Court Opinion

ID: 9425392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:35.49373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.241842
License: Public Domain

*191Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This school desegregation case concerns the Denver, Colorado, school system. That system has never been operated under a constitutional or statutory provision that mandated or permitted racial segregation in public education.1 Rather, the gravamen of this action, brought in June 1969 in the District Court for the District of Colorado by parents of Denver schoolchildren, is that respondent School Board alone, by use of various techniques such as the manipulation of student attendance zones, schoolsite selection and a neighborhood school policy, created or maintained racially or ethnically (or both racially and ethnically) segregated schools throughout the school district, entitling petitioners to a decree directing desegregation of the entire school district.
The boundaries of the school district are coterminous with the boundaries of the city and county of Denver. There were in 1969, 119 schools2 with 96,580 pupils *192in the school system. In early 1969, the respondent School Board adopted three resolutions, Resolutions 1520, 1524, and 1531, designed to desegregate the schools in the Park Hill area in the northeast portion of the city. Following an election which produced a Board majority opposed to the resolutions, the resolutions were rescinded and replaced with a voluntary student transfer program. Petitioners then filed this action, requesting an injunction against the rescission of the resolutions and an order directing that the respondent School Board desegregate and afford equal educational opportunity “for the School District as a whole.” App. 32a. The District Court found that by the construction of a new, relatively small elementary school, Barrett, in the middle of the Negro community west of Park Hill, by the gerrymandering of student attendance zones, by the use of so-called “optional zones,” and by the excessive use of mobile classroom units, among other things, the respondent School Board had engaged over almost a decade after 1960 in an unconstitutional policy of deliberate racial segregation with respect to the Park Hill schools.3 The court therefore ordered the Board to desegregate those schools through the implementation of the three rescinded resolutions. 303 F. Supp. 279 and 289 (1969).
Segregation in Denver schools is not limited, however, to the schools in the Park Hill area, and not satisfied with their success in obtaining relief for Park Hill, petitioners pressed their prayer that the District Court order desegregation of all segregated schools in the city of Denver, particularly the heavily segregated schools in the core city area.4 But that court concluded that its *193finding of a purposeful and systematic program of racial segregation affecting thousands of students in the Park Hill area did not, in itself, impose on the School Board an affirmative duty to eliminate segregation throughout the school district. Instead, the court fractionated the district and held that petitioners had to make a fresh showing of de jure segregation in each area of the city for which they sought relief. Moreover, the District Court held that its finding of intentional segregation in Park Hill was not in any sense material to the question of segregative intent in other areas of the city. Under this restrictive approach, the District Court concluded that petitioners’ evidence of intentionally discriminatory School Board action in areas of the district other than Park Hill was insufficient to “dictate the conclusion that this is de jure segregation which calls for an all-out effort to desegregate. It is more like de facto segregation, with respect to which the rule is that the court cannot order desegregation in order to provide a better balance.” 313 P. Supp. 61, 73 (1970).
Nevertheless, the District Court went on to hold that the proofs established that the segregated core city schools were educationally inferior to the predominantly “white” or “Anglo” schools in other parts of the district — that is, “separate facilities . . . unequal in the quality of education provided.” Id., at 83. Thus, the court held that, under the doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), respondent School Board constitutionally “must at a minimum . . . offer an equal educational opportunity,” 313 F. Supp., at 83, and, therefore, *194although all-out desegregation “could not be decreed, . . . the only feasible and constitutionally acceptable program — the only program which furnishes anything approaching substantial equality — is a system of desegregation and integration which provides compensatory education in an integrated environment.” 313 F. Supp. 90, 96 (1970). The District Court then formulated a varied remedial plan to that end which was incorporated in the Final Decree.5
Respondent School Board appealed, and petitioners cross-appealed, to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. That court sustained the District Court’s finding that the Board had engaged in an unconstitutional policy of deliberate racial segregation with respect to the Park Hill schools and affirmed the Final Decree in that respect. As to the core city schools, however, the Court of Appeals reversed the legal determination of the District Court that those schools were maintained in violation *195of the Fourteenth Amendment because of the unequal educational opportunity afforded, and therefore set aside so much of the Final Decree as required desegregation and educational improvement programs for those schools. 445 F. 2d 990 (1971). In reaching that result, the Court of Appeals also disregarded respondent School Board's deliberate racial segregation policy respecting the Park Hill schools and accepted the District Court’s finding that petitioners had not proved that respondent had a like policy addressed specifically to the core city schools.
We granted petitioners’ petition for certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ judgment insofar as it reversed that part of the District Court’s Final Decree as pertained to the core city schools. 404 U. S. 1036 (1972). The judgment of the Court of Appeals in that respect is modified to vacate instead of reverse the Final Decree. The respondent School Board has cross-petitioned for certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it affirmed that part of the District Court’s Final Decree as pertained to the Park Hill schools. Docket No. 71-572, School District No. 1 v. Keyes. The cross-petition is denied.
I
