Green v. County School Board

Petitioners
Charles C. Green, et al.
Respondents
County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia, et al.
Petitioners' Claim
That the New Kent County School Board's "freedom of choice" plan allowing students to choose their own public schools is not an acceptable method for reversing segregation.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Samuel W. Tucker, Jack Greenberg
Chief Lawyer for Respondents
Frederick T. Gray
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, John Marshall Harlan II, Thurgood Marshall, PotterStewart, Earl Warren, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
27 May 1968
Decision
The New Kent County School Board's "freedom of choice" plan was deemed an unacceptable means of undoing segregation.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision in Green v. County School Board restatedthe Court's resolve to end segregated schooling and established more specificparameters for allowable and effective means to that end.
Historical Background
Segregated schooling at all levels was a fact of American life. The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) paved the way for a half century of racial segregation by establishing the "separate but equal doctrine"allowing states and school boards to provide separate accommodations provided they were equal in all other respects. Beginning in the 1930s, the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) embarked on a legal strategy designed to challenge this doctrine. They began by bringing casesagainst segregated universities, hoping to establish precedents in higher education that they could then use to challenge the separate but equal doctrinein primary and secondary schools. These initial measures were largely successful.
The NAACP's legal strategy came to fruition in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision. In that case, the Supreme Court reversedPlessy v. Ferguson and declared that classifications based solely on race violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision promised a swift and sweeping end to segregation in the South and elsewhere, but this momentum was slowed by a second Brown decision, known as Brown II, the following year. That decision blunted the impact of the firstby allowing states the opportunity to delay implementation of desegregation.It was in this environment of implementation that the case of Green v. County School Board played out.
The Facts at Hand
New Kent County in Virginia was divided nearly equally between black and white citizens. However, the County School Board of New Kent County had long maintained a segregated public school system. A school on one side of the countyserved only white students, while a school on the other side of the county was composed entirely of black students. In order to comply with a desegregation order, the board adopted a plan that allowed students every year to choosewhich school they wanted to attend. A number of black pupils chose to attendthe district's all-white school. However, no white pupils chose to attend thedistrict's all-black school. A group of students and their parents challenged the plan, claiming it was not an acceptable means of achieving a single non-racial school system.
The case first went before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.The district court approved the freedom of choice plan once the school boardagreed to hear teachers on a non-discriminatory basis. Green and the other petitioners then took their case to the U.S. court of appeals. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's ruling on the issue of freedom of choice,leaving the petitioners one last recourse, the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Reverses
On 27 May 1968, the Supreme Court issued its decision. All nine justices agreed to overturn the judgement of the court of appeals with regard to the freedom of choice plan. In rendering its decision, the Court held the plan to thestandard mandated in Brown v. Board of Education that school boards must "effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system."The justices placed the burden on the school board to provide a desegregationplan that has a realistic chance to produce immediate results. While it didnot rule out the possible use of a freedom of choice scheme to achieve desegregation, it did rule it out where better, faster, and more effective means ofachieving that end exist.
Writing for the unanimous majority, Justice Brennan was unequivocal:

The New Kent School Board's "freedom-of-choice" plan cannot be accepted as a sufficient step to "effectuate a transition" to a unitary system. In three years of operation not a single white child has chosen to attend Watkins school and although 115 Negro children enrolled in New Kent school in 1967 . .. 85 percent of the Negro children in the system still attend the all-Negro Watkins school. In other words, the school system remains a dual system. Rather than further the dismantling of the dual system, the plan has operated simply to burden children and their parents with a responsibility which BrownII placed squarely on the School Board. The Board must be required to formulate a new plan and, in light of other courses which appear open to the Board, such as zoning, fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a "white" school and a "Negro" school, but just schools.

Impact
The Supreme Court's decision Green v. County School Board retained flexibility for states and local school boards to craft their own desegregationplans, but reaffirmed the Court's willingness to intervene if those plans did not provide substantial and swift progress in complying with the edicts of Brown v. Board of Education.
Related Cases

• Alexander v. Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19 (1969).
  
• Dowell v. Board of Education, 396 U.S. 269 (1969).
  
• Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43 (1971).
  
• United States v. Edgar, 404 U.S. 1206 (1971).