Goss v. Board of Ed. of Knoxville

Background

Black public school children and their parents sued local school boards in Knoxville and Davidson County, Tennessee, challenging parts of court-ordered desegregation plans. The plans rezoned students without mentioning race but included transfer rules letting a student request a move back to a school where his or her race would be in the majority. Lower courts had approved these transfer provisions, and the plaintiffs argued the rules would keep schools segregated.

Reasoning

The Court focused on whether transfer rules that operate solely on the basis of a student’s race violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal treatment under the law. The Justices found the transfer provisions were one-way: they let students move to schools where their race would be the majority but did not equally enable moves into schools where their race would be a minority. Because the transfers were based on race and would inevitably promote segregation, the Court held they were unconstitutional. The Court reversed the approvals of the racial transfer clauses and sent the cases back for further proceedings limited to those provisions.

Real world impact

The decision removes official transfer rules that allow re-segregation by race and tells school boards they must not adopt transfer plans whose operation makes segregation inevitable. The ruling does not decide other parts of the desegregation plans; those provisions remain for further review. School districts must design race-neutral transfer policies that support desegregation instead of undermining it.