Before turning to the primary question we decide today, a word must be said about the District Court’s method of defining a “segregated” school. Denver is a triethnic, as distinguished from a bi-racial, community. The overall racial and ethnic composition of the Denver public schools is 66% Anglo, 14% Negro, and 20% His-pano.6 The District Court, in assessing the question of *196de jure segregation in the core city schools, preliminarily resolved that Negroes and Hispanos should not be placed in the same category to establish the segregated character of a school. 313 F. Supp., at 69. Later, in determining the schools that were likely to produce an inferior educational opportunity, the court concluded that a school would be considered inferior only if it had “a concentration of either Negro or His-pano students in the general area of 70 to 75 percent.” Id., at 77. We intimate no opinion whether the District Court’s 70%-to-75% requirement was correct. The District Court used those figures to signify educationally inferior schools, and there is no suggestion in the record that those same figures were or would be used to define a “segregated” school in the de jure context. What is or is not a segregated school will necessarily depend on the facts of each particular case. In addition to the racial and ethnic composition of a school’s student body, other factors, such as the racial and ethnic composition of faculty and staff and the community and administration attitudes toward the school, must be taken into consideration. The District Court has recognized these specific factors as elements of the definition of a “segregated” school, id., at 74, and we may therefore infer that the court will consider them again on remand.
*197We conclude, however, that the District Court erred in separating Negroes and Hispanos for purposes of defining a "segregated” school. We have held that His-panos constitute an identifiable class for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475 (1954). See also United States v. Texas Education Agency, 467 F. 2d 848 (CA5 1972) (en banc); Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District, 467 F. 2d 142 (CA5 1972) (en banc); Alvarado v. El Paso Independent School District, 445 F. 2d 1011 (CA5 1971); Soria v. Oxnard School District, 328 F. Supp. 155 (CD Cal. 1971); Romero v. Weakley, 226 F. 2d 399 (CA9 1955). Indeed, the District Court recognized this in classifying predominantly Hispano schools as "segregated” schools in their own right. But there is also much evidence that in the Southwest Hispanos and Negroes have a great many things in common. The United States Commission on Civil Rights has recently published two Reports on Hispano education in the Southwest.7 Focusing on students in the States of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, the Commission concluded that Hispanos suffer from the same educational inequities as Negroes and American Indians.8 In fact, the District Court itself recognized that “[o]ne of the things which the Hispano has in common with the Negro is economic and cultural deprivation *198and discrimination.” 313 F. Supp., at 69. This is agreement that, though of different origins, Negroes and His-panos in Denver suffer identical discrimination in .treatment when compared with the treatment afforded Anglo students. In that circumstance, we think petitioners are entitled to have schools with a combined predominance of Negroes and Hispanos included in the category of “segregated” schools.
II
In our view, the only other question that requires our decision at this time is that subsumed in Question 2 of the questions presented by petitioners, namely, whether the District Court and the Court of Appeals applied an incorrect legal standard in addressing petitioners’ contention that respondent School Board engaged in an unconstitutional policy of deliberate segregation in the core city schools. Our conclusion is that those courts did not apply the correct standard in addressing that contention.9
Petitioners apparently concede for the purposes of this case that in the case of a school system like Denver’s, where no statutory dual system has ever existed, plaintiffs must prove not only that segregated schooling exists but also that it was brought about or maintained by intentional state action. Petitioners proved that for almost a decade after 1960 respondent School Board had engaged in an unconstitutional policy of deliberate racial segregation in the Park Hill schools. Indeed, the District Court found that “[bjetween 1960 and 1969 the Board’s policies *199with respect to these northeast Denver schools show an undeviating purpose to isolate Negro students” in segregated schools "while preserving the Anglo character of [other] schools.” 303 F. Supp., at 294. This finding did not relate to an insubstantial or trivial fragment of the school system. On the contrary, respondent School Board was found guilty of following a deliberate segregation policy at schools attended, in 1969, by 37.69% of Denver’s total Negro school population, including one-fourth of the Negro elementary pupils, over two-thirds of the Negro junior high pupils, and over two-fifths of the Negro high school pupils.10 In addition, *200there was uncontroverted evidence that teachers and staff had for years been assigned on the basis of a minority teacher to a minority school throughout the school system. Respondent argues, however, that a finding of state-imposed segregation as to a substantial portion of the school system can be viewed in isolation from the rest of the district, and that even if state-imposed segregation does exist in a substantial part of the Denver school system, it does not follow that the District Court could predicate on that fact a finding that the entire school system is a dual system. We do not agree. We have never suggested that plaintiffs in school desegregation cases must bear the burden of proving the elements of de jure segregation as to each and every school or each and every student within the school system. Rather, we have held that where plaintiffs prove that a current condition of segregated schooling exists within a school district where a dual system was compelled or authorized by statute at the time of our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), the State automatically assumes an affirmative duty “to effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system,” Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 301 (1955) (Brown II), see also Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 437-438 (1968), that is, to eliminate from the public schools within their school system “all vestiges of state-imposed segregation.” Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 15 (1971);11
*201This is not a case, however, where a statutory dual system has ever existed. Nevertheless, where-plaintiffs prove that the school authorities have carried out a systematic program of segregation affecting a substantial portion of the students, schools, teachers, and facilities within the school system, it is only common sense to conclude that there exists a predicate for a finding of the existence of a dual school system. Several considerations support this conclusion. First, it is obvious that a practice of concentrating Negroes in certain schools by structuring attendance zones or designating “feeder” schools on the basis of race has the reciprocal effect of keeping other nearby schools predominantly white.12 Similarly, the practice of building a school — such as the Barrett Elementary School in this case — to a certain size and in a certain location, “with conscious knowledge that it would *202be a segregated school,” 303 F. Supp., at 285, has a substantial reciprocal effect on the racial composition of other nearby schools. So also, the use of mobile classrooms, the drafting of student transfer policies, the transportation of students, and the assignment of faculty and staff, on racially identifiable bases, have the clear effect of earmarking schools according to their racial composition, and this, in turn, together with the elements of student assignment and school construction, may have a profound reciprocal effect on the racial composition of residential neighborhoods within a metropolitan area, thereby causing further racial concentration within the schools. We recognized this in Swann when we said:
