Editing Desegregation busing (section)

=== After World War II ===
The origins of desegregation busing can be traced back to two major developments that occurred in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s.

==== Black population shift ====
Starting in 1940, the [[Second Great Migration (African American)|Second Great Migration]] brought five million blacks from the agrarian South to the urban and manufacturing centers in Northern and Western cities to fill in the labor shortages during the industrial buildup of [[World War II]] and for better opportunities during the post-war economic boom. ''[[Shelley v. Kraemer]]'' (1948) allowed them to settle in formerly white neighborhoods, contributing to racial tension. Meanwhile, the post-war housing boom and the rise of [[suburbia]] allowed whites to migrate into the suburbs. By 1960, all major Northern and Western cities had sizable black populations (e.g., 23% in Chicago, 29% in Detroit, and 32% in Los Angeles{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}). Blacks tended to be concentrated in [[inner cities]], whereas newer suburbs of most cities were almost exclusively white.

==== Legal rulings ====

At the same time, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] ruling in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954) overturned [[racial segregation]] laws for public schools that had been in place in a number of states, since the late 19th century, and ruled that [[separate but equal]] schools were "inherently unequal". Although the ''Brown'' decision affirmed principles of equality and justice, it did not specify how its ruling would promote equality in education. [[Thurgood Marshall]] and the [[NAACP]] wanted a speedy process for desegregating the school districts, but the Court waited until the following year to make its recommendations. Reasons for delaying had to do with the changes in the Court and with Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] steering a careful course given the expected opposition from Southern states. In May 1955, the Court ruled in ''[[Brown II]]'' that the school districts desegregate "with all deliberate speed". Public school administrators had to begin the process of desegregating the schools through the development of policies that would promote racial mixing. A backlash of resistance and violence ensued. Even members of Congress refused to abide by the decision. In 1956 over a hundred congressmen signed the [[Southern Manifesto]], promising to use all legal means to undermine and reverse the Court's ruling.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jost |first=K |title=School Desegregation |journal=CQ Researcher |date=April 23, 2004 |volume=14 |issue=15 |pages=345–372}}</ref>

The momentum continued with two additional Supreme Court decisions aimed at implementation. In 1968, the Warren Court in ''[[Green v. County School Board of New Kent County]]'', rejected a freedom of choice plan. The Court ordered the county to desegregate immediately and eliminate racial discrimination "root and branch".<ref name="patterson" /> Then in 1971, the [[Burger Court]] in ''[[Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education]]'' ruled that the school district must achieve racial balance even if it meant redrawing school boundaries and the use of busing as a legal tool. The impact of ''Green'' and ''Swann'' served to end all remnants of ''de jure'' segregation in the South. However, the consequence of the ''Swann'' decision ushered in new forms of resistance in subsequent decades. The decision failed to address ''de facto'' segregation.

Consequently, despite being found "inherently unequal" in ''Brown v. Board of Education'', by the late 1960s public schools remained ''de facto'' segregated in many cities because of demographic patterns, school district lines being intentionally drawn to segregate the schools racially, and, in some cases, due to conscious efforts to send black children to inferior schools.<ref>Morgan v. Hennigan 1974</ref> Thus, for example, by 1969, more than nine of every ten black students in [[Nashville]] still attended all-black schools.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://southernspaces.org/2009/walking-history-beginning-school-desegregation-nashville |title=Walking into History: The Beginning of School Desegregation in Nashville}}</ref> Evidence of such de facto segregation motivated early proponents of plans to engage in conscious "integration" of public schools, by busing schoolchildren to schools other than their neighborhood schools, with an objective to equalize racial imbalances. Proponents of such plans argued that with the schools integrated, minority students would have equal access to equipment, facilities, and resources that the cities' white students had, thus giving all students in the city equal educational opportunities.

