Morgan v. Hennigan facts for kids
Morgan v. Hennigan was an important court case in Boston, Massachusetts during the 1970s. It was about whether students should be bused to different schools to end racial segregation. On March 14, 1972, the Boston chapter of the NAACP started a lawsuit. They sued the Boston School Committee on behalf of 14 Black parents and 44 children. Tallulah Morgan was the main parent leading the lawsuit, and James Hennigan, who was the head of the School Committee, was the main person being sued.
The lawyers for the parents argued that the School Committee had broken the U.S. Constitution. They said the committee violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The parents claimed that the School Committee and other education officials had "intentionally caused and kept up racial segregation in the Boston Public Schools."
Even though Boston did not have "de jure" segregation (segregation by law), it had "de facto" segregation. This meant segregation happened because of actions taken, not because of specific laws. Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. was chosen for the case. He made his decision on June 21, 1974. He ruled that the city had helped create a "dual school system," meaning one school system for each race. Judge Garrity's plan to fix this problem, which included changing school zones and busing students, became a very big and difficult issue in Boston.
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Why the Lawsuit Happened
After World War II, a big civil rights movement spread across the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, people held sit-ins, protests, marches, and boycotts. Television helped show these events to the whole country. The civil rights movement became very important in Boston as the number of African Americans living there grew a lot, from about 42,659 in 1950 to about 104,429 in 1970.
In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States made a very important decision that helped the civil rights movement. In the case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, the Supreme Court said that separating public schools by race "denied Black children the equal protection of the laws." This is a right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The judges looked at studies that showed separate schools were bad for the growth of Black children. When this decision was put into action in Little Rock, Arkansas, many white people reacted strongly, which shocked the country. The Brown case ended "de jure" segregation, but activists in Boston then focused on "de facto" segregation.
In 1961, the NAACP's Education Committee, led by Ruth Batson, started meeting with Boston's School Committee. They wanted the committee members to admit that "de facto" segregation existed in Boston's schools. Batson showed facts: thirteen schools in Boston were at least 90% Black. Also, these schools received $125 less per student than the average white school in Boston. The School Committee refused to agree. So, the NAACP used common civil rights methods like boycotts and protests. But as soon as this movement began, a counter-movement started against desegregation in Boston's schools.
Even while the School Committee said there was no segregation, they supported policies that made racial imbalance worse. Instead of sending white students to mostly Black schools, the Committee built portable classrooms at white schools that were already too crowded. For example, at South Boston High, an all-white school, there were 676 more students than it could hold in the 1971-72 school year. Girls High, which was 92% Black, had 532 empty spots. Boston's system of feeder schools was probably the most effective way the Committee used to keep schools separate. In this system, students from middle schools (ending with grade 8) went to high schools with grades 9-12. Students from junior high schools (ending with grade 9) went to high schools with grades 10-12. Junior highs were usually in white neighborhoods, while middle schools were usually in Black neighborhoods. The School Committee even made things worse by changing two of the biggest Black junior high schools into middle schools for no good reason. After ten years of protests, arguments, and the Boston School Committee avoiding the issue, the problem finally led to the 1972 court case.
Important Court Cases Before Morgan v. Hennigan
One reason Judge Garrity took a long time to make his decision was to make sure his ruling was supported by other important court cases. An important case for Boston was the U.S. Supreme Court case, Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver. In this case, Black and Hispanic parents from Denver, Colorado sued all Denver schools because of racial segregation. The decision in 1973, written by Justice William J. Brennan, was key in defining "de facto" segregation. Brennan found that even though there were no official laws supporting segregation in Denver, "the Board, through its actions over a period of years, intentionally created and maintained the segregated character of the core city schools." The idea of "intent" became a very important part of the Boston case.
Another important case was Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. In 1969, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina was segregated by law. It was not surprising that a court ruled in favor of the Black parents in this case. But the important part was the solution ordered by Federal District Judge James McMillan. McMillan ordered a lot of busing and changes to how schools were grouped. When the school district appealed, the judge's orders were at first found to "exceed...his authority." However, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Warren Burger said that the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment gave federal judges a lot of power to make schools desegregated. Burger supported the idea of busing. This case gave Judge Garrity the power to make his plan happen in Boston.
