Potter Stewart

“ In spite of the limited scope of the inquiry and the findings, the District Court concluded that the only effective remedy for the constitutional violations found to have existed within the city of Detroit was a desegregation plan calling for busing pupils to and from school districts outside the city. The District Court found that any desegregation plan operating wholly "‘within the corporate geographical limits of the city'" would be deficient, since it "‘would clearly make the entire Detroit public school system racially identifiable as Black.'" 484 F.2d 215, 244, 243. ”

“ It is this essential fact of a predominantly Negro school population in Detroit — caused by unknown and perhaps unknowable factors such as in-migration, birth rates, economic changes, or cumulative acts of private racial fears — that accounts for the "growing core of Negro schools," a "core" that has grown to include virtually the entire city. ”

“ No record has been made in this case showing that the racial composition of the Detroit school population or that residential patterns within Detroit and in the surrounding areas were in any significant measure caused by governmental activity, and it follows that the situation over which my dissenting Brothers express concern cannot serve as the predicate for the remedy adopted by the District Court and approved by the Court of Appeals. ”