After this Court, in
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.
S. 717 (
Milliken I), determined that an
inter-district remedy for
de jure segregation in the
Detroit school system exceeded the constitutional violation, and
remanded the case for formulation of a decree, the District Court
promptly ordered submission of desegregation plans limited to the
Detroit school system. After extensive hearings the court, in
addition to a plan for student assignment, included in its decree
educational components, proposed by the Detroit School Board, in
the areas of reading, in-service teacher training, testing, and
counseling. The court determined that these components were
necessary to carry out desegregation, and directed that the costs
were to be borne by the Detroit School Board and the State. The
Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's order concerning the
implementation of and cost sharing for the four educational
components.
Held:
1. As part of a desegregation decree, a district court can, if
the record warrants, order compensatory or remedial educational
programs for schoolchildren who have been subjected to past acts of
de jure segregation. Here the District Court, acting on
substantial evidence in the record, did not abuse its discretion in
approving a remedial plan going beyond pupil assignments and
adopting specific programs that had been proposed by local school
authorities. Pp.
433 U. S.
279-288.
(a) "In fashioning and effectuating [desegregation] decrees, the
courts will be guided by equitable principles,"
Brown v. Board
of Education, 349 U. S. 294,
349 U. S. 300,
and, in applying such principles, federal courts are to focus on
the nature and scope of the violation, the fact that the decree
must be remedial, and the interests of state and local authorities
in managing their own affairs. Pp.
433 U. S.
280-281.
(b) Where, as here, a constitutional violation has been found,
the remedy does not "exceed" the violation if the remedy is
tailored to cure the "condition that offends the Constitution,"
Milliken I, supra at
418 U. S. 738,
i.e., Detroit's
de jure segregated school system.
Matters other than pupil assignment must on occasion be addressed
by federal courts to eliminate the effects of prior segregation,
United State v.
Montgomery
Page 433 U. S. 268
County Board of Education, 395 U.
S. 225, and federal courts have, over the years,
required inclusion of remedial programs in desegregation plans,
when the record warrants, to remedy the direct consequences of dual
school systems. Pp.
433 U. S.
281-288.
2. The requirement that the state defendants pay one-half the
additional costs attributable to the four educational components
does not violate the Eleventh Amendment, since the District Court
was authorized to provide prospective equitable relief, even though
such relief requires the expenditure of money by the State.
Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651,
415 U. S. 668.
Pp.
433 U. S.
288-290.
3. The Tenth Amendment's reservation of nondelegated powers to
the States is not implicated by a federal court's judgment
enforcing the express prohibitions of unlawful state conduct
enacted by the Fourteenth Amendment, nor are principles of
federalism abrogated by the decree. P.
433 U. S.
291.
540 F.2d 229, affirmed.
BURGER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BRENNAN, STEWART, WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, REHNQUIST, and
STEVENS, JJ., joined. MARSHALL, J., filed a concurring opinion,
post, p.
433 U. S. 291.
POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment,
post, p.
433 U. S.
292.
Page 433 U. S. 269
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to consider two questions
concerning the remedial powers of federal district courts in school
desegregation cases, namely, whether a District Court can, as part
of a desegregation decree, order compensatory or remedial
educational programs for schoolchildren who have been subjected to
past acts of
de jure segregation and whether, consistent
with the Eleventh Amendment, a federal court can require state
officials found responsible for constitutional violations to bear
part of the costs of those programs.
I
This case is before the Court for the second time, following our
remand,
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.
S. 717 (1974) (
Milliken I); it marks the
culmination of seven years of litigation over
de jure
school segregation in the Detroit public school system. For almost
six years, the litigation has focused exclusively on the
appropriate remedy to correct official acts of racial
discrimination committed by both the Detroit School Board and the
State of Michigan. No challenge is now made by the State or the
local school board to the prior findings of
de jure
segregation. [
Footnote 1]
Page 433 U. S. 270
A
In the first stage of the remedy proceedings, which we reviewed
in
Milliken I, supra, the District Court, after reviewing
several "Detroit-only" desegregation plans, concluded that an
inter-district plan was required to
"'achieve the greatest degree of actual desegregation . . . [so
that] no school, grade or classroom [would be] substantially
disproportionate to the overall pupil racial composition.'"
345 F Supp. 914, 918 (ED Mich.1972), quoted in
Milliken I,
supra at
418 U. S. 734.
On those premises, the District Court ordered the parties to submit
plans for "metropolitan desegregation," and appointed a nine-member
panel to formulate a desegregation plan, which would encompass a
"desegregation area" consisting of 54 school districts.
In June, 1973, a divided Court of Appeals, sitting en banc,
upheld, 484 F.2d 215 (CA6), the District Court's determination that
a metropolitan-wide plan was essential to bring about what the
District Court had described as "the greatest degree of actual
desegregation. . . ." 345 F. Supp. at 918. We reversed, holding
that the order exceeded appropriate limits of federal equitable
authority as defined in
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education, 402 U. S. 1,
402 U. S. 24
(1971), by concluding that, "as a matter of substantive
constitutional right, [a] particular degree of racial balance" is
required, and by subjecting other school districts, uninvolved with
and unaffected by any constitutional violations, to the court's
remedial powers.
Milliken I, supra. Proceeding from the
Swann standard "that the scope of the remedy is determined
by the nature and extent of the constitutional violation," we held
that, on the record before us, there was no inter-district
violation
Page 433 U. S. 271
calling for an inter-district remedy. Because the District
Court's "metropolitan remedy" went beyond the constitutional
violation, we remanded the case for further proceedings
"leading to prompt formulation of a decree directed to
eliminating the segregation found to exist in the Detroit city
schools, a remedy which has been delayed since 1970."
418 U.S. at
418 U. S. 753.
[
Footnote 2]
B
Due to the intervening death of Judge Stephen J. Roth, who had
presided over the litigation from the outset, the case on remand
was reassigned to Judge Robert E. DeMascio. Judge DeMascio promptly
ordered respondent Bradley and the Detroit Board to submit
desegregation plans limited to the Detroit school system. On April
1, 1975, both parties submitted their proposed plans. Respondent
Bradley's plan was limited solely to pupil reassignment; the
proposal called for extensive transportation of students to achieve
the plan's ultimate goal of assuring that every school within the
district reflected, within 15 percentage points, the racial ratio
of the school district as a whole. [
Footnote 3] In contrast to respondent Bradley's
Page 433 U. S. 272
proposal, the Detroit Board's plan provided for sufficient pupil
reassignment to eliminate "racially identifiable white elementary
schools," while ensuring that
"every child will spend at least a portion of his education in
either a neighborhood elementary school or a neighborhood junior
and senior high school."
402 F.
Supp. 1096, 1116 (1975). By eschewing racial ratios for each
school, the Board's plan contemplated transportation of fewer
students for shorter distances than respondent Bradley's proposal.
