Why was the "Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education" court

Question: Why was the "Swann v!. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education" court case (1971) so controversial!?

Court case: Swann v!. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

BUSING!
That's what it was all about!.
I grew up in Atlanta, this was a HUGE deal in 1971!.

Okay, this is how it went!.!.!.!.
A little over 50 yrs ago the United States Supreme Court handed down one of its most famous, compelling and iconic decisions, Brown v!. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, labeling the practice of "separate but equal" as unconstitutional within the school system!.

It didn't stop there!. The NAACP attorneys continued to fight in the courts!. These battles played out in cases such as Cooper v!. Aaron (1958), Griffin v!. Prince Edward County (1964), Green v!. County School Board of New Kent County (1968), AND Swann v!. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)!.

Under Chief Justice Burger, the Court attempted to clarify its position on remedy powers!.

The Swann decision in 1971 particularly influenced the desegregation of school districts in the South because the court ruled that previously segregated districts needed to balance their schools racially, even if that required cross-town busing to do so!.

Which basically meant!.!.!.!.you lived in a certain neighborhood!. Within the area there was an elementary school, a junior high or middle school, and a high school!. Every kid in that neighborhood attended one of those particular schools!.
HOWEVER!.!.!.!.!.!.!.
Most neighborhoods in cities & towns in 1971 were still "self-segregated"!. Take Chicago for instance!. There's the Polish neighborhoods!. There's the Jewish neighborhoods!. There's the Greek neighborhoods!. There's the Puerto Rican neighborhoods!. There's Irish neighborhoods!. And so on!.

Well, needless to say, there's not many African Americans living in the Irish neighborhoods!.
According to the Swann v!. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case!.!.!.!.it was ruled that previously segregated districts needed to balance their schools racially, even if that required cross-town busing to do so!.
That meant kids would be put on a bus!.!.!.!.!.and driven to ANOTHER neighborhood, another school district!.!.!.!.!.could be up the road or on the OTHER side of town!.!.!.!.to make the schools racially BALANCED!.

It didn't go very well!.
For anybody!.
Kids were spending HOURS on buses!.
The kids hated it!.!.!.!. black and white!.
The parents hated it!.!.!. black and white!.
The teachers hated it!.!.!. black and white!.
The days dragged on and on!.
A school day became never ending!.
There weren't enough school buses to handle the cross town transports!.
City buses had to be leased!.
It was expensive!.
It was tiresome!.
Everyone was exhausted!.
There could literally be a school a block from your home but you weren't allowed to go there!.
You had to catch a bus, ride for an hour & a half, and go to another school without your friends, with a bunch of people you didn't know and had notihng in common with!.

We all guess it was a noble idea, but for that time, when your family was lucky to have ONE car, people didn't travel much further than downtown, and going to a mall was like going to Disneyland!.!.!.!. it was a nightmare!.

Sorry so long, but it's a weird thing to understand unless you were actuallly THERE!.!.!. and I wuz actually there!. I was VERY young <cough*cough*>!. I lived in a Irish Catholic neighborhood that backed up to a Southern Jewish neighborhood!. We were a fairly mixed bunch!. Then busing came!. Me, some neighbor kids and a couple of the Jewish got "bused" on a City Bus downtown Atlanta and my best friend who lived directly behind my house got bused to a school four neighborhoods away!. Needless to say, the "busing thing" failed badly!.Www@QuestionHome@Com