William J. Brennan, Jr.

“ Three school years have followed the District Court's approval of the attendance zones for the junior high schools. Yet Merry Junior High School was still completely a 'Negro' school in the 1967-1968 school year, enrolling some 640 Negro pupils, or over 80% of the system's Negro junior high school students. Not one of the 'considerable number of white pupils in the middle and northern parts of the Merry zone' assigned there under the attendance zone aspect of the plan chose to stay at Merry. Every one exercised his option to transfer out of the 'Negro' school. ”

“ Petitioners objected to the proposed zones on two grounds, arguing first that they were racially gerrymandered because so drawn as to assign Negro children to the 'Negro' Merry school and white children to the 'white' Jackson and Tigrett schools, and alternatively that the plan was in any event inadequate to reorganize the system on a nonracial basis. Petitioners, through expert witnesses, urged that the Board be required to adopt a 'feeder system,' a commonly used method of assigning students whereby each junior high school would draw its students from specified elementary schools. ”

“ The respondent Board of Commissioners is the School Board for the City of Jackson, located in midwestern Tennessee. The school district coincides with the city limits. Some one-third of the city's population of 40,000 are Negroes, the great majority of whom live in the city's central area. The school system has eight elementary schools, three junior high schools, and two senior high schools. There are 7,650 children enrolled in the system's schools, about 40% of whom, over 3,200, are Negroes. ”