Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board

Federal Trials and Great Debates 

in United States History

Case Summary:

• Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board was one several prominent cases challenging school 

segregation in the 1950s and 60s.

• Following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954 and 1955), Judge J. 

Skelly Wright ordered the desegregation of New Orleans’ schools.

• Local authorities rebelled against Judge Wright’s orders, but he repeatedly ruled against attempts 

to evade desegregation.

• The case shows the complexity of federalism and the difficulty of enforcing unpopular rulings.

History of the Case:

In September 1952, Oliver Bush, an African-American insurance salesman and father of eight, filed a 

federal suit in New Orleans, LA along with 34 other plaintiffs seeking to desegregate the city’s schools.

Like many African-American parents in the city, the plaintiffs were unhappy with the allocation of funds for

“colored” schools, which received a disproportionately small share of the city’s school budget. They also 

claimed that student-to-teacher ratios were significantly higher in these schools. This treatment, they 

argued, violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbade any state from denying “to any person within 

its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Beginning in the late nineteenth century, federal courts 

had interpreted this language to permit separate facilities for members of different racial groups so long 

as those facilities were of equal quality. In a string of cases in the 1940s and early 1950s, however, the 

Supreme Court of the United States had begun to call this rule into question by invalidating segregation 

policies in some contexts. Bush, and plaintiffs like him around the country, hoped to persuade the courts 

to abandon the so-called “separate-but-equal” rule entirely.

The legal issues in the case were broadly similar to those in Brown v. Board of Education, a 

pending Supreme Court case involving segregated schools in Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, and 

Virginia. The parties agreed to halt the proceedings in Bush in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling 

since lower federal courts are bound by Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court did not announce 

its decision until 1954. When it did so, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for unanimous Court that 

segregated school facilities were inherently unequal and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment. In 1955, the Court issued a further ruling in Brown holding that states must 

desegregate their schools with “all deliberate speed,” an ambiguous phrase that some took as an 

invitation to delay and resist integration.

The courts have limited powers to enforce their judgements and often rely on state and local 

governments to follow and implement their orders. In most instances, policymakers and law enforcement 

officers respect the legitimacy of the courts and operate in good faith even if they personally disagree with 

rulings. Desegregation, however, provoked a vigorous and violent backlash in the south that threatened 

to undermine the rule of law and the balance of federal-state relations.

Louisianans were among the fiercest resisters of integration. In 1954, the state ratified an 

amendment to its constitution requiring school segregation on the grounds that it would further the health, 

safety, and morals of its inhabitants. The amendment made a clumsy attempt to sidestep Brown by 

stating school segregation was “not because of race.” Proceedings resumed in Bush in 1955, and the 

following February a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled 

that both the state constitutional provision and state statutes requiring segregation were unconstitutional. 

The same day as the panel issued its ruling, District Judge J. Skelly Wright, a member of the panel from 
New Orleans who would preside over many of the proceedings in the case, issued an order requiring the 

city’s schools to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.”

However, these rulings did not end resistance to desegregation. In 1956, the state amended its 

constitution to bar lawsuits against school boards. Judge Wright declared the amendment 

unconstitutional. In 1958, the legislature passed laws empowering the governor to close any “racially 

mixed schools[.]” Another new state law commanded that no child could be forced to attend a racially 

“commingled school” and offered grants for students attending segregated private schools. Despite this 

activity, local and state authorities did little or nothing to desegregate schools as Judge Wright had 

required. In July 1959, Judge Wright issued an order compelling the city to develop a plan to desegregate 

its schools by May 1960. When officials refused to comply, Judge Wright initiated his own plan, ordering a 

staggered desegregation beginning with the first grade in the school term beginning in September (a 

deadline he later agreed to delay to November). The school board then proposed an alternative plan that 

required black students wishing to attend “white” schools to request a transfer. After testing the 137 black 

transfer applicants, the board allowed only five (eventually reduced to four) students to do so.

Even this limited plan sparked political turmoil. In November 1960, with desegregation imminent, 

the state legislature attempted to assume control of the city’s school district itself. The body passed an 

“interposition” law prohibiting federal officers, including judges, from taking actions the state deemed 

unconstitutional. It also authorized the arrest of federal judges or other officials attempting to enforce 

desegregation. School officials called a holiday for the day desegregation was set to begin. Judge Wright 

issued another broad set of orders restraining the enforcement of the state policies and compelling the 

gradual desegregation of the city’s schools in the face of the fierce political backlash. In decisions later 

upheld by the Supreme Court, another three-judge panel ruled the interposition law unconstitutional and 

issued a broad injunction restraining approximately 700 state and local officials from countermanding 

integration. 

Although some black students began to attend schools previously reserved for white students, 

the fight did not end. Many white parents withdrew their students from school and state officials passed 

further measures designed to thwart desegregation. Shortly before he moved to the U.S. Court of 

Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in April 1961, Judge Wright ordered the desegregation of 

grades one through six, though his successor adopted a slower approach. While judicial intervention 

eventually ended de jure segregation in New Orleans, moreover, residential and school choice patterns 

meant that many schools remained racially homogeneous.

Legal Issues:

• Were the measures the state legislature enacted to preserve segregation constitutional?

• What did it mean for New Orleans to desegregate with “all deliberate speed?”

• What powers did the federal courts have to compel desegregation?

Questions for Discussion:

• The “all deliberate speed” standard relied on district courts and local officials to balance the 

difficulty of integrating schools in some areas against the risk of improper delays. Did Judge 

Wright strike that balance correctly in Bush? What might the response to a more rapid 

desegregation order have been?

• Critics of the courts’ actions in Bush and similar cases argued that unelected federal judges were 

acting undemocratically. Was this critique correct? When should judges defer to elected 

legislatures?

• State officials argued that they had a duty to protect their citizens from unconstitutional acts by 

the federal government. Were they correct? Would your answer change if the federal courts had 

ordered re-segregation and the state authorities rebelled?