How did Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education support the idea that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land?

Answer 1

In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 US 1 (1971) the US Supreme Court held that federal courts had the authority to ensure states establish and follow integration plans designed to "eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation that was held violative of equal protection guarantees by Brown v. Board of Education, (1954)"

Although educational policies are generally considered to be State issues, the federal government may supersede state authority when the State's actions are in conflict with the US Constitution, as was the case with public school desegregation. This power is established in the Article VI, Section 2, Supremacy Clause which states:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

The federal government's authority over the States with regard to desegregation was further supported by the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

and reinforced by Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment:

"The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

In the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Warren Burger explained the reason the federal courts had to intervene in a process traditionally under the authority of the State and local school districts:

"School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy . . . To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities; absent a finding of a constitutional violation . . . As with any equity case, the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy. In default by the school authorities of their obligation to proffer acceptable remedies, a district court has broad power to fashion a remedy that will assure a unitary school system."

For more information, see Related Questions, below.