[
Footnote 4]
In addition to student reassignments, the Board's plan called
for implementation of 13 remedial or compensatory programs,
referred to in the record as "educational components." These
compensatory programs, which were proposed in addition to the
plan's provisions for magnet schools and vocational high schools,
included three of the four components at issue in this case --
in-service training for teachers and administrators, guidance and
counseling programs, and revised testing procedures. [
Footnote 5] Pursuant to the District Court's
direction, the State Board of Education, [
Footnote 6] on April 21, 1975,
Page 433 U. S. 273
submitted a critique of the Detroit Board's desegregation plan;
in its report, the State Board opined that, although "[i]t is
possible that none of the thirteen
quality education'
components is essential . . . to correct the constitutional
violation . . . ," 8 of the 13 proposed programs nonetheless
deserved special consideration in the desegregation setting. Of
particular relevance here, the State Board said:
"Within the context of effectuating a pupil desegregation plan,
the in-service training [and] guidance and counseling . . .
components appear to deserve special emphasis."
4 Record, Doc. 591, pp. 38-39. [
Footnote 7]
After receiving the State Board's critique, [
Footnote 8] the District Court conducted extensive
hearings on the two plans over a two-month period. Substantial
testimony was adduced with respect to the proposed educational
components, including testimony by petitioners' expert witnesses.
[
Footnote 9] Based on this
Page 433 U. S. 274
evidence and on reports of court-appointed experts, the District
Court, on August 11, 1975, approved, in principle, the Detroit
Board's inclusion of remedial and compensatory educational
components in the desegregation plan. [
Footnote 10]
"We find that the majority of the educational components
included in the Detroit Board plan are essential for a school
district undergoing desegregation. While it is true that the
delivery of quality desegregated educational services is the
obligation of the school board, nevertheless this court deems it
essential to mandate educational components where they are needed
to remedy effects of past segregation, to assure a successful
desegregative effort, and to minimize the possibility of
resegregation."
402 F. Supp. at 1118.
The District Court expressly found that the two components of
testing and counseling, as then administered in Detroit's
Page 433 U. S. 275
schools, were infected with the discriminatory bias of a
segregated school system:
"In a segregated setting, many techniques deny equal protection
to black students, such as discriminatory testing [and]
discriminatory counseling. . . ."
Ibid. The District Court also found that, to make
desegregation work, it was necessary to include remedial reading
programs and in-service training for teachers and
administrators:
"In a system undergoing desegregation, teachers will require
orientation and training for desegregation. . . . Additionally, we
find that . . . comprehensive reading programs are essential . . .
to a successful desegregative effort."
Ibid.
Having established these general principles, the District Court
formulated several "remedial guidelines" to govern the Detroit
Board's development of a final plan. Declining
"to substitute its authority for the authority of elected state
and local officials to decide which educational components are
beneficial to the school community,"
id. at 1145, the District Judge laid down the following
guidelines with respect to each of the four educational components
at issue here:
(a)
Reading. Concluding that "[t]here is no educational
component more directly associated with the process of
desegregation than reading,"
id. at 1138, the District
Court directed he General Superintendent of Detroit's schools to
institute a remedial reading and communications skills program
"[t]o eradicate the effects of past discrimination. . . ."
Ibid. The content of the required program was not
prescribed by the court; rather, formulation and implementation of
the program was left to the Superintendent and to a committee to be
selected by him.
(b)
In-Service Training. The court also directed the
Detroit Board to formulate a comprehensive in-service teacher
Page 433 U. S. 276
training program, an element "essential to a system undergoing
desegregation."
Id. at 1139. In the District Court's view,
an in-service training program for teachers and administrators, to
train professional and instructional personnel to cope with the
desegregation process in Detroit, would tend to ensure that all
students in a desegregated system would be treated equally by
teachers and administrators able, by virtue of special training, to
cope with special problems presented by desegregation, and thereby
facilitate Detroit's conversion to a unitary system.
(c)
Testing. Because it found, based on record
evidence, that Negro children "are especially affected by biased
testing procedures," the District Court determined that,
frequently, minority students in Detroit were adversely affected by
discriminatory testing procedures. Unless the school system's tests
were administered in a way "free from racial, ethnic and cultural
bias," the District Court concluded that Negro children in Detroit
might thereafter be impeded in their educational growth.
Id. at 1142. Accordingly, the court directed the Detroit
Board and the State Department of Education to institute a testing
program along the lines proposed by the local school board in its
original desegregation plan.
Ibid.
(d)
Counseling and Career Guidance. Finally, the
District Court addressed what expert witnesses had described as
psychological pressures on Detroit's students in a system
undergoing desegregation. Counselors were required, the court
concluded, both to deal with the numerous problems and tensions
arising in the change from Detroit's dual system and, more
concretely, to counsel students concerning the new vocational and
technical school programs available under the plan through the
cooperation of state and local officials. [
Footnote 11]
Page 433 U. S. 277
Nine months later, on May 11, 1976, the District Court entered
its final order. Emphasizing that it had "been careful to order
only what is essential for a school district undergoing
desegregation," App. to Pet. for Cert. 117a, the court ordered the
Detroit Board and the state defendants to institute comprehensive
programs as to the four educational components by the start of the
September, 1976, school term. The cost of these four programs, the
court concluded, was to be equally borne by the Detroit School
Board and the State. To carry out this cost sharing, the court
directed the local board to calculate its highest budget allocation
in any prior year for the several educational programs and, from
that base, any excess cost attributable to the desegregation plan
was to be paid equally by the two groups of defendants responsible
for prior constitutional violations,
i.e., the Detroit
Board and the state defendants.
C
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed
the District Court's order concerning the implementation of and
cost sharing for the four educational components. [
Footnote 12] 540 F.2d 229 (1976). The Court
of Appeals expressly
Page 433 U. S. 278
approved the District Court's findings as to the necessity for
these compensatory programs:
"This finding . . . is not clearly erroneous, but, to the
contrary, is supported by ample evidence."
"The need for in-service training of the educational staff and
development of nondiscriminatory testing is obvious. The former is
needed to insure that the teachers and administrators will be able
to work effectively in a desegregated environment. The latter is
needed to insure that students are not evaluated unequally because
of built-in bias in the tests administered in formerly segregated
schools."
"We agree with the District Court that the reading and
counseling programs are essential to the effort to combat the
effects of segregation."
"
* * * *"
"Without the reading and counseling components, black students
might be deprived of the motivation and achievement levels which
the desegregation remedy is designed to accomplish."
Id. at 241.
After reviewing the record, the Court of Appeals confirmed that
the District Court relied largely on the Detroit School Board in
formulating the decree:
"This is not a situation where the District Court 'appears to
have acted solely according to its own notions of good educational
policy unrelated to the demands of the Constitution.'"
Id. at 241-242, quoting
Keyes v. School Dist. No.
1, Denver, Colo., 521 F.2d 465, 483 (CA10 1975),
cert.
denied, 423 U.S. 1066 (1976).
After upholding the remedial components portion of the plan, the
Court of Appeals went on to affirm the District Court's allocation
of costs between the state and local officials. Analyzing this
Court's decision in
Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.
