Title: The Detroit school busing case : Milliken v. Bradley and the controversy over desegregation /
Authors: Baugh, Joyce A.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Milliken, William G., Trials, litigation, etc.; Bradley, Ronald Trials, litigation, etc.; Detroit (Mich.).; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Trials, litigation, etc.; Discrimination in education Law and legislation United States; Discrimination in education Law and legislation Michigan Detroit.; Busing for school integration Law and legislation United States.; Busing for school integration Law and legislation Michigan Detroit.; Michigan Trials, litigation, etc.
Abstract: Overview: In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, racial equality in American public education appeared to have a bright future. But for many that brightness dimmed considerably following the Supreme Court's decision in Milliken v. Bradley (1974), which emerged from Detroit's efforts to use cross-district busing to desegregate its schools and was the first such case to originate outside the South. In its controversial 5-4 decision, the Supreme ruled that, since there was no evidence that the suburban school districts had deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation, the lower court's remedy of busing school children across municipal lines was "wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown--which the Court said could only address de jure, not de facto segregation. In this first book-length account of the case, Joyce Baugh provides a richly detailed account of how and why Milliken came about and analyzes its subsequent impact on both civil rights jurisprudence and public education in American cities.
Contents: From Plessy to Brown : the rise and demise of "separate but equal" -- Metropolitan Detroit : from boomtown to ticking time bomb -- Separate but unequal, northern style -- Act 48 : decentralization trumps desegregation -- Cross-district integration : remedying segregation or penalizing the suburbs? -- Getting off the bus : Milliken in the Supreme Court -- Milliken II and the retreat from school desegregation.