Supreme Court of the United States, 1977

Brennan v. Armstrong

Supreme Court of the United States · Decided June 29, 1977 · Brennan, Marshall, Stevens

433 U.S. 672; 97 S. Ct. 2907; 53 L. Ed. 2d 1044; 1977 U.S. LEXIS 148 (United States Reports)

Cases that cite this one

41 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

In re Chicago Flood Litigation (Ill. App. Ct. 1997)
In re Chicago Flood Litigation (Ill. App. Ct. 1997)
Class v. Standard Mutual Insurance (Ill. App. Ct. 1997)
United States v. Yonkers Board of Education (District Court, S.D. New York 1985)
Reed v. Rhodes (District Court, N.D. Ohio 1978)
People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. of Educ. (District Court, N.D. Illinois 1994)
Pride Communications Ltd. Partnership v. WCKG, Inc. (District Court, N.D. Illinois 1994)
Armstrong v. O'CONNELL (District Court, E.D. Wisconsin 1979)
Evans v. Buchanan (United States District Court for the District of Delaware 1977)
National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People v. Lansing Board Of Education (6th Cir. 1977)
National Ass'n for the Advancement of Colored People v. Lansing Board of Education (6th Cir. 1977)
Billieson v. City of New Orleans (La. Ct. App. 2017)
One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v. Thomsen (District Court, W.D. Wisconsin 2016)
Parents for Quality Education With Integration, Inc. v. Fort Wayne Community Schools Corp. (District Court, N.D. Indiana 1990)
Dowell v. Board of Education of the Oklahoma City Public Schools, Independent District No. 89 (United States District Court, Oklahoma Western 1987)
29 Fair empl.prac.cas. 1389, 29 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,996 (7th Cir. 1982)
New York State Ass'n for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Carey (District Court, E.D. New York 1982)
Resnick v. American Dental Ass'n (District Court, N.D. Illinois 1982)
Wattleton v. International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers (7th Cir. 1982)
Summit Office Park, Inc. v. United States Steel Corporation (5th Cir. 1981)
Summit Office Park, Inc. v. United States Steel Corp. (5th Cir. 1981)
Kevin Armstrong v. Board Of School Directors Of The City Of Milwaukee (7th Cir. 1980)
Armstrong v. Board of School Directors (7th Cir. 1980)
Gary W. v. State of Louisiana, Etc., Dr. William Cherry, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources (5th Cir. 1979)
Reed, III v. Cleveland Board of Education (6th Cir. 1979)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Dissenting Opinion

Mr. Justice Stevens, with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join,

dissenting.

My concern over the Court’s misuse of summary dispositions prompts this dissent.

The Court’s explanation of its action gives the erroneous impression that the Court of Appeals’ decision related to the question of what kind of remedy is appropriate in this case. Quite the contrary, there was no remedy issue before the Court of Appeals, and that court considered no such issue.

The District Court concluded in a 60-page opinion that “school authorities engaged in practices with the intent and for the purpose of creating and maintaining a segregated school system, and that such practices had the effect of causing current conditions of segregation in the Milwaukee public schools.” Amos v. Board of School Directors, 408 F. Supp. 765, 818 (ED Wis. 1976). Recognizing that “remedial efforts' may well be for naught if the determination of liability is ultimately reversed on appeal,” id., at 824, Judge Reynolds certified this issue of law for interlocutory appeal. To further ensure appealability, he entered a general order enjoining future racial discrimination and directing the defendants to formulate desegregation plans. App. 140-141. This order did not call for any particular kind of desegregation plan. Thus, *674when the case reached the Court of Appeals, the only issue before it was the existence of a violation.1 After a careful review of the evidence, it concluded that the District Court’s finding of intentional segregation was not clearly erroneous. 539 F. 2d 625 (CA7 1976). .

This Court now vacates the Court of Appeals judgment and remands for reconsideration in light of two cases. One of those cases2 is merely a routine application of Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, which was correctly construed by the Court of Appeals.3 The other case is relevant to the issue of liability, if at all, only because it supports the Court of Appeals.4

Of course, in formulating a remedy, the District Court will need to consider cases such as Milliken v. Bradley, ante, p. 267, and Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, ante, p. 406, if there is any dispute about the proper scope of the remedy. But since no such issue has ever been decided by the Court of Appeals, there is nothing for it to reconsider in light of these cases. These cases certainly provide no justification for vacating the judgment affirming the District Court’s conclusion that the petitioners have violated the Constitution. This Court’s hasty action will unfortunately lead to unnecessary *675work by already overburdened Circuit Judges, who have given this case far more study than this Court had time to give it. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that after respectful reconsideration the Court of Appeals remains free to re-enter its original judgment.

In my opinion the petition for certiorari should be denied. However, since the Court has granted the petition, and since it is not our practice to review findings of fact which the Court of Appeals has already determined to be supported by the record, I would affirm the judgment.

After the case was argued in the Court of Appeals on June 2, 1976 (see 539 F. 2d 625), the District Court entered a broader remedy. App. 142, 144.

Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252.

The Court of Appeals cited Washington v. Davis as holding that “a 'racially discriminatory purpose’ is essential to an equal protection violation in school cases, as in other cases,” and that “[pjurpose may ... be inferred from ‘the totality of the relevant facts,’ which may include discriminatory impact,” 539 F. 2d, at 633-634, quoting Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 242.

Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, ante, p. 406, is primarily a remedy case and therefore irrelevant to the action of the Court of Appeals in this case. It does, however, stress the limitations on appellate review in this area, such as the “clearly erroneous” rule, ante, at 417, which the Court of Appeals scrupulously followed, e. g., 539 F. 2d, at 637.

Opinion of the Court

Per Curiam.

This school desegregation case involves the school system in the city of Milwaukee, Wis. The District Court here made various findings of segregative acts on the part of petitioner School Board members, appointed a Special Master “to develop a plan for the desegregation of the Milwaukee public school system,” and certified its order for interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Amos v. Board of School Directors, 408 F. Supp. 765. The Court of Appeals, observing that there was “an unexplained hiatus between specific findings of fact and conclusory findings of segregative intent,” stated that the District Court is “entitled to a presumption of consistency” and concluded that the findings of the District Court were not clearly erroneous. 539 F. 2d 625. Neither the District Court in ordering development of a remedial plan, nor the Court of Appeals in affirming, addressed itself to the inquiry mandated by our opinion in Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, ante, p. 406, in which we said:

“If such violations are found, the District Court in the first instance, subject to review by the Court of Appeals, must determine how much incremental segrega-tive effect these violations had on the racial distribution *673of the Dayton school population as presently constituted, when that distribution is compared to what it would have been in the absence of such constitutional violations. The remedy must be designed to redress that difference, and only if there has been a systemwide impact may there be a systemwide remedy.” Ante, at 420.

The petition for certiorari is accordingly granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is .vacated, and the case is remanded for reconsideration in the light of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977), and Dayton.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.