The Decision and How It Was Put into Action
Judge Garrity told the School Committee they could not break the Racial Imbalance Act. He also stopped them from building any new schools or portable classrooms, or moving white or Black teachers in ways that would increase racial imbalance. Judge Garrity's plan for putting his orders into action was very strong because of the power given to him by the Swann case.
Garrity explained that "neutral behavior [was] no longer enough." The School Committee had to actively work to reverse the segregation in Boston schools. Until the Committee came up with its own plan, Garrity decided to use a plan from the State Board of Education. This plan was created after the Racial Imbalance Act was passed.
The Plan for Desegregation
The plan was set to start on the first day of school in September 1974. It would reduce the number of mostly Black schools from 68 to 44. It would also reduce the number of Black students attending imbalanced schools from about 30,000 to 10,000. The Board's plan used two main methods: changing school zones and busing students. The plan also replaced the old system of junior and middle schools with a single middle school program.
How People Reacted
Boston was a city with many different ethnic enclaves, or neighborhoods where people from similar backgrounds lived. Because of this, moving students between communities was very difficult and sometimes dangerous. Ms. Gloria Joyner, a Black mother of two high school students, rode the school bus from Roxbury to South Boston at the start of the 1974 school year. She described the police escort needed to keep the buses and children safe from angry white crowds: "our four buses were escorted by three police cruisers, 10 motorcycles, and a state helicopter overhead looking for rooftop snipers." When the buses arrived, people threw stones and shouted racial slurs.
On November 20, fights broke out between students at South Boston High School. The chaos delayed the start of the school day. It started when a white male student let a door slam in the face of a Black female student. One teacher, Ione Malloy, described the feeling in the school at this time: "This school is DEATH. The mood of the school is black." Fights happened often. The worst violence in South Boston happened on December 11, when a white student, Michael Faith, was hurt. News of the injury spread quickly, and by one o'clock, 1,500 people surrounded the school, waiting for the Black students to leave. People threw bricks and bottles at police officers. Finally, three decoy buses came out, and the crowd went after them. The Black students left through the back of the building and escaped safely.
The Master Plan
The Boston School Committee kept failing to create an acceptable plan for desegregation. So, Judge Garrity created a committee to make a "Master's Plan." This plan was presented in May 1975 and was called Phase II. This new plan created a citywide magnet school district. These schools were open to all students, no matter where they lived. The plan also connected public schools with twenty community colleges and universities to make education better. This plan would require busing 24,000 students. It also focused on elementary and middle school students.
Even though the School Committee still said they did not accept any plan for forced busing, this plan led to fewer violent incidents than the first phase. In May 1977, Garrity released Phase III. This phase was meant to give control of desegregation back to the Boston school system. Despite the School Committee's continued resistance to busing, the people of Boston slowly realized that the Committee members themselves were the "architects of inferior schools."
In the school board elections in November 1977, three School Committee members who strongly opposed busing were defeated. Also, John D. O'Bryant became the first Black man to be elected to the Committee in the 20th century. In 1982, Judge Garrity officially handed over the monitoring of desegregation to the State Board of Education.
What Happened After
For more than ten years, Boston's school system suffered from violence, hatred, and a breakdown of education. The results of this fight for equality did not last. By late 1989, Boston's School Committee continued to find ways around racial balance rules. At a meeting in December of that year, the Committee discussed racial statistics. One member asked a telling question about the Committee's policy: "We are excluding the Latin Schools because the numbers of students are mostly white, is that it?" Another member gave the official answer, saying that Latin schools were not included because their admissions were different.
In the 2003-04 school year, most Black and Latino students in Boston went to schools that were, on average, about 10% white. In 2003, out of all the Boston schools that were struggling and needed "corrective action," 90% were mostly non-white. It was found that since 1999, white students had attended schools that became progressively whiter each year.
