Significant decisions by the Supreme Court on the racial makeup of schools:
1954 Brown v. Board of Education: Ruling unanimously that racially segregated public schools are unconstitutional, saying that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The landmark decision grew out of cases involving schools in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.
1968 Green v. New Kent County, Va., finding the state’s “freedom of choice” plans ineffective at producing actual school desegregation. The Court says that school officials have an affirmative duty to eliminate segregation “root and branch.” Justices introduce the principle of “achieving unitary status,” or a racially nondiscriminatory system.
1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, N.C., providing judges with broad power to fashion remedies to racial segregation if school districts fail to do so. Decision allows the busing of white and black students and redrawing school district lines to end segregation of schools.
1973 Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, ruling that schools have responsibility to desegregate, even in districts where schools had not been segregated by law. Limits remedies courts can fashion for school districts that did not have laws requiring racially segregated schools.
1974 Milliken v. Bradley, curtailing the power of judges to impose area-wide remedies, such as forced busing, on one school district to address racial segregation in another.
1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, striking down racial quotas but embracing for the first time the concept of affirmative action by saying admissions policies can take race into account.
