Green v. County School Board

The public-school system in New Kent County, Virginia served 740 Black students and 550 White students. The New Kent County School Board (board) (defendant) operated one combined elementary and high school for White students (New Kent School) and one combined elementary and high school for Black students (Watkins School). The county’s school system was initially established pursuant to Virginia’s constitution and state statutes requiring racially segregated education. The board kept operating the schools as segregated after the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Board of Education I, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). In March 1965, Charles Green and other students and parents from the school district (plaintiffs) brought an action against the board in a federal district court, seeking an injunction to prevent the board from continuing to operate the racially segregated schools. In August 1965, the board adopted what it called a freedom-of-choice plan for desegregating the schools. The plan allowed students to choose annually whether they wanted to attend the New Kent School or the Watkins School. The district court approved the board’s plan. The court of appeals affirmed, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. By the time the case was argued before the Supreme Court in 1968, the board’s freedom-of-choice plan had been in operation for three years. During that time, 85 percent of the Black students in the county had continued attending the Watkins School, and 100 percent of the White students in the county had continued attending the New Kent School.