On June 12, 1963, the plaintiffs brought this desegregation lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The plaintiffs, African-American minor school children, by and through their parents, sued the defendant Shelby County Board of Education to enjoin the operation of a segregated school system. The United States also intervened as a plaintiff in 1966.

On March 17, 1964, the district court (Judge Bailey Brown) adopted the Board's freedom of choice desegregation plan, which largely stayed in place until the Supreme Court decided Green v. County School Board -- at which point the plaintiffs pushed for the Board to take more aggressive steps to desegregate. From 1968 through 1972, the parties fought over various proposals, with the Sixth Circuit ultimately upholding the district court's approval of a plan (after at first rejecting it, citing the Board's failure to take affirmative steps to desegregate) on September 21, 1972. Nonetheless, the district court retained jurisdiction over the case.

The case was dormant from 1972 until 1986 when, on April 9, the district court (at that point Judge Odell Horton) roundly rejected the Board's request to approve the construction of ten permanent classrooms at a predominantly white elementary school in the district. Rather than opting for student reassignment to under-utilized schools, the Board, in the face of fierce community opposition, instead proposed the construction. But as Judge Horton concluded, such opposition "cannot justify the defendant's failure to consider the negative impact of its proposal for construction . . . on desegregation." Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 643 F.Supp. 111, 121 (W.D. Tenn. Apr. 9, 1986).

In 2006, both parties moved jointly to declare the school district unitary and terminate the litigation, with no objection from the United States. On July 26, 2007, the district court granted the motion with respect to facilities, transportation and staffing -- but denied it with respect to student assignment, faculty integration and extracurricular activities. The court established new "racial ratios" for the composition of students and faculty yo be met no later than October of 2012, with the aim being to declare unitary status by October of 2015. Both parties appealed, and on May 21, 2009, the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of full unitary status and ordered the lower court to grant the motion and dismiss the case. The decision came over a vigorous dissent by Judge Algenon Marbley, who decried the majority's deference to the parties' desires -- at the expense of the lack of on-the-ground evidence that the school system was in fact unitary. As he explained:

Nothing—not the agreement of the parties jointly to seek dissolution of the desegregation decree, not the number of years that this case has been pending and the general progress in race relations nationwide that has occurred in that time, and not the eagerness of the courts or school boards to restore local control over community schools—can substitute for evidence showing the Board's compliance with the desegregation decree. The evidence in fact reveals that among the forty-four schools for which the Board has data, two thirds of them are not in compliance with the flexible benchmark set forth by the district court for measuring racial balance. Furthermore, the district court has been managing this case since 1963. Based on the court's knowledge and experience with this case, it is in the best position to judge the evidence and determine whether dissolution of the desegregation decree is appropriate at this time. Because the parties have not carried their burden of showing that the racial disparities that continue to plague the County's schools are not the vestiges of past unlawful discrimination, I would affirm the district court's judgment.

Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 566 F.3d 642, 657 (6th Cir. May 21, 2009) (Marbley, J., dissenting).

On July 16, 2009, the district court followed the Sixth Circuit's mandate and dismissed the case, thus ending its supervision over desegregation in the Shelby County schools.

Post-script: In 2013, the Memphis City school system merged with the surrounding Shelby County school district to form one consolidated school system.

Available Opinions
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 311 F.Supp. 97 (W.D. Tenn. Apr. 6, 1970)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 429 F.2d 11 (6th Cir. June 25, 1970)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 442 F.2d 255 (6th Cir. May 10, 1971)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 330 F.Supp. 837 (W.D. Tenn. June 23, 1971)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 467 F.2d 1187 (6th Cir. Sept. 21, 1972)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 643 F.Supp. 111 (W.D. Tenn. Apr. 9, 1986)
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 566 F.3d 642 (6th Cir. May 21, 2009)

Greg Margolis - 03/06/2017


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