11/21/1968 • 4 views
Supreme Court Orders End to Delays in Desegregating Schools
On November 21, 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts must not accept indefinite or protracted plans that delay meaningful desegregation of public schools, reinforcing the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education to achieve prompt school integration.
Background
In Brown v. Board of Education (1954 and 1955), the Supreme Court held that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and required the elimination of segregation “with all deliberate speed.” In the years that followed, many districts, particularly in the South, resisted integration through tactics including token measures, pupil placement schemes, and lengthy phase-in timetables. Federal district courts and courts of appeals were tasked with supervising desegregation remedies, and a body of case law developed around what constituted prompt and effective relief.
The 1968 ruling
The Court’s action on November 21, 1968, confronted this history of delay. The decision emphasized that federal courts must enforce constitutional rights through effective remedies and should not sanction plans that perpetuate meaningful racial separation under the guise of gradualism or administrative convenience. While cases and factual settings varied, the common thread was judicial impatience with tokenism and incremental plans that left segregated attendance patterns largely intact.
Legal significance
The ruling reaffirmed that the remedy for past constitutional violations must be adequate to accomplish desegregation practically and substantially, not merely symbolically. It clarified that courts exercising equitable powers must scrutinize proposed plans for their real-world impact on racial balance and opportunities, and they should reject arrangements that amount to continued segregation by another name. That stance strengthened the judiciary’s role in supervising school systems until effective desegregation was achieved.
Practical effects
In the months and years after the decision, the Court’s message pushed some school districts toward more robust actions: redrawn attendance zones, reassignment of staff, busing in some jurisdictions, and consolidation of segregated schools. The ruling also gave civil rights litigants and federal courts firmer footing to insist on remedies that produced demonstrable changes in student assignments, faculty composition, and educational resources.
Limitations and ongoing struggles
Despite the decision’s force, implementation varied widely by locality. Some districts complied and made substantial changes; others found ways to minimize integration’s effects. Further litigation continued over the proper scope of remedies, the use of busing, and the duration of judicial oversight. Later Supreme Court decisions and shifting political dynamics in subsequent decades also influenced the durability and extent of desegregation efforts.
Historical context
The November 1968 ruling formed part of a broader Supreme Court and federal-court effort during the 1960s to convert the abstract constitutional principle announced in Brown into concrete, enforceable school policies. It reflected frustration with tactics that had undermined Brown’s promise and reinforced the principle that constitutional violations require effective, timely remedies rather than indefinite postponements.
Today, historians and legal scholars view the decision as a key moment in the courts’ campaign to make school desegregation meaningful, while also noting that legal victories were only one element in a complex social and political process that continued to evolve in the decades that followed.