S. 651 (1974), which reaffirmed the rule that the
Eleventh
Page 433 U. S. 279
Amendment bars an ordinary suit for money damages against the
State without its consent, the Court of Appeals held:
"[The District Court's order] imposes no money judgment on the
State of Michigan for past
de jure segregation practices.
Rather, the order is directed toward the State defendants as a part
of a
prospective plan to comply with a constitutional
requirement to eradicate all vestiges of
de jure
segregation."
540 F.2d at 245. (Emphasis supplied.) The Court of Appeals
remanded the case for further consideration of the three central
city regions untouched by the District Court's pupil reassignment
plan.
See n 12,
supra.
The state defendants then sought review in this Court,
challenging only those portions of the District Court's
comprehensive remedial order dealing with the four educational
components and with the State's obligation to defray the costs of
those programs. We granted certiorari, 429 U.S. 958 (1976), and we
affirm.
II
This Court has not previously addressed directly the question
whether federal courts can order remedial education programs as
part of a school desegregation decree. [
Footnote 13] However, the general principles governing
our resolution of this issue are well settled by the prior
decisions of this Court. In the first case concerning federal
courts' remedial powers in eliminating
de jure school
segregation, the Court laid down the basic rule which governs to
this day: "In fashioning and
Page 433 U. S. 280
effectuating the [desegregation] decrees, the courts will be
guided by equitable principles."
Brown v. Bard of
Education, 349 U. S. 294,
349 U. S. 300
(1955) (
Brown II).
A
Application of those "equitable principles," we have held,
requires federal courts to focus upon three factors. In the first
place, like other equitable remedies, the nature of the
desegregation remedy is to be determined by the nature and scope of
the constitutional violation.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Board of Education, 402 U.S. at
402 U. S. 16. The
remedy must therefore be related to "the condition alleged to
offend the Constitution. . . ."
Milliken I, 418 U.S. at
418 U. S. 738.
[
Footnote 14] Second, the
decree must indeed be remedial in nature, that is, it must be
designed as nearly as possible "to restore the victims of
discriminatory conduct to the position they would have occupied in
the absence of such conduct."
Id. at
418 U. S. 746.
[
Footnote 15] Third, the
federal courts, in devising a remedy, must
Page 433 U. S. 281
take into account the interests of state and local authorities
in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution. In
Brown II, the Court squarely held that "[s]chool
authorities have the
primary responsibility for
elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems. . . ." 349 U.S.
at
349 U. S. 29.
(Emphasis supplied.) If, however, "school authorities fail in their
affirmative obligations . . . judicial authority may be invoked."
Swann, supra at
402 U. S. 15.
Once invoked, "the scope of a district court's equitable powers to
remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are
inherent in equitable remedies."
Ibid.
B
In challenging the order before us, petitioners do not
specifically question that the District Court's mandated programs
are designed, as nearly as practicable, to restore the
schoolchildren of Detroit to the position they would have enjoyed
absent constitutional violations by state and local officials. And
petitioners do not contend, nor could they, that the prerogatives
of the Detroit School Board have been abrogated by the decree,
since, of course, the Detroit School Board itself proposed
incorporation of these programs in the first place. Petitioners'
sole contention is that, under
Swann, the District Court's
order exceeds the scope of the constitutional violation. Invoking
our holding in
Milliken I, petitioners claim that, since
the constitutional violation found by the District Court was the
unlawful segregation of students on the basis of race, the court's
decree must be limited to remedying unlawful pupil assignments.
This contention misconceives the principle petitioners seek to
invoke, and we reject their argument.
The well settled principle that the nature and scope of
Page 433 U. S. 282
the remedy are to be determined by the violation means simply
that federal court decrees must directly address and relate to the
constitutional violation itself. Because of this inherent
limitation upon federal judicial authority, federal court decrees
exceed appropriate limits if they are aimed at eliminating a
condition that does not violate the Constitution or does not flow
from such a violation,
see Pasadena Bd. of Education v.
Spangler, 427 U. S. 424
(1976), or if they are imposed upon governmental units that were
neither involved in nor affected by the constitutional violation,
as in
Milliken I, supra. Hills v. Gautreaux,
425 U. S. 284,
425 U. S.
292-296 (1976). But where, as here, a constitutional
violation has been found, the remedy does not "exceed" the
violation if the remedy is tailored to cure the
"
condition that offends the Constitution.'"
Milliken I, supra at 418 U. S. 738.
(Emphasis supplied.)
The "condition" offending the Constitution is Detroit's
de
jure segregated school system, which was so pervasively and
persistently segregated that the District Court found that the need
for the educational components flowed directly from constitutional
violations by both state and local officials. These specific
educational remedies, although normally left to the discretion of
the elected school board and professional educators, were deemed
necessary to restore the victims of discriminatory conduct to the
position they would have enjoyed in terms of education had these
four components been provided in a nondiscriminatory manner in a
school system free from pervasive
de jure racial
segregation.
In the first case invalidating a
de jure system, a
unanimous Court, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Warren, held in
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.
S. 483,
347 U. S. 495
(1954) (
Brown I): "Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal." And in
United States v. Montgomery County
Bd. of Educ., 395 U. S. 225
(1969), the Court concerned itself not with pupil assignment, but
with the desegregation of faculty and staff as part of the process
of dismantling a dual
Page 433 U. S. 283
system. In doing so, the Court, there speaking through Mr.
Justice Black, focused on the reason for judicial concerns going
beyond pupil assignment:
"The dispute . . . deals with faculty and staff desegregation, a
goal that we have recognized to be an important aspect of
the
basic task of achieving a public school system wholly free from
racial discrimination."
Id. at
395 U. S.
231-232. (Emphasis supplied.)
Montgomery County therefore stands firmly for the
proposition that matters other than pupil assignment must on
occasion be addressed by federal courts to eliminate the effects of
prior segregation. Similarly, in
Swann, we reaffirmed the
principle laid down in
Green v. County School Bd.,
391 U. S. 430
(1968), that "existing policy and practice with regard to faculty,
staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities
were among the most important indicia of a segregated system." 402
U.S. at
402 U. S. 18. In
a word, discriminatory student assignment policies can themselves
manifest and breed other inequalities built into a dual system
founded on racial discrimination. Federal courts need not, and
cannot, close their eyes to inequalities, shown by the record,
which flow from a longstanding segregated system.
C
In light of the mandate of
Brown I and
Brown
II, federal courts have, over the years, often required the
inclusion of remedial programs in desegregation plans to overcome
the inequalities inherent in dual school systems. In 1966, for
example, the District Court for the District of South Carolina
directed the inclusion of remedial courses to overcome the effects
of a segregated system:
"Because the weaknesses of a dual school system may have already
affected many children, the court would be remiss in its duty if
any desegregation plan were approved which did not provide for
remedial education courses. They shall be included in the
plan."
Miller v. School
Page 433 U. S. 284
District 2, Clarendon County, S.C.
