of the city where the violation occured. In Missouri v. Jenkins, the court held that the remedy of directly imposing taxes on a school district’s resident in order to finance the desgregation was beyond the limit of their power unless no other alternative existed. However, the court could allow the school district to impose its own taxes, and enjoin any state laws that would prohibit such a levy. In Spallone v. United States, the court held that personal contempt orders against city council members for refusing to implement a desegregation plan could not be upheld, although contempt orders against the city itself were permissible.
