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For civil rights attorney and legal scholar Michelle Adams, the story of the fight to desegregate schools in metropolitan Detroit in the 1960s and early 1970s is personal. Born and raised in the city, she was introduced to the law early: Her father was one of only two Black graduates from the Detroit College of Law in 1957. She is now the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and has been an expert law commentator for documentaries about the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
As readers of The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North will discover, Adams is also a consummate storyteller with an in-depth understanding of her subject. She deftly illuminates the complex history and significance of the 1974 Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, in which the court overturned a lower court ruling that had approved the desegregation of schools not only in urban Detroit, but in 53 districts throughout the wider metropolitan area. The higher court determined that the segregation that existed in suburban neighborhoods did not warrant the redrawing of school district lines to achieve integration because no intentional discriminatory acts by the districts could be proven. Adams effectively demonstrates that this decision put a stop to a visionary, holistic approach to integration—an approach that might have served as a model throughout the North.
The prologue opens in 2006, when Adams attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court, having filed an amicus curiae brief to support a Seattle school desegregation case (which ultimately failed). Some of the issues raised in that case, especially the question of how discriminative policies in housing and neighborhoods impact schools, made her think again of Milliken v. Bradley, a case she had often taught. She reflects on the many ways in which the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, which asserted that separate facilities cannot be equal, has largely been unfulfilled. Instead, policies and practices keep Black families contained in neighborhoods served by failing schools.
Adams’ riveting narrative sweeps readers into the effort to challenge Detroit’s separate and unequal school system in the 1960s and early 1970s. She digs deep to tell the story about a creative, hard-fought attempt at metropolitan desegregation, recounting how the court’s decision impacted the city, the activists and even the district judge who presided over Milliken v. Bradley in Michigan.
While The Containment reads at times like a legal thriller, Adams never loses sight of providing readers with broader historical context and what the failure of Milliken v. Bradley means for Americans today. Nevertheless, Adams is not without hope for the future. She concludes, “In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court took us down the wrong path. But we can still choose another.”