256 F.
Supp. 370, 377 (1966). In 1967, the Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit, then engaged in overseeing the desegregation of
numerous school districts in the South, laid down the following
requirement in an en banc decision:
"The defendants shall provide remedial education programs which
permit students attending or who have previously attended
segregated schools
to overcome past inadequacies in their
education."
United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education,
380 F.2d 385, 394,
cert. denied, 389 U.S. 840 (1967).
(Emphasis supplied.)
See also Stell v. Board of Public
Education of Savannah, 387 F.2d 486, 492, 496-497 (CA5 1967);
Hill v. Lafourche Parish School Board, 291 F. Supp. 819,
823 (ED La.1967);
Redman v. Terrebonne Parish School
Board, 293 F. Supp. 376, 379 (ED La.1967);
Lee v. Macon
County Board of Education, 267 F.
Supp. 458, 489 (MD Ala.1967);
Graves v. Walton County Board
of Education, 300 F.
Supp. 188, 200 (MD Ga. 1968),
aff'd, 410 F.2d 1153
(CA5 1969). Two years later, the Fifth Circuit again adhered to the
rule that district courts could properly seek to overcome the
built-in inadequacies of a segregated educational system:
"The trial court concluded that the school board must establish
remedial programs to assist students who previously attended
all-Negro schools when those students transfer to formerly
all-white schools . . . The
remedial programs . . . are an
integral part of a program for compensatory education to be
provided Negro students who have long been disadvantaged by
the inequities and discrimination inherent in the dual school
system. The requirement that the School Board institute remedial
programs so far as they are feasible is a proper exercise of the
court's discretion."
Plaquemines Parish School Bd v.
Page 433 U. S. 285
United States, 415 F.2d 817, 831 (1969). (Emphasis
supplied.)
In the same year, the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Louisiana required school authorities to come
forward with a remedial educational program as part of a
desegregation plan.
"'The defendants shall provide remedial education programs which
permit students . . . who have previously attended all-Negro
schools to overcome past inadequacies in their education'"
Smith v. St. Tammany Parish School
Board, 302 F.
Supp. 106, 110 (1969),
aff'd, 448 F.2d 414 (CA5 1971).
See also Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish School
Board, 304 F.
Supp. 244, 253 (ED La.1969);
Moses v. Washington Parish
School Board, 302 F. Supp. 362, 367 (ED La.1969).
In the 1970's, the pattern has been essentially the same. The
Fifth Circuit has, when the fact situation warranted, continued to
call for remedial education programs in desegregation plans.
E.g., United States v. Texas, 447 F.2d 441, 448 (1971),
stay denied sub nom. Edgar v. United States, 404 U.
S. 1206 (1971) (Black, J., in chambers). To that end,
the approved plan in
United States v. Texas required:
"[C]urriculum offerings and programs shall include specific
educational programs designed to compensate minority group children
for unequal educational opportunities resulting from past or
present racial and ethnic isolation. . . ."
447 F.2d at 448. [
Footnote
16]
See also George v. O'Kelly, 448 F.2d 148, 150 (CA5
1971). And, as school desegregation litigation emerged in other
Page 433 U. S. 286
regions of the country, federal courts have likewise looked in
part to remedial programs, when the record supported an order to
that effect.
See, e.g., Morgan v. Kerrigan, 401 F.
Supp. 216, 235 (Mass.1975),
aff'd, 530 F.2d 401 (CA1),
cert. denied sub nom. White v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 935
(1976);
Hart v. Community School Board of
Brooklyn, 383 F.
Supp. 699, 757 (EDNY 1974),
aff'd, 512 F.2d 37 (CA2
1975);
cf. Booker v. Special School Dist. 1, Minneapolis,
Minn., 351 F.
Supp. 799 (Minn.1972). [
Footnote 17]
Finally, in addition to other remedial programs, which could, if
circumstances warranted, include programs to remedy deficiencies,
particularly in reading and communications skills, federal courts
have expressly ordered special in-service training for teachers,
see, e.g., United States v. Missouri, 523 F.2d 885, 887
(CA8 1975);
Smith v. St. Tammany Parish School Board,
supra at 110;
Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board,
supra at 253, and have altered or even suspended testing
programs employed by school systems undergoing desegregation.
See, e.g., Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School
Dist., 419 F.2d 1211, 1219 (CA5 1969),
cert. denied,
396 U.S. 1032 (1970);
Lemon v. Bossier Parish School
Board, 444 F.2d 1400, 1401 (CA5 1971);
Arvizu v. Waco
Independent School Dist., 373 F.
Supp. 1264 (WD Tex.1973),
rev'd in part on other
issues, 495 F.2d 499 (CA5 1974).
Our reference to these cases is not to be taken a necessarily
approving holdings not reviewed by this Court. However, they
demonstrate that the District Court in the case now
Page 433 U. S. 287
before us did not break new ground in approving the School
Board's proposed plan. Quite the contrary, acting on abundant
evidence in this record, the District Court approved a remedial
plan going beyond mere pupil assignments, as expressly approved by
Swann and
Montgomery County. In so doing, the
District Court was adopting specific programs proposed by local
school authorities, who must be presumed to be familiar with the
problems and the needs of a system undergoing desegregation.
[
Footnote 18]
We do not, of course, imply that the order here is a blueprint
for other cases. That cannot be; in school desegregation cases,
"[t]here is no universal answer to complex problems . . . ; there
is obviously no one plan that will do the job in every case."
Green, 391 U.S. at
391 U. S. 439.
On this record, however, we are bound to conclude that the decree
before us was aptly tailored to remedy the consequences of the
constitutional violation. Children who have been thus educationally
and culturally set apart from the larger community will inevitably
acquire habits of speech, conduct, and attitudes reflecting their
cultural isolation. They are likely to acquire speech habits, for
example, which vary from the environment in which they must
ultimately function and compete, if they are to enter and be a part
of that community. This is not peculiar to race; in this setting,
it can affect any children who, as a group, are isolated by force
of law from the mainstream.
Cf. Lau v. Nichols,
414 U. S. 563
(1974).
Pupil assignment alone does not automatically remedy the impact
of previous, unlawful educational isolation; the consequences
linger, and can be dealt with only by independent
Page 433 U. S. 288
measures. In short, speech habits acquired in a segregated
system do not vanish simply by moving the child to a desegregated
school. The root condition shown by this record must be treated
directly by special training at the hands of teachers prepared for
that task. This is what the District Judge in the case drew from
the record before him as to the consequences of Detroit's
de
jure system, and we cannot conclude that the remedies decreed
exceeded the scope of the violations found.
Nor do we find any other reason to believe that the broad and
flexible equity powers of the court were abused in this case. The
established role of local school authorities was maintained
inviolate, and the remedy is indeed remedial. The order does not
punish anyone, nor does it impair or jeopardize the educational
system in Detroit. [
Footnote
19] The District Court, in short, was true to the principle
laid down in
Brown II:
"In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the courts will be
guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been
characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies
and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private
needs. These cases call for the exercise of these traditional
attributes of equity power."
