407 U.S. 484
92 S.Ct. 2214
33 L.Ed.2d 75
UNITED STATES, Petitioner,v.SCOTLAND NECK CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.  Pattie Black COTTON et al., Petitioners,  v.  SCOTLAND NECK CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.
Nos. 70—130, 70—187.
Argued Feb. 29 and March 1, 1972.
Decided June 22, 1972.
 
      Syllabus
 
      A state statute authorized creation of a new school district
 for Scotland Neck, N.C., a city that was part of the larger
 Halifax County school district, then in the process of dismantling
 a dual school system. The District Court in this litigation
 instituted by the United States enjoined implementation of the
 statute as creating a refuge for white students and promoting
 school segregation in the county. The Court of Appeals reversed,
 ruling that the statute's impact on dismantling the county dual
 system was minimal and that it should not be regarded as an
 alternative desegregation plan for the county since it was enacted
 by the legislature and not by the school board. Held: Whether the
 action affecting dismantling of a dual school system is initiated
 by the legislature or by the school board is immaterial, North
 Carolina State Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43, 91 S.Ct.
 1284, 28 L.Ed.2d 586; the criterion is whether the dismantling is
 furthered or hindered by carving a new school district from the
 larger district having the dual school system, and a proposal that
 would impede the dismantling process may be enjoined. Wright v.
 Council of City of Emporia, 407 U.S. 451, 92 S.Ct. 2196, 33
 L.Ed.2d 51. Pp. 488—491.
 
      442 F.2d 575, reversed.
 
      Lawrence G. Wallace, Washington, D.C., for the United States.

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Page 485
 
      Adam Stein, Charlotte, N.C., for Pattie Black Cotton and
 others.
 
      William T. Joyner, Raleigh, N.C., and C. Kitchin Josey,
 Scotland Neck, N.C., for Scotland Neck City Bd. of Ed. and others
 in both cases.
 
 djQ  Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
 
      The petitioners in these consolidated cases challenge the
 implementation of a North Carolina statute authorizing the
 creation of a new school district for Scotland Neck, a city which
 at the time of the statute's enactment was part of a larger school
 district then in the process of dismantling a dual school system.
 In a judgment entered the same day as its judgment in Council of
 City of Emporia v. Wright, 442 F.2d 570, a decision which we
 reverse today, 407 U.S. 451, 92 S.Ct. 2196, 33 L.Ed.2d 51, the
 Court of Appeals held that the District Court erred in enjoining
 the creation of the new school district.
 
      Scotland Neck is a community of about 3,000 persons, located
 in the southeastern portion of Halifax County, North Carolina.
 Since 1936, the city has been a part of the Halifax County
 Administrative Unit, a school district comprising the entire
 county with the exception of two towns located in the northern
 section. In the 1968—1969 school year, 10,655 students attended
 schools in this system, of whom 77% were Negro, 22% white, and 1%
 American Indian.
 
      The schools of Halifax County were completely segregated by
 race until 1965. In that year, the school board adopted a
 freedom-of-choice plan that produced very


2
Page 486
 
 little actual desegregation. In the 1967—1968 school year, all of
 the white students in the county attended the four traditionally
 all-white schools, while 97% of the Negro students attended the 14
 traditionally all-Negro schools. The school-busing system, used by
 90% of the students, was segregated by race, and faculty
 desegregation was minimal.
 
      In 1968, the United States Department of Justice entered into
 negotiations with the Halifax County School Board to bring the
 county's school system into compliance with federal law. An
 agreement was reached whereby the school board undertook to
 provide some desegregation in the fall of 1968, and to effect a
 completely unitary system in the 1969—1970 school year. The State
 Department of Public Instruction, acting on a request from the
 county board, recommended a detailed plan (the Interim Plan) for
 the unitary system that would have put some white students in
 every school in the county, and that would have left a white
 majority in only one school.
 
      In January 1969, after the Interim Plan had been submitted to
 the county school board but before any action had been taken upon
 it, a bill was introduced in the state legislature to authorize
 the creation of a new school district bounded by the city limits
 of Scotland Neck, upon approval by a majority of the city's
 voters.1 The bill was enacted on March 3, 1969, as Chapter 31 of
 the 1969 Session Laws of North Carolina. The citizens of Scotland
 Neck approved the new school


3
Page 487
 
 district in a referendum a month later,2 and the new district
 began taking steps toward beginning a separat     e school system
 in the fall of 1969.
 
 
 
      The effect of Chapter 31 was to carve out of the Halifax
 school district a new unit with 695 students, of whom 399 (57%)
 were white and 296 (43%) were Negro. Under a transfer plan devised
 by the newly appointed Scotland Neck City Board of Education, 360
 students (350 white and 10 Negro) residing outside the city limits
 applied to transfer into the Scotland Neck schools, while 44
 students (all Negro) applied to transfer out of the city system to
 a nearby school in the Halifax County system. The new district
 planned to use the facilities of the formerly all-white Scotland
 Neck High School, including one building located outside the city
 limits that would be leased from the county.
 