“They [school authorities] must decide questions of location and capacity in light of population growth, finances, land values, site availability, through an almost endless list of factors to be considered. The result of this will be a decision which, when combined with one technique or another of student assignment, will determine the racial composition of the student body in each school in the system. Over the long run, the consequences of the choices will be far reaching. People gravitate toward school facilities, just as schools are located in response to the needs of people. The location of schools may thus influence the patterns of residential development of a metropolitan area and have important impact on composition of inner-city neighborhoods.
“In the past, choices in this respect have been used as a potent weapon for creating or maintaining a state-segregated school system. In addition to the classic pattern of building schools specifically intended for Negro or white students, school authorities have sometimes, since Brown, closed schools *203which appeared likely to become racially mixed through changes in neighborhood residential patterns. This was sometimes accompanied by building new schools in the areas of white suburban expansion farthest from Negro population centers in order to maintain the separation of the races with a minimum departure from the formal principles of ‘neighborhood zoning.’ Such a policy does more than simply influence the short-run composition of the student body of a new school. It may well promote segregated residential patterns which, when combined with ‘neighborhood zoning,’ further lock the school system into the mold of separation of the races. Upon a proper showing a district court may consider this in fashioning a remedy.” 402 U. S., at 20-21.
In short, common sense dictates the conclusion that racially inspired school board actions have an impact beyond the particular schools that are the subjects of those actions. This is not to say, of course, that there can never be a case in which the geographical structure of, or the natural boundaries within, a school district may have the effect of dividing the district into separate, identifiable and unrelated units. Such a determination is essentially a question of fact to be resolved by the trial court in the first instance, but such cases must be rare. In the absence of such a determination, proof of state-imposed segregation in a substantial portion of the district will suffice to support a finding by the trial court of the existence of a dual system. Of course, where that finding is made, as in cases involving statutory dual systems, the school authorities have an affirmative duty “to effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system.” Brown II, supra, at 301.
*204On remand, therefore, the District Court should decide in the first instance whether respondent School Board's deliberate racial segregation policy with respect to the Park Hill schools constitutes the entire Denver school system a dual school system. We observe that on the record now before us there is indication that Denver is not a school district which might be divided into separate, identifiable and unrelated units. The District Court stated, in its summary of findings as to the Park Hill schools, that there was “a high degree of interrelationship among these schools, so that any action by the Board affecting the racial composition of one would almost certainly have an effect on the others.” 303 F. Supp., at 294. And there was cogent evidence that the ultimate effect of the Board’s actions in Park Hill was not limited to that area: the three 1969 resolutions designed to desegregate the Park Hill schools changed the attendance patterns of at least 29 schools attended by almost one-third of the pupils in the Denver school system.13 This suggests that the official segregation in Park Hill affected the racial composition of schools throughout the district.
On the other hand, although the District Court did not state this, or indeed any, reason why the Park Hill finding was disregarded when attention was turned to the core city schools — beyond saying that the Park Hill and core city areas were in its view “different”— the areas, although adjacent to each other, are separated by Colorado Boulevard, a six-lane highway. From the record, it is difficult to assess the actual significance of Colorado Boulevard to the Denver school system. The Boulevard runs the length of the school district, but at *205least two elementary schools, Teller and Steck, have attendance zones which cross the Boulevard. Moreover, the District Court, although referring to the Boulevard as “a natural dividing line,” 303 F. Supp., at 282, did not feel constrained to limit its consideration of de jure segregation in the Park Hill area to those schools east of the Boulevard. The court found that by building Barrett Elementary School west of the Boulevard and by establishing the Boulevard as the eastern boundary of the Barrett attendance zone, the Board was able to maintain for a number of years the Anglo character of the Park Hill schools. This suggests that Colorado Boulevard is not to be regarded as the type of barrier that of itself could confine the impact of the Board’s actions to an identifiable area of the school district, perhaps because a major highway is generally not such an effective buffer between adjoining areas. Cf. Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 402 U. S. 33 (1971). But this is a factual question for resolution by the District Court on remand. In any event, inquiry whether the District Court and the Court of Appeals applied the correct legal standards in addressing petitioners’ contention of deliberate segregation in the core city schools is not at an end even if it be true that Park Hill may be separated from the rest of the Denver school district as a separate, identifiable, and unrelated unit.
Ill
The District Court proceeded on the premise that the finding as to the Park Hill schools was irrelevant to the consideration of the rest of the district, and began its examination of the core city schools by requiring that petitioners prove all of the essential elements of de jure segregation — that is, stated simply, a current condition of segregation resulting from intentional state action *206directed specifically to the core city schools.14 The segregated character of the core city schools could not be and is not denied. Petitioners’ proof showed that at the time of trial 22 of the schools in the core city area were less than 30% in Anglo enrollment and 11 of the schools were less than 10% Anglo.15 Petitioners also introduced substantial evidence demonstrating the existence of a disproportionate racial and ethnic composition of faculty and staff at these schools.
