Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell

1991-01-15

Headline: Court allows Oklahoma City schools to seek end of desegregation order, rejects a strict 'grievous wrong' test, and sends the case back so a judge can decide if federal oversight should end.

Holding: The Court held that the Tenth Circuit's "grievous wrong" standard was too strict, rejected it, and remanded so the trial court can determine whether the school board had complied in good faith and eliminated segregation vestiges.

Real World Impact:

Makes it easier for compliant school boards to seek an end to federal desegregation oversight.
Requires district courts to assess whether vestiges of past segregation remain across school operations.
Leaves parents able to challenge new assignment plans under equal protection law.

Topics: school desegregation, racial segregation in schools, federal oversight of schools, student assignment

Summary

Background

A city school board in Oklahoma sought to end a long-running federal desegregation decree. Black students and their parents sued in 1961, and a trial court found intentional segregation and ordered the "Finger Plan" in 1972. In 1977 the court ended active supervision but did not clearly dissolve the injunction. In 1985 the board adopted a Student Reassignment Plan that returned many elementary schools to high single-race enrollments, and the parents asked the court to reopen the case.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court addressed how hard it should be for a school district to get relief from a desegregation injunction. It held that the Court of Appeals was wrong to require a showing of "grievous wrong evoked by new and unforeseen conditions." Instead, a district court may dissolve a decree if the board has complied in good faith and the vestiges of past segregation have been eliminated as far as practicable. The Court said the trial court must look at every facet of school operations—student assignments, faculty, staff, transportation, extracurriculars, and facilities—and then decide whether to end supervision and then decide any challenge to the reassignment plan under ordinary equal protection principles.

Real world impact

The ruling makes it easier for local school boards that can show sustained, good-faith compliance to seek an end to federal oversight, while preserving a role for the trial court to test whether segregation's lingering effects remain. If the injunction is dissolved, the board can change assignment rules but remains subject to the Constitution. The Supreme Court reversed the appeals court and sent the case back for the district court to make these factual and legal determinations.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall, joined by two colleagues, dissented, arguing the record showed feasible ways to avoid one‑race schools and that lifting the decree risked reviving the stigmatic harms of segregation; he would have left the appeals court judgment in place.