      The United States filed this lawsuit in June 1969 against
 both city and county officials, seeking desegregation of the
 existing Halifax County schools.3 The complaint asked for
 preliminary and permanent injunctions against the implementation
 of Chapter 31. Various Negro children, parents, and teachers, the
 petitioners in No. 70—187, were permitted to intervene as
 plaintiffs.
 
      After a three-day hearing before two district judges on both
 this case and a similar case involving two newly created school
 districts in neighboring Warren County,


4
Page 488
 
 the District Court preliminarily enjoined the implementation of
 Chapter 31, finding that 'the Act in its application creates a
 refuge for white students, and promotes segregated schools in
 Halifax County,' and furtherthat '(t)he Act impedes and defeats
 the Halifax County Board of Education from implementing its plan
 to completely desegregate all of the public schools in Halifax
 County by the opening of the school year 1969—70.'4 After further
 hearings, the District Court on May 23, 1970, found Chapter 31
 unconstitutional and permanently enjoined its enforcement. 314
 F.Supp. 65. The Court of Appeals reversed, 442 F.2d 575, and we
 granted certiorari. 404 U.S. 821, 92 S.Ct. 47, 30 L.Ed.2d 49.
 
      The Court of Appeals did not believe that the separation of
 Scotland Neck from the Halifax County system should be viewed as
 an alternative plan for desegregating the county system, because
 the 'severance was not part of a desegregation plan proposed by
 the school board but was instead an action by the Legislature
 redefining the boundaries of local governmental units.' 442 F.2d,
 at 583. This suggests that an action of a state legislature
 affecting the desegregation of a dual system stands on a footing
 different from an action of a school board. But in North Carolina
 State Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43, 91 S.Ct. 1284, 28
 L.Ed.2d 586, decided after the decision of the Court of Appeals in
 this case, we held that 'if a state-imposed limitation on a school
 authority's discretion operates to inhibit or obstruct . . . the
 disestablishing of a dual school system, it must fall; state
 policy must give way when it operates to hinder vindication of
 federal constitutional guarantees.' Id., at 45, 91 S.Ct., at 1286.
 The fact that the creation of the Scotland Neck school district
 was authorized by a special act of the state legisla-


5
Page 489
 
 ture rather than by the school board or city authorities thus has
 no constitutional significance.
 
      We have today held that any attempt by state or local
 officials to carve out a new school district from an existing
 district that is in the process of dismantling a dual school
 system 'must be judged according to whether it hinders or furthers
 the process of school desegregation. If the proposal would impede
 the dismantling of a dual system, then a district court, in the
 exercise of its remedial discretion, may enjoin it from being
 carried out.' Wright v. Council of City of Emporia, supra, 407
 U.S., at 460, 92 S.Ct., at 2202. The District Court in this case
 concluded that Chapter 31 'was enacted with the effect of creating
 a refuge for white students of the Halifax County School system,
 and interferes with the desegregation of the Halifax County School
 system . . ..' 314 F.Supp., at 78. The Court of Appeals, however,
 did not regard the separation of Scotland Neck as creating a
 refuge for white students seeking to escape desegregation, and it
 held that 'the effect of the separation of the Scotland Neck
 schools and students on the desegregation of the remainder of the
 Halifax County system is minimal and insufficient to invalidate
 Chapter 31.' 442 F.2d, at 582. Our review of the record leads us
 to conclude that the District Court's determination was the only
 proper inference to be drawn from the facts of this litigation,
 and we thus reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
 
      The major impact of Chapter 31 would fall on the southeastern
 portion of Halifax County, designated as District I in the Interim
 Plan for unitary schools proposed by the State Department of
 Public Instruction. The projected enrollment in the schools of
 this district under the Interim Plan was 2,948 students, of whom
 78% were Negro. If Chapter 31 were implemented, the Scotland Neck
 schools would be 57%


6
Page 490
 
 white, while the schools remaining in District I would be 89%
 Negro. The traditional racial identities of the schools in the
 area would be maintained; the formerly all-white Scotland Neck
 school would retain a white majority, while the formerly all-Negro
 Brawley school, a high school located just outside Scotland Neck,
 would be 91% Negro.
 
      In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402
 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554, we said that district
 judges or school authorities 'should make every effort to achieve
 the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation,' and that in
 formulating a plan to remedy state-enforced school segregation
 there should be 'a presumption against schools that are
 substantially disproportionate in their racial composition.' Id.,
 at 26, 91 S.Ct., at 1281. And we have said today in Wright v.
 Council of City of Emporia, supra, 407 U.S., at 463, 92 S.Ct., at
 2204 that 'desegregation is not achieved by splitting a single
 school system operating 'white schools' and 'Negro schools' into
 two new systems, each operating unitary schools within its
 borders, where one of the two new systems, is, in fact, 'white'
 and the other is, in fact, 'Negro."
 
