Source: https://www.clearinghouse.net/detail.php?id=14636
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:17:14+00:00

Document:
This desegregation case ran from 1964 to 1993, governing the schools in Montgomery County, Alabama, a school district that includes both the City of Montgomery and the surrounding county.
In 1964, the plaintiffs, several school children, brought this action in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama against the Montgomery County Board of Education, asking the court to enjoin the Board's practice of operating a dual school district. They were represented by, among others, Jack Greenberg. The court (Judge Frank Johnson) made the United States amicus curiae. On July 31, 1964, Judge Johnson granted the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction, finding that the Board was unconstitutionally operating a segregated school district. Judge Johnson ordered the Board to take necessary steps to desegregate, starting with first, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades, through the Alabama School Placement Law (a "freedom of choice" law). Carr v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 232 F.Supp. 705 (M.D. Ala. 1964).
On March 22, 1966, Judge Johnson entered a new order in the case, requiring the Board to desegregate grades 1-4 and 7-12 starting with the 1966 school term and grades 5 and 6, starting with the 1967 school term, all pursuant to the freedom of choice plan. Judge Johnson's order also included other measures relating to faculty hiring and retention, facilities and programs. 253 F.Supp. 306 (M.D. Ala. 1966).
On February 24, 1968, Judge Johnson issued another opinion in the case. The United States and the plaintiffs had filed two motions requesting that the defendants take further steps to desegregate the school system relating to, among other things, faculty. The court also noted the woeful lack of progress that the Board had made: For example, with 15,000 black children and 25,000 white children in the district, only 550 black students were attending white schools and no white children were attending previously all-black schools. Assessing all of the evidence, Judge Johnson declared that "the defendants have failed to discharge the affirmative duty the law places on them to eliminate the operation of a dual school system." 289 F.Supp. 647, 652 (M.D. Ala. 1968). He also expressed frustration with the Board's delays, and he presented a supplement to the initial desegregation plan, including a specific target ratio for teacher reassignment, rejecting the Board's argument that it was powerless because no teachers had volunteered to be reassigned.
On August 1, 1968, the Fifth Circuit largely affirmed the District Court's order -- however, it eliminated the fixed ratios for teacher reassignment. Montgomery County Board of Education v. Carr, 400 F.2d 1(5th Cir. 1968).
The Fifth Circuit then denied rehearing en banc over a vigorous dissent, which declared: "Loath as judges are to articulate constitutional goals or actions in the oft-disparaged mechanical terms of arithmetic, this is an area where it is not the spirit, but the bodies which count." Montgomery County Board of Education v. Carr, 402 F.2d 782, 786 (mem).
The plaintiffs appealed the decision up to the Supreme Court, which overturned the Fifth Circuit on the teacher ratios and approved the District Court's plan. United States v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 395 U.S. 225 (1969).
On August 19, 1969, Judge Johnson found that the freedom-of-choice plan in effect since 1967 was no longer effective. He ordered the parties to submit alternate plans, and on February 25, 1970, he adopted the Board's plan. The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit. The plaintiffs argued on appeal for the adoption of a new plan but the Fifth Circuit maintained that "they cannot point to any basic flaw in the plan's overall effectiveness." Carr v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 395 U.S. 225, 385 (5th Cir. 1970). Nonetheless, despite largely affirming Judge Johnson's decision, the Fifth Circuit remanded the case for revision of the majority-to-minority transfer provision to increase transportation options.
The plan remained largely unaltered for a few years until changes in residential patterns and additional decisions by the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court took hold. Thus, in 1973, Judge Johnson asked the parties to submit suggestions for further desegregation proposals. After analyzing the options, the court agreed to the Board's proposal, notwithstanding "the existence of a small number of predominately black schools", concluding that "is not in and of itself a sign that a dual school system exists." Carr v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 377 F.Supp. 1123, 1133 (M.D. Ala. May 22, 1974). Thus, he concluded, the "neighborhood" plan was constitutionally adequate for elementary schools, as was the middle- and high school plan.
The plaintiffs appealed the decision, but on April 11, 1975, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision. Judge Goldberg offered a lengthy dissent in which he contended that the Board's plans were constitutionally inadequate and that the District Court was wrong to ignore the student assignment element and hold that the five other Green factors for finding unitary status were sufficient to overcome what he saw as the inadequacy in reassignment. Carr v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 511 F.2d 1374 (5th Cir. 1975).
On May 28, 1993, this court declared that the Montgomery County BoE had achieved a unitary school system and released the BoE from the court's jurisdiction. See Carr v. Montgomery County Bd. of Educ., Civ.A. No. 64–2072 (M.D.Ala. May 28, 1993) (order dismissing case). Dismissal of the Montgomery County school desegregation case, however, did not mean the end of the M to M program. Prior to dismissal of the case, the Montgomery County BoE had adopted a resolution stating that the M to M program would continue “subject to any recommendation the Superintendent may make as to the manner in which the program operates.” See Res. of Montgomery County Bd. of Educ. (May 26, 1995). Pursuant to this resolution, the M to M program still exists today, but it is no longer a court-ordered program. Instead, it is a voluntary program maintained by the Montgomery County BoE to assist in preserving the unitary status of the school system.
Young By & Through Young v. Montgomery Cty. (Alabama) Bd. of Educ., 922 F. Supp. 544, 546–47 (M.D. Ala. 1996).
In that case court explained that while the district had achieved unitary status, the Board had voluntarily agreed to maintain the majority-to-minority program in place.

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