BUCHANAN Et Al. v. EVANS Et Al.

Background

The Delaware State Board of Education and several suburban school districts asked to pause a court-ordered desegregation plan that affects the city of Wilmington and eleven nearby suburban districts. The District Court found that de jure segregation had created a dual school system that was never dismantled and that state and local authorities helped produce interdistrict segregation. As part of the remedy, the court abolished most suburban districts effective July 1, 1978, and created a single unified New Castle County school district; the applicants asked to delay mandatory pupil and staff reassignments but did not seek a stay of the districts’ abolition.

Reasoning

Justice Brennan considered whether to stay the Court of Appeals’ mandate pending a petition for review. He applied the standard two-step test: balance of the equities and whether it was likely four Justices would grant review, noting the heavy burden on applicants. Brennan found the record contained firm findings of longstanding, court-recognized interdistrict, de jure segregation, distinguishing Dayton because segregation here was legally and historically entrenched. The District Court had tailored an interdistrict remedy under established remedial principles, and the Court of Appeals had unanimously affirmed; weighing the harm to segregated children and deference to the lower courts, Brennan denied the stay.

Real world impact

Because the stay was denied, the District Court’s remedial plan continues to be implemented: students and staff face mandatory reassignment and the unified county school district operates this school year. Financial and administrative burdens cited by the applicants were not found sufficient to justify delay. This ruling is an emergency denial of a pause, not a final decision on the merits; the Supreme Court may later decide whether to review the underlying desegregation order.