The First Review Article of Elizabeth Warren's Law Denounces an Anti-Busing Court Decision

"In addition, if localities do not take steps to desegregate schools, Elizabeth believes that the federal government has the constitutional obligation to intervene to fulfill the promise of Brown v. Board, including, the case appropriate, bus transportation, "said Orthman.

"She clearly did her homework"

Warren's decision to write on education in his first published law journal article would mark the beginning of a long career both as a law professor and in politics as a senator and presidential candidate.

His first article, according to Justin Driver, a law professor at the Yale School of Law, showed a remarkable understanding of the complexities of the law of education.

It was a "scholarship extremely fulfilled by a student," Driver said. "She clearly did her homework."

In this article, Warren predicts that segregation of fact – segregation occurs not because it has been institutionalized by the government, but because of social norms, prejudices, and self-selection – and swear – of the segregation that existed because of laws imposing racial rules. segregation – had been silently "reaffirmed" by the court and seized American public schools.

Warren wrote that the isolation of minorities in urban centers and the reduction of the tax base to fund public education would lead to facilities whose "pupil / teacher ratio and other benefits to are inferior ". For that Brown v. Board of Education makes sense in northern urban centers, Warren said that "effectively, separate schools, even equal, and certainly so unequal, are constitutionally condemned, regardless of the reason for the separation."

The most "devastating" desegregation case in the history of the Supreme Court

In the 1970s, a class action brought by the NAACP alleged that the Detroit Board of Education and Michigan State officials, including Governor William Milliken, maintained racial segregation within the city's school system. The lawsuit, Milliken c. Bradley, demanded a plan to desegregate an almost black school district in Detroit by integrating with the other 53 school districts in the area. The district court found that state practices were unconstitutional and ordered the desegregation of school districts by transporting students from neighboring school districts. The Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit upheld the District Court's decision.

However, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of lower courts in Milliken v. Bradley. The court ruled 5-4 that a predominantly black school district, such as Detroit, could not transport students from predominantly white suburban districts for the purpose of desegregating schools in the city, unless those districts are also engaged in illegal segregation practices. In short, a district court could not conceive of an appeal between districts to remedy a violation of the Constitution by a district.

"Milliken v. Bradley was the most devastating desegregation decision in the history of US courts," said Kimberly Robinson, a law professor at the University of Virginia's Faculty of Law.

Robinson said that Milliken made segregation solutions in northern cities almost impossible.

During the 1950s and 1960s, when whites invaded the cities of America, cities and suburbs became racially homogenous and their school districts were representative of the population. The Supreme Court then ordered that all violations between districts be ascertained before interdisciplinary corrective measures, such as bus transportation, could be taken. With the court's new mandate for inter-district violations, the decision "handcuffed" the federal district courts, Robinson said.

Warren weighs in

Warren also seemed to recognize the importance of Milliken in his law review article. She argued that, without proper oversight of the federal justice system, she wrote, the burden of desegregation falls on Black communities.

"Black parents, children and desegregated organizations have borne the brunt of the burden … It is clear that the burden of enforcing Brown's law has been shifted," wrote Warren.

Warren wrote that the Milliken This decision, coupled with another decision confirming the public system of public school funding through local taxes, "will lead to downtown schools whose facilities, pupil / teacher ratio and other educational benefits are inferior. because funding is not commensurate with that available for suburban schools ".

Erika K. Wilson, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina Law School, said that Warren's predictions of what would happen in the American education system have largely been realized and that his point was in perfect harmony with Judge Thurgood Marshall, who wrote: dissenting opinion in Milliken. The American school systems would be "irretrievably separate," Wilson said.

Warren, noted Wilson, could have been out of step with his contemporaries at the time, and particularly out of step with white Americans who were "tired" of the decades-long battle for the integration of public schools.

A contrast with Biden

While Warren wrote about bus transportation, at the same time in the 1970s, Biden, a young senator, opposed bus transportation to de facto segregation sites like Detroit. He criticized the courts for using the terms of desegregation and integration interchangeably, appearing to rally to the very decision of the Supreme Court that Warren had written against.

"The majority of particularly white Americans who were fed up with school desegregation have seen (Milliken) like a win and a good thing, "said Wilson.

But Warren does not have it. She said the decision "could therefore be a separate and unequal school" and called on Congress to intervene.

"If the Court can not or does not want to develop a judicial remedy against school segregation in urban areas, the Congress must do so.Equal educational opportunities require the combined efforts of the judiciary , the legislature and the administrative services of the executive, "concluded Warren.