Facts—After the Supreme Court’s historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court ordered rearguments on how this ruling should be implemented. The U.S. attorney general as well as attorneys general of several states participated in oral arguments.
Question—How should the racial desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education be implemented?
Decision—The Court would place primary responsibility with local school officials, as overseen by courts of original jurisdiction, exercising equitable remedies. Schools should make good faith efforts to progress toward desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”
Reasons—C.J. Warren (9–0). Noting that substantial steps had already been taken to advance school desegregation, Warren said that “School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles.” Warren decided that the courts that originally heard the desegregation cases would have primary responsibility for overseeing them. Such oversight would be governed by “equitable principles,” which Warren characterized as having “a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs.” School districts should “make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with our May 17, 1954, ruling” but may then be given extra time. District Courts should act to see that such compliance takes place “with all deliberate speed.”
Note—Brown v. Board of Education faced a policy of “massive resistance” throughout the South. Some scholars have argued that the phrase “with all deliberate speed” (added at the suggestion of Justice Felix Frankfurter) encouraged states to resist, but, given the volatility of the desegregation issue, such resistance would likely have occurred with or without this particular phrase.