Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
2,174 federal appellate · 336 district · 221 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,825 later decisions (222 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971)
2,174 federal appellate · 336 district · 221 state decisions — followed in 26 states
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedSwann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 2000C
Relies on Monroe v. Pape · Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Brown v. Board of Education · Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
Cited together with Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Green v. County School Board of New Kent County · Brown v. Board of Education · Milliken v. Bradley · Keyes v. School District No 1 Denver Colorado
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 4,825 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Once a right and a violation have been shown, the scope of a district court's equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies.”
382 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Neither school authorities nor district courts are constitutionally required to make year-by-year adjustments of the racial composition of student bodies once the affirmative duty to desegregate has been accomplished and racial discrimination through official action is eliminated from the system. This does not mean that federal courts are without power to deal with future problems; but in the absence of a showing that either the school authorities or some other agency of the State has deliberately attempted to fix or alter demographic patterns to affect the racial composition of the schools, further intervention by a district court should not be necessary.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.