349 U.S. at
349 U. S. 300
(footnotes omitted).
III
Petitioners also contend that the District Court's order, even
if otherwise proper, violates the Eleventh Amendment. In their
view, the requirement that the state defendants pay one-half the
additional costs attributable to the four educational
Page 433 U. S. 289
components is,
"in practical effect, indistinguishable from an award of money
damages against the state based upon the asserted prior misconduct
of state officials."
Brief for Petitioners 34. Arguing from this premise, petitioners
conclude that the "award" in this case is barred under this Court's
holding in
Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.
S. 651 (1974).
Edelman involved a suit for money damages against the
State, as well as for prospective injunctive relief. [
Footnote 20] The suit was brought by
an individual who claimed that Illinois officials had improperly
withheld disability benefit payments from him and from the members
of his class. Applying traditional Eleventh Amendment principles,
we held that the suit was barred to the extent the suit sought "the
award of an accrued monetary liability . . . " which represented
"retroactive payments."
Id. at
415 U. S.
663-664. (Emphasis supplied.) Conversely, the Court held
that the suit was proper to the extent it sought "payment of state
funds . . . as a necessary consequence of compliance in
the
future with a substantive federal question determination. . .
."
Id. at
415 U. S. 668.
(Emphasis supplied.)
The decree to share the future costs of educational components
in this case fits squarely within the prospective compliance
exception reaffirmed by
Edelman. That exception, which had
its genesis in
Ex parte Young, 209 U.
S. 123 (1908), permits federal courts to enjoin state
officials to conform their conduct to requirements of federal law,
notwithstanding a direct and substantial impact on the state
treasury. 415 U.S. at
415 U. S. 667.
The order challenged here does no more than that. The decree
requires state officials, held responsible for unconstitutional
conduct, in findings which are not challenged, to eliminate a
de jure segregated school system. More precisely, the
burden of state officials is that set forth
Page 433 U. S. 290
in
Swann -- to take the necessary steps "to eliminate
from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation."
402 U.S. at
402 U. S. 15. The
educational components, which the District Court ordered into
effect
prospectively, are plainly designed to wipe out
continuing conditions of inequality produced by the inherently
unequal dual school system long maintained by Detroit. [
Footnote 21]
These programs were not, and, as a practical matter, could not
be, intended to wipe the slate clean by one bold stroke, as could a
retroactive award of money in
Edelman. [
Footnote 22] Rather, by the nature of the
antecedent violation, which, on this record, caused significant
deficiencies in communications skills -- reading and speaking --
the victims of Detroit's
de jure segregated system will
continue to experience the effects of segregation until such future
time as the remedial programs can help dissipate the continuing
effects of past misconduct. Reading and speech deficiencies cannot
be eliminated by judicial fiat; they will require time, patience,
and the skills of specially trained teachers. That the programs are
also "compensatory" in nature does not change the fact that they
are part of a plan that operates
prospectively to bring
about the delayed benefits of a unitary school system. We therefore
hold that such prospective relief is not barred by the Eleventh
Amendment. [
Footnote 23]
Page 433 U. S. 291
Finally, there is no merit to petitioners' claims that the
relief ordered here violates the Tenth Amendment and general
principles of federalism. The Tenth Amendment's reservation of
nondelegated powers to the States is not implicated by a federal
court judgment enforcing the express prohibitions of unlawful state
conduct enacted by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Cf. Fitzpatrick v.
Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445
(1976). Nor are principles of federalism abrogated by the decree.
The District Court has neither attempted to restructure local
governmental entities nor to mandate a particular method or
structure of state or local financing.
Cf. San Antonio School
Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973).
The District Court has, rather, properly enforced the guarantees of
the Fourteenth Amendment consistent with our prior holdings, and in
a manner that does not jeopardize the integrity of the structure or
functions of state and local government.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
The violations of the Detroit Board of Education, which included
the improper use of optional attendance zones, racially based
transportation of schoolchildren, improper creation and alteration
of attendance zones, grade structures, and feeder school patterns,
are described in the District Court's initial "Ruling on Issue of
Segregation."
338 F.
Supp. 582, 587-588 (ED Mich.1971). The District Court further
found that "[t]he State and its agencies . . . have acted directly
to control and maintain the pattern of segregation in the Detroit
schools."
Id. at 589. Indeed, when the Detroit School
Board attempted to voluntarily initiate an intra-district remedy to
ameliorate the effect of the past segregation practices, the
Michigan Legislature enacted a law forbidding the carrying out of
this remedy. Those conclusions as to liability were affirmed on
appeal, 484 F.2d 215, 221-241 (CA6 1973), and were not challenged
in this Court.
418 U. S. 717
(1974) (
Milliken I).
[
Footnote 2]
Separate opinions were filed in
Milliken I. MR. JUSTICE
STEWART, concurring, stated that the metropolitan-wide remedy
contemplated by the District Court was "in error for the simple
reason that the remedy . . . was not commensurate with the
constitutional violation found." 418 U.S. at
418 U. S. 754.
Dissenting opinions were filed by Mr. Justice Douglas, MR. JUSTICE
WHITE, and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL. The dissenting opinions took the
position, in brief, that the remedy was appropriate, given the
State's undisputed constitutional violations, the control of local
education by state authorities, and the manageability of any
necessary administrative modifications to effectuate a
metropolitan-wide remedy.
[
Footnote 3]
According to the then most recent statistical data, as of
September 27, 1974, 257,396 students were enrolled in the Detroit
public schools, a figure which reflected a decrease of 28,116
students in the system since the 1960-1961 school year.
402 F.
Supp. 1096, 1106-1107 (1975). Of this total student population,
71.5% were Negro and 26.4% were white. The remaining 2.1% were
composed of students of other ethnic groups.
Id. at
1106.
[
Footnote 4]
Under respondent Bradley's proposed plan in the remand
proceedings, 71,349 students would have required transportation;
the Detroit Board's plan, however, provided for transportation of
51,000 students, 20,000 less than the Bradley plan. The Board's
plan, which the District Court found infirm because of an
impermissible use of "arbitrary" racial quotas, contemplated
achieving a 40%-60% representation of Negro students in the
identifiably white schools, while leaving untouched in terms of
pupil reassignment schools in three of the Detroit system's eight
regions. Those three regions, which were located in the central
city, were overwhelmingly Negro in racial composition.
[
Footnote 5]
The fourth component, a remedial reading and communications
skills program, was proposed later and was endorsed by the Bradley
respondents in a critique of the Detroit Board's proposed plan.
See n 7,
infra. The Board's plan also called for the following
"educational components": school-community relations, parental
involvement, student rights and responsibilities, accountability,
curriculum design, bilingual education, multiethnic curriculum, and
co-curricular activities. 402 F. Supp. at 1118.
[
Footnote 6]
In addition to the State Board of Education, the state
defendants include the Governor of Michigan, the Attorney General,
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the State
Treasurer.
[
Footnote 7]
Two months later, the Bradley respondents also submitted a
critique of the Board's plan; while criticizing the Board's
proposed educational components on several grounds, respondents
nonetheless suggested that a remedial reading program was
particularly needed in a desegregation plan.
