Green v. County School Board
Citation and Court
391 U.S. 430 (1968) — Supreme Court of the United States
Facts
New Kent County, Virginia operated a dual school system — one school historically for white students, one for Black students. Following Brown v. Board of Education, the school board adopted a “freedom of choice” plan that allowed students to choose which school to attend. After three years of the plan’s operation, no white student had chosen the Black school and only 115 of 740 Black students had enrolled in the white school. The NAACP challenged the plan as insufficient to dismantle segregation.
Issue
Whether a freedom-of-choice desegregation plan satisfies a school board’s affirmative constitutional obligation to dismantle a dual school system.
Holding
No. A freedom-of-choice plan that fails in practice to dismantle the dual school system does not satisfy a school board’s constitutional obligation. School boards must take affirmative steps to eliminate all vestiges of a racially dual system “root and branch.”
Rule / Doctrine
School boards that previously operated dual systems have an affirmative duty — not merely a duty to cease discriminating — to dismantle segregation and convert to a unitary, non-racial system. If a freedom-of-choice plan does not realistically promise to eliminate segregation promptly, the board must adopt a more effective alternative. The burden is on the board to show its plan works.
Significance
Green moved desegregation jurisprudence from passive nondiscrimination to active integration, dramatically accelerating desegregation efforts in the South. It established the “Green factors” (faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities) used to assess whether a district has achieved unitary status, which courts applied in subsequent cases including Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1971).