On the question of segregative intent, petitioners presented evidence tending to show that the Board, through its actions over a period of years, intentionally created and maintained the segregated character of the core city schools. Respondents countered this evidence by arguing that the segregation in these schools is the result of a racially neutral “neighborhood school policy” *207and that the acts of which petitioners complain are explicable within the bounds of that policy. Accepting the School Board's explanation, the District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed that a finding of de jure segregation as to the core city schools was not permissible since petitioners had failed to prove “(1) a racially discriminatory purpose and (2) a causal relationship between the acts complained of and the racial imbalance admittedly existing in those schools.” 445 F. 2d, at 1006. This assessment of petitioners' proof was clearly incorrect.
Although petitioners had already proved the existence of intentional school segregation in the Park Hill schools, this crucial finding was totally ignored when attention turned to the core city schools. Plainly, a finding of intentional segregation as to a portion of a school system is not devoid of probative value in assessing the school authorities’ intent with respect to other parts of the same school system. On the contrary, where, as here, the case involves one school board, a finding of intentional segregation on its part in one portion of a school system is highly relevant to the issue of the board’s intent with respect to other segregated schools in the system. This is merely an application of the well-settled evidentiary principle that “the prior doing of other similar acts, whether clearly a part of a scheme or not, is useful as reducing the possibility that the act in question was done with innocent intent.” 2 J. Wigmore, Evidence 200 (3d ed. 1940). “Evidence that similar and related offenses were committed . . . tend[s] to show a consistent pattern of conduct highly relevant to the issue of intent.” Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U. S. 613, 618 (1949). Similarly, a finding of illicit intent as to a meaningful portion of the item under consideration has substantial probative value on the question of illicit intent as to *208the remainder. See, for example, the cases cited in 2 Wigmore, supra, at 301-302. And “[t]he foregoing principles are equally as applicable to civil cases as to criminal cases . . . .” Id., at 300. See also C. McCormick, Evidence 329 (1954).
Applying these principles in the special context of school desegregation cases, we hold that a finding of intentionally segregative school board actions in a meaningful portion of a school system, as in this case, creates a presumption that other segregated schooling within the system is not adventitious. It establishes, in other words, a prima facie case of unlawful segregative design on the part of school authorities, and shifts to those authorities the burden of proving that other segregated schools within the system are not also the result of intentionally segregative actions. This is true even if it is determined that different areas of the school district should be viewed independently of each other because, even in that situation, there is high probability that where school authorities have effectuated an intentionally segregative policy in a meaningful portion of the school system, similar impermissible considerations have motivated their actions in other areas of the system. We emphasize that the differentiating factor between de jure segregation and so-called de facto segregation to which we referred in Swann16 is purpose or intent to segregate. Where school authorities have been found to have practiced purposeful segregation in part of a school system, they may be expected to oppose system-wide desegregation, as did the respondents in this case, on the ground that their purposefully segregative actions were isolated and individual events, thus leaving plaintiffs with the burden of proving otherwise. But at that point where an intentionally segrega-*209tive policy is practiced in a meaningful or significant segment of a school system, as in this case, the school authorities cannot be heard to argue that plaintiffs have proved only “isolated and individual” unlawfully segrega-tive actions. In that circumstance, it is both fair and reasonable to require that the school authorities bear the burden of showing that their actions as to other segregated schools within the system were not also motivated by segregative intent.
This burden-shifting principle is not new or novel. There are no hard-and-fast standards governing the allocation of the burden of proof in every situation. The issue, rather, “is merely a question of policy and fairness based on experience in the different situations.” 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2486, at 275 (3d ed. 1940). In the context of racial segregation in public education, the courts, including this Court, have recognized a variety of situations in which “fairness” and “policy” require state authorities to bear the burden of explaining actions or conditions which appear to be racially motivated. Thus, in Swann, 402 U. S., at 18, we observed that in a system with a “history of segregation,” “where it is possible to identify a 'white school' or a ‘Negro school’ simply by reference to the racial composition of teachers and staff, the quality of school buildings and equipment, or the organization of sports activities, a prima jade case of violation of substantive constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause is shown.” Again, in a school system with a history of segregation, the discharge of a disproportionately large number of Negro teachers incident to desegregation “thrust [s] upon the School Board the burden of justifying its conduct by clear and convincing evidence.” Chambers v. Hendersonville City Board of Education, 364 F. 2d 189, 192 (CA4 1966) (en banc). See also United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F. *2102d 836, 887-888 (CA5 1966), aff’d en banc, 380 F. 2d 385 (1967); North Carolina Teachers Assn. v. Asheboro City Board of Education, 393 F. 2d 736, 743 (CA4 1968) (en banc); Williams v. Kimbrough, 295 F. Supp. 578, 585 (WD La. 1969); Bonner v. Texas City Independent School District, 305 F. Supp. 600, 621 (SD Tex. 1969). Nor is this burden-shifting principle limited to former statutory dual systems. See, e. g., Davis v. School District of the City of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 734, 743, 744 (ED Mich. 1970), aff’d, 443 F. 2d 573 (CA6 1971); United States v. School District No. 151, 301 F. Supp. 201, 228 (ND Ill. 1969), modified on other grounds, 432 F. 2d 1147 (CA7 1970). Indeed, to say that a system has a “history of segregation” is merely to say that a pattern of intentional segregation has been established in the past. Thus, be it a statutory dual system or an allegedly unitary system where a meaningful portion of the system is found to be intentionally segregated, the existence of subsequent or other segregated schooling within the same system justifies a rule imposing on the school authorities the burden of proving that this segregated schooling is not also the result of intentionally segregative acts.