See n 5,
supra. The Bradley
respondents claimed more generally that the Board's plan failed to
inform the court of the then-current extent of such programs or
components in the school system and that the plan failed to assess
"the relatedness of the particular component to desegregation."
[
Footnote 8]
The other state defendants likewise filed objections to the
Detroit Board's plan on April 21, 1975. They contended, in brief,
that the court's remedy was limited to pupil reassignment to
achieve desegregation; hence, the proposed inclusion of educational
components was, in their view, excessive.
[
Footnote 9]
For example, Dr. Charles P. Kearney, Associate Superintendent
for Research and School Administration for the Michigan Department
of Education, gave the following testimony:
"[T]he State Board and the Superintendent indicated that
guidance and counseling appeared to deserve special emphasis in a
desegregation effort."
"We support the notion of a guidance and counseling effort. We
think it certainly does have a relationship in the desegregation
effort; we think it deserves special emphasis."
30 Record, Tr. 126, 129. As to in-service training, Dr. Kearney
testified that, in his opinion, such a program was required to
implement effectively a desegregation plan in Detroit.
Id.
at 179, 187. Finally, even though the State's critique did not deem
testing as deserving of "special emphasis" in the desegregation
plan, Dr. Kearney stated as follows:
"Q: [D]o you see a direct relationship between testing and
desegregation?"
"A: If test results were inappropriately used, . . . I think it
would have certainly a discriminatory affect [
sic] and it
would have a negative affect [
sic], I'm sure, on any kind
of desegregation plan being implemented."
Id. at 184.
[
Footnote 10]
The District Court did not approve of all aspects of the Detroit
Board's plan. With respect to educational components, the court
said:
"The plan as submitted . . . does not distinguish between those
components that
are necessary to the successful implementation
of a desegregation plan and those that are not."
402 F. Supp. at 1118. (Emphasis supplied.)
[
Footnote 11]
In contrast to their position before the District Court with
respect to the four educational components at issue here, the state
defendants, through the State Board of Education, voluntarily
entered into a stipulation with the Detroit Board on February 24,
1976, under which the State agreed to provide 50% of the
construction costs of five vocational centers which the District
Court ordered to be established. App. to Pet. for Cert.
139a-141a.
[
Footnote 12]
The Court of Appeals disapproved, however, of the District
Court's failure to include three of Detroit's eight regions in the
pupil assignment plan.
See n 4,
supra. The Court of Appeals remanded the
case to the District Court for further consideration of the three
omitted regions, but declined to set forth guidelines, given the
practicabilities of the situation, for the District Court's
benefit. Further proceedings were deemed appropriate, however,
particularly since the Bradley respondents had previously been
granted leave to file a second amended complaint to allege
inter-district violations on the part of the state and local
defendants.
[
Footnote 13]
In
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,
402 U. S. 1 (1971),
the Court affirmed an order of the District Court which included a
requirement of in-service training programs.
318 F.
Supp. 786, 803 (WDNC 1970). However, this Court's opinion did
not treat the precise point. In
Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1,
Denver, Colo., 413 U. S. 189
(1973), the Court expressly avoided passing on the District Court's
holding that called for, among other things, "compensatory
education in an integrated environment."
Id. at
413 U. S. 214
n. 18.
[
Footnote 14]
Thus, the Court has consistently held that the Constitution is
not violated by racial imbalance in the schools, without more.
Pasadena Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.
S. 424,
427 U. S. 434
(1976);
Milliken I, 418 U.S. at
418 U. S. 763
(WHITE, J., dissenting);
Swann, supra at
402 U. S. 26. An
order contemplating the "
substantive constitutional right [to
a] particular degree of racial balance or mixing'" is therefore
infirm as a matter of law. Spangler, supra at 427 U. S.
434.
[
Footnote 15]
Since the ultimate objective of the remedy is to make whole the
victims of unlawful conduct, federal courts are authorized to
implement plans that promise "realistically to work now."
Green
v. County School Bd., 391 U. S. 430,
391 U. S. 439
(1968). At the same time, the Court has carefully stated that, to
ensure that federal court decrees are characterized by the
flexibility and sensitivity required of equitable decrees,
consideration must be given to burdensome effects resulting from a
decree that could "either risk the health of the children or
significantly impinge on the educational process."
Swann,
supra at
402 U. S. 30-31.
Our function, as stated by MR. JUSTICE WHITE, is
"to desegregate an
educational system in which the
races have been kept apart, without, at the same time, losing sight
of the central
educational function of the schools."
Milliken I, supra at
418 U. S. 764
(dissenting opinion). (Emphasis in original.) In a word, [t]here
are undoubted practical as well as legal limits to the remedial
powers of federal courts in school desegregation cases.
418 U.S. at
418 U. S. 763.
Cf. Austin Independent School Dist. v. United States, 429
U.S. 990, 991 (1976) (POWELL, J., concurring).
[
Footnote 16]
In denying the stay application, Mr. Justice Black was
untroubled by the underlying order of the District Court:
"It would be very difficult for me to suspend the order of the
District Court that, in my view, does no more than endeavor to
realize the directive of the Fourteenth Amendment and the decisions
of this Court that racial discrimination in the public schools must
be eliminated root and branch."
404 U.S. at
404 U. S.
1207.
[
Footnote 17]
We do not, of course, pass upon the correctness of the
particular holdings of cases we did not review. We simply note that
these holdings support the broader proposition that, when the
record warrants, remedial programs may, in the exercise of
equitable discretion, be appropriate remedies to treat the
condition that offends the Constitution. Of course, it must always
be shown that the constitutional violation caused the condition for
which remedial programs are mandated.
[
Footnote 18]
This Court has, from the beginning, looked to the District
Courts in desegregation cases, familiar as they are with the local
situations coming before them, to appraise the efforts of local
school authorities to carry out their constitutionally required
duties.
"Because of their proximity to local conditions . . . , the
[federal district] courts which originally heard these cases can
best perform this judicial appraisal."
Brown II, 349 U.S. at
349 U. S.
299.
[
Footnote 19]
Indeed, the District Judge took great pains to devise a workable
plan with a minimum of pupil transportation. For example, he sought
carefully to eliminate burdensome transportation of Negro children
to predominantly Negro schools, and to prevent the disruption, by
massive pupil reassignment, of racially mixed schools in stable
neighborhoods which had successfully undergone residential and
educational change.
[
Footnote 20]
Although the complaint in
Edelman ostensibly sought
only equitable relief, the plaintiff expressly requested "
a
permanent injunction enjoining the defendants to award to the
entire class of plaintiffs all [disability] benefits wrongfully
withheld.'" 415 U.S. at 415 U. S.
656.
[
Footnote 21]
Unlike the award in
Edelman, the injunction entered
here could not instantaneously restore the victims of unlawful
conduct to their rightful condition. Thus, the injunction here
looks to the future, not simply to presently compensating victims
for conduct and consequences completed in the past.
