Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver

After the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in both Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II that racially segregated schools in the United States were unconstitutional, many states began the arduous process of desegregating their public school systems. Prior to this case many of these initial efforts to desegregate were done primarily in the southern states, as segregation by law was far more common than in the northern states.[2]

However, in one school district located in Denver, Colorado, there had been evidence of de facto school segregation almost 15 years after the Brown ruling.[3] The Denver school district was accused of maintaining this de facto segregation by means of attendance zones, optional zones, and mobile classroom units in the Park Hill neighborhood.[4] But in April 1969, a plan was put forth by the superintendent of the school board to begin desegregating public schools in the Denver Area by means of integrated busing.[3]

However, two months later after these plans were introduced, a new superintendent was voted in to power over the incumbent. The new superintendent cancelled the previous integration plan all together.[3]

Less than two weeks later, a group of parents brought suit against the Denver School District, alleging that the entirety of the Denver school system was guilty of racial segregation and was therefore in violation of their 14th Amendment right to Equal Protection of the laws.[5] The defending party rejected this claim, asserting that even if it was true that the Denver School District was guilty of racial segregation that did not mean that all other school districts in the Denver area were likewise guilty.

Writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan ruled against the Denver School District authority and held that "where, as in this case, a policy of intentional segregation has been proved with respect to a significant portion of the school system, the burden is on the school authorities (regardless of claims that their 'neighborhood school policy' was racially neutral) to prove that their actions as to other segregated schools in the system were not likewise motivated by a segregative intent."[1] Thus, the evidence of segregation in the Denver School District was determined to be of such significance that it implicated the entire Denver school system as a result.

In relation to the fact that much of the segregation at question was a result of a de facto nature for ten years, the Majority also held that, "if the actions of school authorities were to any degree motivated by segregative intent and the segregation resulting from those actions continues to exist, the fact of remoteness in time certainly does not make those actions any less 'intentional'."[1]

• Text of Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, 413 U.S. 189 (1973) is available from:  Cornell  Justia  Library of Congress  Oyez (oral argument audio)