DRUMMOND Et Al. v. ACREE Et Al.

Background

Parent-intervenors in a school desegregation case from Richmond County (Augusta), Georgia, asked a Circuit Justice to halt a court order that adopted a plan for desegregating 29 elementary schools. The District Court adopted the plan, the Fifth Circuit affirmed, and the parents first sought a stay in the wrong forum, then at the Fifth Circuit, which denied it. They then asked the Circuit Justice to delay the order’s effect under a new federal education law.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the Education Amendments’ stay rule requires postponing any court order that moves students, or only orders that move students to achieve a racial balance. The Justice explained that the law’s language applies only when transfers are for the purpose of achieving racial balance. He relied on the statute’s surrounding provisions and the Court’s earlier decision in Swann, accepted the lower courts’ finding that this plan sought to dismantle segregation rather than to enforce rigid racial quotas, and therefore concluded the stay provision did not apply.

Real world impact

Because the stay was denied, the desegregation plan and the transportation it required may go into effect while appeals proceed. This decision is a procedural ruling about delaying the order’s effect, not a final ruling on the merits, so later appellate review could still change the outcome.