Freeman v. Pitts
118 L. Ed. 2d 108, 1992 U.S. LEXIS 2114, 503 U.S. 467 (1992)
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Rule of Law:
A federal district court has the discretion to withdraw judicial supervision over a school district in incremental stages, relinquishing control over aspects of a desegregation plan with which the district has complied, even if full compliance has not been achieved in all areas.
Facts:
- In 1969, the DeKalb County School System (DCSS) in Georgia, which was formerly segregated by law, was placed under a federal court-ordered desegregation decree.
- The initial 1969 plan, based on neighborhood schools, successfully desegregated the student population, which at the time was 5.6% black.
- Between 1969 and 1986, DeKalb County experienced massive and rapid demographic shifts independent of any school board actions, largely driven by suburbanization and migration from Atlanta.
- As a result of these demographic changes, the county's population became racially divided, with the northern part becoming predominantly white and the southern part becoming predominantly black.
- By 1986, the student population of DCSS had transformed from 5.6% black to 47% black.
- This residential segregation led to a significant racial imbalance in the student populations of individual schools, with many schools in the south becoming over 90% black and some in the north remaining over 80% white.
- DCSS implemented voluntary measures, such as a Majority-to-Minority transfer program and magnet schools, to counteract the effects of residential segregation on school demographics.
Procedural Posture:
- In 1968, black schoolchildren and their parents (respondents) filed a class action lawsuit against the DeKalb County School System (petitioners) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
- In 1969, the District Court entered a consent decree approving a desegregation plan and retained jurisdiction to oversee its implementation.
- In 1986, DCSS, the petitioner, filed a motion for final dismissal, seeking a judicial declaration that it had achieved unitary status.
- The District Court found DCSS had achieved unitary status in student assignments, transportation, physical facilities, and extracurricular activities, and consequently relinquished its supervision over those areas.
- The District Court also found that DCSS had not achieved unitary status in teacher and principal assignments, resource allocation, and quality of education, and retained supervision in those areas.
- Both parties appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's order of partial withdrawal, holding that a district court must retain full remedial authority over all aspects of a school system until it achieves unitary status in all categories simultaneously for several years.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Eleventh Circuit's decision.
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Issue:
Does a federal district court have the discretion to withdraw its supervision and control over a school system in discrete areas where the system has achieved compliance with a desegregation decree, even if the system has not yet achieved unitary status in all operational areas?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Kennedy
Yes. A district court has discretion to relinquish supervision incrementally over those aspects of a school system that have come into compliance with a desegregation decree. The court’s remedial power is flexible and intended to correct the specific constitutional violation. Once a school district has remedied the racial imbalance caused by its prior de jure segregation, it is under no constitutional duty to remedy subsequent imbalances caused by independent demographic factors. The ultimate objective of federal supervision is to remedy the violation and restore control of the school system to local authorities at the earliest practicable date.
Concurring - Justice Scalia
Yes. The court correctly holds that the desegregation decree cannot be used to remedy racial imbalances caused by private demographic shifts rather than by the prior de jure discrimination. The legal presumption established in Green—that any current racial imbalance is a vestige of past discrimination—has become increasingly counterfactual over time. As decades pass, it becomes absurd to assume that constitutional violations from the 1960s or earlier continue to have an appreciable effect, and courts should revert to ordinary legal principles requiring plaintiffs to prove intent and causation.
Concurring - Justice Souter
Yes. While a court can withdraw supervision over a remedied aspect of a desegregation plan, it must first conduct a thorough causal inquiry. The court should make findings on whether the demographic shifts themselves were caused by the prior de jure segregation or its lingering effects. It must also determine if remaining vestiges of segregation in one unremedied area (e.g., faculty assignments) could foreseeably cause resegregation in the area where supervision is being relinquished (e.g., student assignments).
Concurring - Justice Blackmun
Yes. A district court may relinquish day-to-day 'supervision and control' over a subpart of a school system, but it must retain overall 'jurisdiction' until all vestiges of segregation have been eliminated. The District Court in this case failed to properly analyze whether the school board’s own actions, or inactions, were a contributing cause of the current racial imbalance. The burden remains on the school district to prove that any racial imbalance is not traceable to its past or present segregative actions, a burden the District Court did not hold DCSS to.
Analysis:
This decision marks a significant evolution in desegregation jurisprudence by authorizing a phased withdrawal of federal court supervision. It established that a school district's constitutional duty is to remedy the vestiges of its own past discrimination, not to counteract racial imbalances caused by subsequent, independent demographic changes. This provides a practical path for school districts under long-term decrees to regain local control incrementally, shifting the focus of desegregation litigation from achieving perpetual racial balance to determining the causal link between past violations and current conditions. The ruling places a greater burden on courts and plaintiffs to prove that contemporary racial disparities are directly traceable to the prior de jure system.
