Milliken v. Bradley

Milliken v. Bradley
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 1974 Decided July 25, 1974
Full case name	Milliken, Governor of Michigan, et al. v. Bradley, et al.
Citations	418 U.S. 717 (more) 94 S. Ct. 3112; 41 L. Ed. 2d 1069; 1974 U.S. LEXIS 94
Case history
Prior	Bradley v. Milliken, 433 F.2d 897 (6th Cir. 1970); 438 F.2d 945 (6th Cir. 1971); 338 F. Supp. 582 (E.D. Mich. 1971); 345 F. Supp. 914 (E.D. Mich. 1972); affirmed, 484 F.2d 215 (6th Cir. 1973); cert. granted, 414 U.S. 1038 (1973).
Subsequent	On remand, Bradley v. Milliken, 402 F. Supp. 1096 (E.D. Mich. 1975); affirmed and remanded, 540 F.2d 229 (6th Cir. 1976); cert. granted, 429 U.S. 958 (1976); affirmed, 433 U.S. 267 (1977).
Holding
The Court held that "[w]ith no showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying school districts and no evidence of any interdistrict violation or effect," the district court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Burger, joined by Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
Concurrence	Stewart
Dissent	Douglas
Dissent	White, joined by Douglas, Brennan, Marshall
Dissent	Marshall, joined by Douglas, Brennan, White
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

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Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974), was a significant United States Supreme Court case dealing with the planned desegregation busing of public school students across district lines among 53 school districts in metropolitan Detroit.^[1] It concerned the plans to integrate public schools in the United States following the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision.^[2]

The ruling clarified the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, confirming that segregation was allowed if it was not considered an explicit policy of each school district. In particular, the Court held that the school systems were not responsible for desegregation across district lines unless it could be shown that they had each deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation. The case did not expand on Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971),^[3] the first major Supreme Court case concerning school busing.