[
Footnote 22]
In contrast to
Edelman, there was no money award here
in favor of respondent Bradley or any members of his class. This
case simply does not involve individual citizens' conducting a raid
on the state treasury for an accrued monetary liability. The order
here is wholly prospective in the same manner that the decree
mandates vocational schools and assignments, for example.
[
Footnote 23]
Because of our conclusion, we do not reach either of the two
alternative arguments in support of the District Court's judgment,
namely, that the State of Michigan expressly waived its Eleventh
Amendment immunity by virtue of Mich.Stat.Ann. ยง 15.1023(7) (1975),
and that the Fourteenth Amendment,
ex proprio vigore,
works a
pro tanto repeal of the Eleventh Amendment.
Cf. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.
S. 445 (1976). Neither question was addressed by the
Court of Appeals, and we therefore do not pass on either issue.
MR JUSTICE MARSHALL, concurring.
I wholeheartedly join THE CHIEF JUSTICE's opinion for the Court.
My Brother POWELL's opinion prompts these additional comments.
What is, to me, most tragic about this case is that, in all
relevant respects, it is in no way unique. That a northern school
board has been found guilty of intentionally discriminatory acts
is, unfortunately, not unusual. That the academic development of
black children has been impaired by this wrongdoing is to be
expected. And, therefore, that a program
Page 433 U. S. 292
of remediation is necessary to supplement the primary remedy of
pupil reassignment is inevitable.
It is, of course, true, as MR JUSTICE POWELL notes, that the
Detroit School Board has belatedly recognized its responsibility
for the injuries that Negroes have suffered, and has joined in the
effort to remedy them. He may be right -- although I hope not --
that this makes the case "wholly different from any prior case,"
post this page. But I think it worth noting that the legal
issues would be no different if the Detroit School Board came to
this Court on the other side. The question before us still would be
the one posed by the State: is the remedy tailored to fit the scope
of the violation? And, as THE CHIEF JUSTICE convincingly
demonstrates, that question would have to be answered in the
affirmative in light of the findings of the District Court,
supported by abundant evidence.
Cf. Dayton Board of Education
v. Brinkman, post at
433 U. S.
414.
MR JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in the judgment.
The Court's opinion addresses this case as if it were
conventional desegregation litigation. The wide-ranging opinion
reiterates the familiar general principles drawn from the line of
precedents commencing with
Brown v. Board of Education,
347 U. S. 483
(1954), and including today's decision in
Dayton Board of
Education v. Brinkman, post, p.
433 U. S. 406. One
has to read the opinion closely to understand that the case, as it
finally reaches us, is wholly different from any prior case. I
write to emphasize its uniqueness, and the consequent limited
precedential effect of much of the Court's opinion.
Normally, the plaintiffs in this type of litigation are
students, parents, and supporting organizations that desire to
desegregate a school system alleged to be the product, in whole or
in part, of
de jure segregative action by the public
school authorities. The principal defendant is usually the
Page 433 U. S. 293
local board of education or school board. Occasionally, the
state board of education and state officials are joined as
defendants. This protracted litigation commenced in 1970 in this
conventional mold. In the intervening years, however, the posture
of the litigation has changed so drastically as to leave it largely
a friendly suit between the plaintiffs (respondents Bradley
et
al.) and the original principal defendant, the Detroit School
Board. These parties, antagonistic for years, have now joined
forces, apparently for the purpose of extracting funds from the
state treasury. As between the original principal parties -- the
plaintiffs and the Detroit School Board -- no case or controversy
remains on the issues now before us. The Board enthusiastically
supports the entire desegregation decree even though the decree
intrudes deeply on the Board's own decisionmaking powers. Indeed,
the present School Board proposed most of the educational
components included in the District Court's decree. The plaintiffs
originally favored a desegregation plan that would have required
more extensive transportation of pupils, and they did not initially
propose or endorse the educational components. In this Court,
however, the plaintiffs also support the decree of the District
Court as affirmed by the Court of Appeals. [
Footnote 2/1]
Thus the only complaining party is the State of Michigan (acting
through state officials), and its basic complaint concerns money,
not desegregation. It has been ordered to pay about $5,800,000 to
the Detroit School Board. This is one-half the estimated "excess
cost" of 4 of the 11 educational components
Page 433 U. S. 294
included in the desegregation decree: remedial reading,
in-service training of teachers, testing, and counseling. [
Footnote 2/2] The State, understandably
anxious to preserve the state budget from federal court control or
interference, now contests the decree on two grounds.
Page 433 U. S. 295
First, it is argued that the order to pay state funds violates
the Eleventh Amendment and principles of federalism. Ordinarily a
federal court's order that a State pay unappropriated funds to a
locality would raise the gravest constitutional issues.
See
generally San Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S.
1,
411 U. S. 40-42
(1973);
National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.
S. 833 (1976). But here, in a finding no longer subject
to review, the State has been adjudged a participant in the
constitutional violations, and the State therefore may be ordered
to participate prospectively in a remedy otherwise appropriate.
The State's second argument is one that normally would be
advanced vigorously by the school board. Relying on the established
principle that the scope of the remedy in a desegregation case is
determined and limited by the extent of the identified
constitutional violations,
Dayton Board of Education, post
at
433 U. S.
419-420;
Hills v. Glautreaux, 425 U.
S. 284,
425 U. S.
293-294 (1976);
Milliken v. Bradley,
418 U. S. 717,
418 U. S. 744
(1974);
Austin Independent School Dist. v. United States,
429 U.S. 990, 991 (1976) (POWELL, J., concurring), the State argues
that the District Court erred in ordering the system-wide expansion
of the four educational components mentioned above. It contends
that there has been no finding of a constitutional violation with
respect to the past operation of any of these programs, and it
insists that, without more specifically focused findings of this
sort, the decree exceeded the court's powers.
This argument is by no means a frivolous one. But the context in
which it is presented is so unusual that it would be appropriate to
dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. The argument is advanced
by the State, and not by the party primarily concerned. The
educational programs at issue are standard, and widely approved in
public education. The State Board normally would be enthusiastic
over enhancement of these programs so long as the local school
board could
Page 433 U. S. 296
fund them without requiring financial aid from the State. It is
equally evident that the State probably would resist a federal
court order requiring it to pay unappropriated state funds to the
local school board regardless of whether violations by the local
board justified the remedy. The State's interest in protecting its
own budget -- limited by legislative appropriations -- is a genuine
one. But it is not an interest that is related, except
fortuitously, to a claim that the desegregation remedy may have
exceeded the extent of the violations.
The State's reliance on the remedy issue contains a further
weakness, emphasizing the unusual character of this case. There is
no indication that the State objected -- certainly, it does not
object here -- to the inclusion in the District Court's decree of
the seven other educational components.
See n 2,
supra. Indeed, the State
expressly agreed to one of the most expensive components, the
establishment of vocational education centers, in a stipulation
obligating it to share the cost of construction equally with the
Detroit Board.
See App. to Pet. for Cert. 139a-144a.