In discharging that burden, it is not enough, of course, that the school authorities rely upon some allegedly logical, racially neutral explanation for their actions. Their burden is to adduce proof sufficient to support a finding that segregative intent was not among the factors that motivated their actions. The courts below attributed much significance to the fact that many of the Board’s actions in the core city area antedated our decision in Brown. We reject any suggestion that remoteness in time has any relevance to the issue of intent. If the actions of school authorities were to any degree motivated by segregative intent and the segregation resulting from those actions continues to exist, the fact of remote*211ness in time certainly does not make those actions any less “intentional.”
This is not to say, however, that the prima facie case may not be met by evidence supporting a finding that a lesser degree of segregated schooling in the core city area would not have resulted even if the Board had not acted as it did. In Sioann, we suggested that at some point in time the relationship between past segregative acts and present segregation may become so attenuated as to be incapable of supporting a finding of de jure segregation warranting judicial intervention. 402 U. S., at 31-32. See also Hobson v. Hansen, 269 F. Supp. 401, 495 (DC 1967), aff’d sub nom. Smuck v. Hobson, 132 U. S. App. D. C. 372, 408 F. 2d 175 (1969).17 We made it clear, however, that a connection between past segregative acts and present segregation may be present even when not apparent and that close examination is required before concluding that the connection does not exist. Intentional school segregation in the past may have been a factor in creating a natural environment for the growth of further segregation. Thus, if respondent School Board cannot disprove segregative intent, it can rebut the prima facie case only by showing that its past segregative acts did not create or contribute to the current segregated condition of the core city schools.
The respondent School Board invoked at trial its “neighborhood school policy” as explaining racial and ethnic concentrations within the core city schools, arguing *212that since the core city area population had long been Negro and Hispano, the concentrations were necessarily the result of residential patterns and not of purposefully segregative policies. We have no occasion to consider in this case whether a “neighborhood school policy” of itself will justify racial or ethnic concentrations in the absence of a finding that school authorities have committed acts constituting de jure segregation. It is enough that we hold that the mere assertion of such a policy is not dis-positive where, as in this case, the school authorities have been found to have practiced de jure segregation in a meaningful portion of the school system by techniques that indicate that the “neighborhood school” concept has not been maintained free of manipulation. Our observations in Swann, supra, at 28, are particularly instructive on this score:
“Absent a constitutional violation there would be no basis for judicially ordering assignment of students on a racial basis. All things being equal, with no history of discrimination, it might well be desirable to assign pupils to schools nearest their homes. But all things are not equal in a system that has been deliberately constructed and maintained to enforce racial segregation. . . .
"... 'Racially neutral’ assignment plans proposed by school authorities to a district court may be inadequate ; such plans may fail to counteract the continuing effects of past school segregation resulting from discriminatory location of school sites or distortion of school size in order to achieve or maintain an artificial racial separation. When school authorities present a district court with a ‘loaded game board,’ affirmative action in the form of remedial altering of attendance zones is proper to achieve truly nondiscriminatory assignments. In short, an assignment plan is not acceptable simply because it appears to be neutral.”
*213Thus, respondent School Board having been found to have practiced deliberate racial segregation in schools attended by over one-third of the Negro school population, that crucial finding establishes a prima facie case of intentional segregation in the core city schools. In such case, respondent's neighborhood school policy is not to be determinative “simply because it appears to be neutral.”
IV
In summary, the District Court on remand, first, will afford respondent School Board the opportunity to prove its contention that the Park Hill area is a separate, identifiable and unrelated section of the school district that should'be treated as isolated from the rest of the district. If respondent School Board fails to prove that contention, the District Court, second, will determine whether respondent School Board’s conduct over almost a decade after 1960 in carrying out a policy of deliberate racial segregation in the Park Hill schools constitutes the entire school system a dual school system. If the District Court determines that the Denver school system is a dual school system, respondent School Board has the affirmative duty to desegregate the entire system “root and branch.” Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S., at 438. If the District Court determines, however, that the Denver school system is not a dual school system by reason of the Board’s actions in Park Hill, the court, third, will afford respondent School Board the opportunity to rebut petitioners’ prima facie case of intentional segregation in the core city schools raised by the finding of intentional segregation in the Park Hill schools. There, the Board’s burden is to show that its policies and practices with respect to schoolsite location, school size, school renovations and additions, student-attendance zones, student assignment and transfer options, mobile classroom units, transportation of students, as*214signment of faculty and staff, etc., considered together and premised on the Board’s so-called “neighborhood school” concept, either were not taken in effectuation of a policy to create or maintain segregation in the core city schools, or, if unsuccessful in that effort, were not factors in causing the existing condition of segregation in these schools. Considerations of “fairness” and “policy” demand no less in light of the Board’s intentionally segrega-tive actions. If respondent Board fails to rebut petitioners’ prima facie case, the District Court must, as in the case of Park Hill, decree all-out desegregation of the core city schools.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is modified to vacate instead of reverse the parts of the Final Decree that concern the core city schools, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.18

