Missouri v. Jenkins (1995)

Missouri v. Jenkins (1995), 515 U.S. 70 (1995), argued 11 Jan. 1995, decided 12 June 1995 by vote of 5 to 4; Rehnquist for the Court joined by O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, O'Connor and Thomas separately concurring, Souter dissenting joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, Ginsburg separately dissenting.

In a previous appearance, Missouri v. Jenkins (1990), the justices had limited their consideration to disapproving of the federal district court's attempt to raise local and state property taxes to pay for a court‐ordered desegregation plan. This time the Court reviewed the details of what was described as “the most ambitious and expensive remedial program in the history of school desegregation” (p. 78). The plan was self‐consciously designed to attract nonminority students and teachers to move voluntarily from the suburbs to inner‐city schools in the Kansas City school district, that is, to remedy so‐called “white‐flight.” The majority held this purpose and design to indirectly create an interdistrict remedy exceeded the judicial power of the district court, because the constitutional violation—the unlawful segregation by school authorities—was limited to the Kansas City school district. Under the principle of Milliken v. Bradley (1974), such an interdistrict remedy is proper if and only if there was interdistrict segregation.

The dissenters accused the majority of not affording broad discretion and not deferring to district court judges who have lived with these local school desegregation cases for decades. They urged greater respect for creative new remedies addressing the deeply rooted and long‐lasting vestiges of segregation. Otherwise, the federal judiciary would idly stand by while the public schools become resegregated.

Thomas E. Baker