Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

After Brown v. Board of Education, North Carolina adopted a neighborhood-based school assignment plan, but when the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (defendant) consolidated city and surrounding school districts, most Black children still attended segregated schools simply because of where they lived. The NAACP sued on behalf of Swann (plaintiff), an African American schoolchild, seeking a court order requiring busing across district lines to achieve actual desegregation; the district court agreed busing was required, the court of appeals reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.