Bowman v. County School Board of Charles City County’s Empirical Analysis
382 F.2d 326 · 1967
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2017 · most notably Green v. County School Board of New Kent County (1968), Bazemore v. Friday (1986)
31 federal appellate · 1 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Cooper v. Aaron · Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County · Watson v. City of Memphis · Michigan National Bank v. Michigan
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'Freedom of choice' is not a sacred talisman.... [I]f it fails to undo segregation, other means must be used to achieve this end.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In view of the situation found in New Kent County, where there is no residential segregation, the elimination of the dual school system and the establishment of a ‘unitary, non-racial system’ could be readily achieved with a minimum of administrative difficulty by means of geographical zoning * * *. [However] a geographical formula is not universally appropriate * * *»”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘Freedom of choice’ is a phrase of many connotations. Employed as descriptive of a system of permissive transfers out of segregated schools in which the initial assignments are both involuntary and dictated by racial criteria, it is an illusion and an oppression which is constitutionally impermissible. Long since, this court has condemned it. [Citations omitted.] The burden of extracting individual pupils from discriminatory, racial assignments may not be cast upon the pupils or their parents. It is the duty of the school boards to eliminate the discrimination which inheres in such a system. “Employed as descriptive of a system in which each pupil, or his parents, must annually exercise an uninhibited choice, and the choices govern the assignments, it is a very different thing. If each pupil, each year, attends the school of his choice, the Constitution does not require that he be deprived of his choice unless its exercise is not free. This we have held, [citations omitted] and we adhere to our holdings. “Whether or not the choice is free may depend upon circumstances extraneous to the formal plan of the school board. If there is a contention that economic or other pressures in the community inhibit the free exercise of the choice, there must be a judicial appraisal of it, for ‘freedom of choice’ is acceptable only if the choice is free in the practical context of its exercise. If there are extraneous pressures which deprive the choice of its freedom, the school board may b”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.