Furthermore, the District Court's decree largely embodies the
original recommendation of the Detroit Board. Since local school
boards "have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing,
and solving [the] problems" generated by "[f]ull implementation of
. . . constitutional principles" in the local setting,
Brown v.
Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294,
349 U. S. 299
(1955), the State's limited challenge here is particularly lacking
in force.
Moreover, the District Court was faced with a school district in
exceptional disarray. It found the structure of the Detroit school
system "chaotic and incapable of effective administration." App. to
Pet. for Cert. 124a. The "general superintendent has little direct
authority."
Ibid. Each of the eight regional boards may be
preoccupied with "distribut[ing] local board patronage."
Id. at 125a. The
"local boards have diverted resources that would otherwise have
been
Page 433 U. S. 297
available for educational purposes to build new offices and
other facilities to house this administrative overload."
Ibid. The District Court continued:
"In addition to the administrative chaos, we know of no other
school system that is so enmeshed in politics. . . ."
". . . Rather than devoting themselves to the educational system
and the desegregative process, board members are busily engaged in
politics not only to assure their own re election, but also to
defeat others with whom they disagree."
Id. at 125a-126a (footnote omitted). Referring again to
the "political paralysis" and "inefficient bureaucracy" of the
system, the court also noted -- discouragingly -- that the election
then approaching "may well [result in] a board of education
consisting of members possessing no experience in education."
Id. at 126a. In this quite remarkable situation, it is
perhaps not surprising that the District Court virtually assumed
the role of school superintendent and school board. [
Footnote 2/3]
Page 433 U. S. 298
Given the foregoing unique circumstances, it seems to me that
the proper disposition of this case is to dismiss the writ of
certiorari as improvidently granted. But as the Court has chosen to
decide the case here, I join in the judgment as a result less
likely to prolong the disruption of education in Detroit than a
reversal or remand. Despite wide-ranging dicta in the Court's
opinion, the only issue decided is that the District Court's
findings as to specific constitutional violations justified the
four remedial educational components included in the desegregation
decree. In my view, it is at least arguable that the findings in
this respect were too generalized to meet the standards prescribed
by this Court.
See Dayton Board of Education, post, p.
433 U. S. 406. But
the majority views the record as justifying the conclusion that
"the need for educational components flowed directly from
constitutional violations by both state and local officials."
Ante at
433 U. S. 282.
[
Footnote 2/4] On that view of the
record, our settled doctrine requiring that the remedy be carefully
tailored to fit identified constitutional violations is reaffirmed
by today's result. I therefore concur in the judgment.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Until the case reached this Court, the plaintiffs apparently did
not view the educational components as necessary, or even
important, elements of a desegregation plan. These components were
not included in plans submitted by the plaintiffs, and, in briefs
filed below, there were indications that the plaintiffs viewed some
-- if not all -- of these components as being "wholly unrelated to
desegregation of students and faculty in schools." Brief for
Plaintiffs-Appellants 5 n. 6 in the Court of Appeals, No. 75-2018
(filed Dec. 29, 1975).
[
Footnote 2/2]
In addition to these four components, there were some seven
other educational directives that are not contested here. (The
details are set forth in the opinions and decrees of August 15,
1975, November 4 and 20, 1975, and May 11, 1976, all of which are
reproduced in full in the appendix to the petition for certiorari.
The first two such opinions also have been published.
402 F.
Supp. 1096;
411 F.
Supp. 943.) Perhaps the most expansive component was the
District Court's order that the city and state boards create five
vocational centers "devoted to in-depth occupational preparation in
the construction trades, transportation and health services." 402
F. Supp. at 1140. As noted in the text,
infra at
433 U. S. 296,
a compromise was reached as to these centers, and the State entered
into a stipulation obligating it to share the cost of providing
them.
See App. to Pet. for Cert. 139a-144a. The other
educational components ordered by the District Court included: (i)
"two new technical high schools in which business education will be
the central part of the curriculum," App. 75a; (ii) a new
curriculum for the vocational education courses in the Detroit
schools, including the requirement that an additional "grade 13" be
added to afford expanded educational opportunities, 402 F. Supp. at
1140; (iii) the inclusion of "multi-ethnic studies" in the
curriculum, with a request for federal funds to support "in-service
training for teachers involved in such programs,"
id. at
1144, App. to Pet. for Cert. 147a; (iv) a "Uniform Code of
Conduct," which the Board was ordered to develop pursuant to
guidelines established by the court, 402 F. Supp. at 1142, App. to
Pet. for Cert. 148a; (v) a specific plan for "co-curricular
activities" with other artistic and educational institutions in the
area, to be developed by the Board and submitted for court
approval, 402 F. Supp. at 1143; and (vi) a "community relations
program" prescribed in remarkable detail by the court.
Ibid., App. to Pet. for Cert. 131a-135a.
In most, if not all, instances, the court ordered that each of
these programs be "comprehensive," and that reports be made to the
court. One may doubt whether there is any precedent for a federal
court's exercising such extensive control over the purely
educational responsibilities of a school board.
[
Footnote 2/3]
It merits emphasizing that the School Board invited this
assumption of power. Indeed, the District Court had complimented
the Board on its willingness to "implement any desegregation order
the court may issue." 402 F. Supp. at 1125. But, at one point,
there were serious second thoughts. In its brief in the Court of
Appeals, the Board expressed grave concern as to what the District
Court's assumption of the Board's powers could do to the school
system financially:
"[O]n May 11, 1976 . . . , the District Court ordered
equalization of all school facilities and buildings preparatory to
the 1976-77 school term; continuance of the comprehensive
construction and renovation program; [and implementation of the
educational components summarized in
433
U.S. 267fn2/2|>n. 2,
supra]. . . . "
"
Even without actual dollar figures, the financial impact of
these orders could easily destroy the educational program of the
Detroit school system. The financing of these components by
the Detroit school system would only mean a concomitant elimination
of existing programs."
"It is virtually impossible for the Detroit Board of Education
to reorder its priorities when it is already operating on a
woefully inadequate budget that cannot provide a minimal quality
educational program.
Any attempt to redistribute available
resources will cause further deterioration in ongoing educational
programs, and will merely result in robbing Peter to pay
Paul."
Reprinted in the Appendix to the opinion of the Court of
Appeals, 540 F.2d 229, 25251 (CA6) (emphasis added).
To say the least, the financial impact of the court's decree was
profoundly disturbing. But apparently the financially pressed Board
was willing to surrender a substantial portion of its
decisionmaking authority in return for the prospect of enhanced
state funding. For by the time it made this statement to the Court
of Appeals, the Board knew that the District Court had exercised
its power to do what the state legislature had chosen not to do:
appropriate funds from the state treasury for these particular
programs of the Detroit schools.
[
Footnote 2/4]
The Court's opinion states, for example, that the District
Court
"expressly found that the two components of testing and
counseling, as then administered in Detroit's schools, were
infected with the discriminatory bias of a segregated school
system."
Ante at
433 U. S.
274-275.