About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

33 Wayne L. Rev. 1693 (1986-1987)
The Profund Impact of Milliken v. Bradley

handle is hein.journals/waynlr33 and id is 1707 raw text is: THE PROFOUND IMPACT OF MILLIKEN v.
BRADLEY
Robert A. Sedlert
INTRODUCTION: THE CONSTITUTION AND METROPOLITAN
DESEGREGATION
Certain constitutional decisions of the United States Supreme
Court have a profound impact on American society because they de-
termine the constitutional validity of governmental policies and prac-
tices that directly shape the nature of our society. Brown v. Board of
Education' was such a decision. While Brown itself dealt only with
the constitutionality of state-mandated racial segregation in the pub-
lic schools of seventeen southern and border states, the effect of the
Court's holding in that case was to invalidate all state-imposed racial
segregation and with it the official structure of societal racism that
existed in the southern part of the nation.2 In retrospect then, Brown
was not so much a decision about racial segregation in education as
it was a decision about the meaning of racial equality under the
fourteenth amendment.
In the years following Brown, the Court dealt more specifically
with the nature of the constitutional right of children to attend
schools that were in fact racially integrated. In this context, a ra-
cially integrated school means a school that has a substantial num-
ber of both black and white students in attendance, so that the
school is not racially identifiable with respect to student composi-
t Professor of Law, Wayne State University. B.A. 1956, J.D. 1959, University
of Pittsburgh. Ms. Ann Warner, a third-year student at Wayne State University
Law School, provided valuable assistance in analyzing the studies and data dealing
with white flight and academic achievement.
I. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
2. In a series of per curiam decisions following Brown, the Court invalidated
state-imposed segregation with respect to all public facilities. See, e.g., New Orleans
City Park Improvement Ass'n v. Deteige, 358 U.S. 54 (1958); Holmes v. City of
Atlanta, 350 U.S. 879 (1955); Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350
U.S. 877 (1955). In my view, Brown, the companion case of Bolling v. Sharpe, 347
U.S. 497 (1954), and the above per curiam decisions, are best explained by the
rationale that state-imposed segregation is necessarily unconstitutional because it
restricts the liberty of blacks and whites to associate with each other in public facili-
ties, and such a restriction is not reasonably related to any proper governmental
objective. Sedler, The Constitution and School Desegregation: An Inquiry into the
Nature of the Substantive Right, 68 Ky. L.J. 879, 940-44 (1979-1980).

1693

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most