Discriminatory Intent and the Taming of Brown

Abstract

citations omitted) ("The mandate of Brown ... was to desegregate schools, and we have said that '[t]he measure of any desegregation plan is its effectiveness.'Thus, we have focused upon the effect-not the purpose or motivation-of a school board's action in determining whether it is a permissible method of dismantling a dual system."); Green v County School Board, 391 US 430, 439-42 (1968); id at 442 ("The Board must be required to formulate a new plan and . . .fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a 'white' school and a 'Negro' school, but just schools.").These decisions are not unequivocal because they might be seen as limited to the special case of school districts that had once been segregated by law.Or they might be seen as extensions of the Gomillion principle, on the theory that the school districts' actions were in fact deliberate efforts to maintain segregation.This is probably the best understanding of Griffin v School Board, 377 US