It is so ordered.

[Map of elementary school boundaries follows this page.]
Mr. Chief Justice Burger concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Douglas.
While I join the opinion of the Court, I agree with my Brother Powell that there is, for the purposes of the *215Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to the school cases, no difference between de facto and de jure segregation. The school board is a state agency and the lines that it draws, the locations it selects for school sites, the allocation it makes of students, the budgets it prepares are state action for Fourteenth Amendment purposes.
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*215As Judge Wisdom cogently stated in United States v. Texas Education Agency, 467 F. 2d 848, segregated schools are often created, not by dual school systems decreed by the legislature, but by the administration of school districts by school boards. Each is state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. “Here school authorities assigned students, faculty, and professional staff; employed faculty and staff; chose sites for schools; constructed new schools and renovated old ones; and drew attendance zone lines. The natural and foreseeable consequence of these actions was segregation of Mexican-Americans. Affirmative action to the contrary would have resulted in desegregation. When school authorities, by their actions, contribute to segregation in education, whether by causing additional segregation or maintaining existing segregation, they deny to the students equal protection of the laws.
“We need not define the quantity of state participation which is a prerequisite to a finding of constitutional violation. Like the legal concepts of 'the reasonable man,’ 'due care,’ 'causation,’ 'preponderance of the evidence,’ and 'beyond a reasonable doubt,’ the necessary degree of state involvement is incapable of precise definition and must be defined on a case-by-case basis. Suffice it to say that school authorities here played a significant role in causing or perpetuating unequal educational opportunities for Mexican-Americans, and did so on a system-wide basis.” Id., at 863-864.
*216These latter acts are often said to create de facto as contrasted with de jure segregation. But, as Judge Wisdom observes, each is but another form of de jure segregation.
I think it is time to state that there is no constitutional difference between de jure and de facto segregation, for each is the product of state actions or policies. If a “neighborhood” or “geographical” unit has been created along racial lines by reason of the play of restrictive covenants that restrict certain areas to “the elite,” leaving the “undesirables” to move elsewhere, there is state action in the constitutional sense because the force of law is placed behind those covenants.
There is state action in the constitutional sense when public funds are dispersed by urban development agencies to build racial ghettoes.
Where the school district is racially mixed and the races are segregated in separate schools, where black teachers are assigned almost exclusively to black schools, where the school board closed existing schools located in fringe areas and built new schools in black areas and in distant white areas, where the school board continued the “neighborhood” school policy at the elementary level, these actions constitute state action. They are of a kind quite distinct from the classical de jure type of school segregation. Yet calling them de facto is a misnomer, as they are only more subtle types of state action that create or maintain a wholly or partially segregated school system. See Kelly v. Guinn, 456 F. 2d 100.
When a State forces, aids, or abets, or helps create a racial “neighborhood,” it is a travesty of justice to treat that neighborhood as sacrosanct in the sense that its creation is free from the taint of state action.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights have described the design of a pluralistic society. The individual has the *217right to seek such companions as he desires. But a State is barred from creating by one device or another ghettoes that determine the school one is compelled to attend.