      In this litigation, the disparity in the racial composition
 of the Scotland Neck schools and the schools remaining in District
 I of the Halifax County system would be 'substantial' by any
 standard of measurement. And the enthusiastic response among
 whites residing outside Scotland Neck to the school board's
 proposed transfer plan confirmed what the figures suggest: the
 Scotland Neck school was to be the 'white school' of the area,
 while the other District I schools would remain 'Negro schools.'
 Given these facts, we cannot but conclude that the implementation
 of Chapter 31 would have the effect of impeding the
 disestablishment of the dual school system that existed in Halifax
 County.
 
      The primary argument made by the respondents in


7
Page 491
 
 support of Chapter 31 is that the separation of the Scotland Neck
 schools from those of Halifax County was necessary to avoid 'white
 flight' by Scotland Neck residents into private schools that would
 follow complete dismantling of the dual school system.
 Supplemental affidavits were submitted to the Court of Appeals
 documenting the degree to which the system has undergone a loss of
 students since the unitary school plan took effect in the fall of
 1970.5 But while this development may be cause for deep concern to
 the respondents, it cannot, as the Court of Appeals recognized, be
 accepted as a reason for achieving anything less than complete
 uprooting of the dual public school system. See Monroe v. Board of
 Commissioners, 391 U.S. 450, 459, 88 S.Ct. 1700, 1705, 20 L.Ed.2d
 733.
 
      Reversed.
 
 djQ  Mr. Chief Justice BURGER, with whom Mr. Justice BLACKMUN, Mr.
 Justice POWELL, and Mr. Justice REHNQUIST join, concurring in the
 result.
 
      I agree that the creation of a separate school system in
 Scotland Neck would tend to undermine desegregation efforts in
 Halifax County, and I thus join in the result reached by the
 Court. However, since I dissented from the Court's decision in
 Wright v. Council of City of Emporia, 407 U.S., p. 471, 92 S.Ct.,
 p. 2207, I feel constrained to set forth briefly the reasons why I
 distinguish the two cases.
 
      First, the operation of a separate school system in Scotland
 Neck would preclude meaningful desegregation in the southeastern
 portion of Halifax County. If Scotland Neck were permitted to
 operate separate schools, more than 2,200 of the nearly 3,000
 students in this sector would attend virtually all-Negro schools
 located just


8
Page 492
 
 outside of the corporate limits of Scotland Neck. The schools
 located within Scotland Neck would be predominantly white. Further
 shifts could reasonably be anticipated. In a very real sense, the
 children residing in this relatively small area would continue to
 attend 'Negro schools' and 'white schools.' The effect of the
 withdrawal would thus be dramatically different from the effect
 which could be anticipated in Emporia.
 
      Second, Scotland Neck's action cannot be seen as the
 fulfillment of its destiny as an independent governmental entity.
 Scotland Neck had been a part of the county-wide school system for
 many years; special legislation had to be pushed through the North
 Carolina General Assembly to enable Scotland Neck to operate its
 own school system. The movement toward the creation of a separate
 school system in Scotland Neck was prompted solely by the
 likelihood of desegregation in the county, not by any change in
 the political status of the municipality. Scotland Neck was and is
 a part of Halifax County. The city of Emporia, by contrast, is
 totally independent from Greensville County; Emporia's only ties
 to the county are contractual. When Emporia became a city, a
 status derived pursuant to longstanding statutory procedures, it
 took on the legal responsibility of providing for the education of
 its children and was no longer entitled to avail itself of the
 county school facilities.
 
      Third, the District Court found, and it is undisputed, that
 the Scotland Neck severance was substantially motivated by the
 desire to create a predominantly white system more acceptable to
 the white parents of Scotland Neck. In other words, the new system
 was designed to minimize the number of Negro children attending
 school with the white children residing in Scotland Neck. No
 similar finding was made by the District Court in Emporia, and the
 record shows that Emporia's decision was not based on the
 projected racial composition of the proposed new system.



1
 An earlier bill had been introduced in the 1965 session of
 the legislature, which would have created a separate school
 district for Scotland Neck and the four surrounding townships, an
 area with a three-to-one Negro majority. It was contemplated that
 the new district would operate under a freedom-of-choice plan
 similar to that existing in the county at the time. The bill was
 defeated in the State Senate.


2
 The vote in the referendum was 813 to 332 in favor of the
 new school district. Of Scotland Neck's 1,382 registered voters,
 360 were Negro.3 After the preliminary injunction was issued in this case,
 the District Court dismissed the Halifax County Board of Education
 from that part of the case dealing with Scotland Neck's efforts to
 implement a separate school system. On May 19, 1970, the court
 ordered the county school board to implement, beginning in the
 fall of 1970, the Interim Plan proposed by the State Department of
 Public Instruction, with certain modifications proposed by the
 school board.


4
 The opinion of the District Court on the issuance of the
 preliminary injunction is unreported.


5
 The figures supplied to the Court of Appeals were updated
 by an affidavit submitted to this Court, showing the total
 enrollment in the Halifax County schools at the start of the 1971
 1972 school year to have been 9,094, of whom 14% were white.


