Green v. County School Board of New Kent Co. | |
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Argued April 3, 1968 Decided May 27, 1968 | |
Full case name | Charles C. Green et al. v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia et al. |
Citations | 391 U.S. 430 (more) 88 S. Ct. 1689; 20 L. Ed. 2d 716 |
Case history | |
Prior | 382 F.2d 338 (4th Cir. 1967), cert. granted, 389 U.S. 1003. |
Holding | |
New Kent County's freedom of choice desegregation plan did not comply with the dictates of Brown v. Board of Education and was therefore unconstitutional. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinion | |
Majority | Brennan, joined by unanimous |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const., amend. XIV |
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968), was an important United States Supreme Court case involving school desegregation. Specifically, the Court dealt with the freedom of choice plans created to avoid compliance with the Supreme Court's mandate in Brown II in 1955.[1] The Court held unanimously that New Kent County's freedom of choice plan did not adequately comply with the school board's responsibility to determine a system of admission to public schools on a non-racial basis. The Supreme Court mandated that the school board must formulate new plans and steps towards realistically converting to a desegregated system. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County was a follow-up of Brown v. Board of Education.
“When this opinion is handed down, the traffic light will have changed from Brown to Green.” –U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, 1968.
Green established what came to be known as the five Green factors — faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities and facilities — the criteria by which later courts would evaluate school districts' progress on desegregation.