In 1971, the district was regionalized under an order by the New Jersey Supreme Court that combined the two separate pre-existing districts, which ruled that the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education can cross district lines only for desegregation purposes. The decision found that Morristown and the surrounding Morris Township constituted a "single community without visible or factually significant boundary separations" but that de facto segregation existed because Morristown had a substantial black population while the surrounding township did not. By pairing schools across the two municipalities in the merged district, the district could keep a black population at about 20% of enrollment in each elementary school.