 To the contrary, Art. IX, § 8, of the Colorado Constitution expressly prohibits any “classification of pupils ... on account of race or color.” As early as 1927, the Colorado Supreme Court held that a Denver practice of excluding black students from school programs at Manual High School and Morey Junior High School violated state law. Jones v. Newlon, 81 Colo. 25, 253 P. 386.

 There were 92 elementary schools, 15 junior high schools, 2 junior-senior high schools, and 7 senior high schools. In addition, the Board operates an Opportunity School, a Metropolitan Youth Education Center, and an Aircraft Training Facility.

 The so-called “Park Hill schools” are Barrett, Stedman, Hallett, Smith, Philips, and Park Hill Elementary Schools; and Smiley Junior High School. East High School serves the area but is located outside of it. (See map following p. 214.)

 The so-called “core city schools” which are said to be segregated *193are Boulevard, Bryant-Webster, Columbine, Crofton, Ebert, Elm-wood, Elyria, Fairmont, Fairview, Garden Place, Gilpin, Greenlee, Harrington, Mitchell, Smedley, Swansea, Whittier, Wyatt, and Wy-man Elementary Schools; Baker, Cole, and Morey Junior High Schools; and East, West, and Manual High Schools. (See map following p. 214.)

 The first of the District Court's four opinions, 303 F. Supp. 279, was filed July 31, 1969, and granted petitioners’ application for a preliminary injunction. The second opinion, 303 F. Supp. 289, was filed August 14, 1969, and made supplemental findings and conclusions. The third opinion, 313 F. Supp. 61, filed March 21, 1970, was the opinion on the merits. The fourth opinion, 313 F. Supp. 90, was on remedy and was filed May 21, 1970. The District Court filed an unreported opinion on October 19, 1971, in which relief was extended to Hallett and Stedman Elementary Schools which were found by the court in its July 31, 1969, opinion to be purposefully segregated but were not included within the scope of the three 1969 Board resolutions. The Court of Appeals filed five unreported opinions: on August 5, 1969, vacating preliminary injunctions; on August 27, 1969, staying preliminary injunction; on September 15, 1969, on motion to amend stay; on October 17, 1969, denying motions to dismiss; and on March 26, 1971, granting stay. MR. Justice BreNNAN, on August 29, 1969, filed an opinion reinstating the preliminary injunction, 396 U. S. 1215, and on April 26, 1971, this Court entered a per curiam order vacating the Court of Appeals’ stay, 402 U. S. 182.

 The parties have used the terms “Anglo,” “Negro,” and “His-pano” throughout the record. We shall therefore use those terms.
“Hispano” is the term used by the Colorado Department of Education to refer to a person of Spanish, Mexican, or Cuban heritage. Colorado Department of Education, Human Relations in Colorado, *196A Historical Record 203 (1968). In the Southwest, the “His-panos” are more commonly referred to as “Chícanos” or “Mexican-Americans.”
The more specific racial and ethnic composition of the Denver public schools is as follows:
[[Image here]]

 United States Commission on Civil Rights, Mexican American Education Study, Report 1, Ethnic Isolation of Mexican Americans in the Public Schools of the Southwest (Apr. 1971); United States Commission on Civil Rights, Mexican American Educational Series, Report 2, The Unfinished Education (Oct. 1971).