A federal court found that in [[Boston]], schools were constructed and school district lines drawn intentionally to segregate the schools racially. In the early 1970s, a series of court decisions found that the racially imbalanced schools trampled the rights of minority students. As a remedy, courts ordered the [[racial integration]] of school districts within individual cities, sometimes requiring the racial composition of each individual school in the district to reflect the composition of the district as a whole. This was generally achieved by transporting children by [[school bus]] to a school in a different area of the district.

The judge who instituted the Detroit busing plan said that busing "is a considerably safer, more reliable, healthful and efficient means of getting children to school than either carpools or walking, and this is especially true for younger children".<ref name="'70s 252" /> He, therefore, included [[kindergarten]] children in the busing scheme: "Transportation of kindergarten children for upwards of forty-five minutes, one-way, does not appear unreasonable, harmful, or unsafe in any way."<ref name="'70s 252" /> (Some research has shown however the deleterious effects of long bus rides on student health and academic achievement <ref>Yeung, R., & Nguyen-Hoang, P. (2020). It’s the journey, not the destination: the effect of school travel mode on student achievement. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 13(2), 170–186.</ref><ref>Austin, W., Heutel, G., & Kreisman, D. (2019). School bus emissions, student health and academic performance. Economics of Education Review, 70, 109–126.</ref>). The resultant Supreme Court case, ''[[Milliken v. Bradley]]'' (1974), imposed limits on busing.  The key issue was whether a district court could order a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan between urban Detroit and suburban school districts.  Busing would play a key role in the implementation phase. The Court essentially declared that federal courts did not have the authority to order inter-district desegregation unless it could be proven that suburban school districts intentionally mandated segregation policies. The implication of the decision was that suburban school districts in the North were not affected by the principles established by ''Brown''. ''De facto'' segregation was allowed to persist in the North. The courts could order desegregation where segregation patterns existed, but only within municipalities, not suburban areas.  The lasting consequence of the ''Milliken'' decision is that it opened the door for whites to flee to the suburbs and not be concerned about compliance with mandatory integration policies.<ref name="patterson" />

With waning public support, the courts began relaxing judicial supervision of school districts during the 1990s and 2000s, calling for voluntary efforts to achieve racial balance.

In the early 1990s, the [[Rehnquist Court]] ruled in three cases coming from [[Oklahoma City]] ([[Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell|in 1991]]), [[DeKalb County, Georgia|DeKalb County]] in Georgia ([[Freeman v. Pitts|in 1992]]), and [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]] ([[Missouri v. Jenkins|in 1995]]) that federal judges could ease their supervision of school districts "once legally enforced segregation had been eliminated to the extent practicable".<ref name="jost">{{cite journal |last=Jost |first=K. |title=School Desegregation |journal=CQ Researcher |date=April 23, 2004 |volume=14 |issue=15 |pages=345–372}}</ref> With these decisions, the Rehnquist Court opened the door for school districts throughout the country to get away from judicial supervision once they had achieved unitary status. [[Unitary Status]] meant that a school district had successfully eliminated segregation in dual school systems and thus was no longer bound to court-ordered desegregation policies.

Then in 2002, the Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision in ''[[Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education]]'' which declared that the school system had achieved desegregation status and that the method to achieve integration, like busing, was unnecessary. The refusal of the Court to hear the challenges to the lower court decision effectively overturned the earlier 1971 ''Swann'' ruling.

Finally, in 2007, the [[Roberts Court]] produced a contentious 5–4 ruling in ''[[Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.&nbsp;1]]'' (PICS). The decision prohibited the use of racial classifications in student assignment plans to maintain racial balance. Whereas the Brown case ruled that racial segregation violated the Constitution, now the use of racial classifications violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Writing for the minority, Justice Breyer said the "ruling contradicted previous decisions upholding race-conscious pupil assignments and would hamper local school boards' efforts to prevent 'resegregation' in individual schools".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jost |first=Kenneth |title=Racial Diversity in Public Schools |journal=CQ Researcher |year=2007 |volume=17 |issue=32 |pages=745–767}}</ref>