 The Commission’s second Report, on p. 41, summarizes its findings:
“The basic finding of this report is that minority students in the Southwest — Mexican Americans, blacks, American Indians — do not obtain the benefits of public education at a rate equal to that of their Anglo classmates.”

 Our Brother Rehnquist argues in dissent that the Court somehow transgresses the “two-court” rule. Post, at 264. But at this stage, we have no occasion to review the factual findings concurred in by the two courts below. Cf. Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972). We address only the question whether those courts applied the correct legal standard in deciding the case as it affects the core city schools.

 The Board was found guilty of intentionally segregative acts of one kind or another with respect to the schools listed below. (As to Cole and East, the conclusion rests on the rescission of the resolutions.)
[[Image here]]
The total Negro school enrollment in 1968 was:
Elementary 8,297
Junior High 2,893
Senior High 2,442
Thus, the above-mentioned schools included:
Elementary 25.36% of all Negro elementary pupils
Junior High 68.99% of all Negro junior high pupils
Senior High 42.55% of all Negro senior high pupils
Total 37.69% of all Negro pupils

 Our Brother Rehnquist argues in dissent that Brown v. Board of Education did not impose an “affirmative duty to integrate” the schools of a dual school system but was only a “prohibition against discrimination” “in the sense that the assignment of a child to a particular school is not made to depend on his race . . . .” Infra, at 258. That is the interpretation of Brown expressed 18 years ago by a three-judge court in Briggs v. Elliott, 132 F. Supp. 776, 777 *201(1955): “The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration. It merely forbids discrimination.” But Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 437-438 (1968), rejected that interpretation insofar as Green expressly held that “School boards .. . operating state-compelled dual systems were nevertheless clearly charged [by Brown 77] with the affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.” Green remains the governing principle. Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U. S. 19 (1969); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 15 (1971). See also Kelley v. Metropolitan County Board of Education, 317 F. Supp. 980, 984 (1970).

 As a former School Board President who testified for the respondents put it: “Once you change the boundary of any one school, it is affecting all the schools . . . .” Testimony of Mrs. Lois Heath Johnson on cross-examination. App. 951a-952a.
Similarly, Judge Wisdom has recently stated:
“Infection at one school infects all schools. To take the most simple example, in a two school system, all blacks at one school means all or almost all whites at the other.” United States v. Texas Education Agency, 467 F. 2d 848, 888 (CA5 1972).

 See the chart in 445 F. 2d, at 1008-1009, which indicates that 31,767 pupils attended the schools affected by the resolutions.

 Our Brother RehNquist argues in dissent that the District Court did take the Park Hill finding into account in addressing the question of alleged de jure segregation of the core city schools. Post, at 262. He cites the following excerpt from a footnote to the District Court's opinion of March 21, 1970, 313 F. Supp., at 74-75, n. 18: “Although past discriminatory acts may not be a substantial factor contributing to present segregation, they may nevertheless be probative on the issue of the segregative purpose of other discriminatory acts which are in fact a substantial factor in causing a present segregated situation.” But our Brother Rehnquist omits the rest of the footnote: “Thus, in part I of this opinion, we discussed the building of Barrett, boundary changes and the use of mobile units as they relate to the purpose for the rescission of Resolutions 1520, 1524 and 1531.” Obviously, the District Court was carefully limiting the comment to the consideration being given past discriminatory acts affecting the Park Hill schools in assessing the causes of current segregation of those schools.

 In addition to these 22 schools, see 313 F. Supp., at 78, two more schools, Elyria and Smedley Elementary Schools, became less than 30% Anglo after the District Court’s decision on the merits. These two schools were thus included in the list of segregated schools. 313 F. Supp., at 92.

 402 U. S. 1, 17-18 (1971).

 It may be that the District Court and Court of Appeals were applying this test in holding that petitioners had failed to prove that the Board's actions “caused” the current condition of segregation in the core city schools. But, if so, certainly plaintiffs in a school desegregation case are not required to prove “cause” in the sense of “non-attenuation.” That is a factor which becomes relevant only after past intentional actions resulting in segregation have been established. At that stage, the burden becomes the school authorities’ to show that the current segregation is in no way the result of those past segregative actions.

 We therefore do not reach, and intimate no view upon, the merits of the holding of the District Court, premised upon its erroneous finding that the situation “is more like de jacto segregation,” 313 F. Supp., at 73, that nevertheless, although all-out desegregation “could not be decreed . . . the only feasible and constitutionally acceptable program ... is a system of desegregation and integration which provides compensatory education in an integrated environment.” Id., at 96.