Brown II\u27s All Deliberate Speed at Fifty: A Golden Anniversary or A Mid-Life Crisis for the Constitutional Injunction as a School Desegregation Remedy?

In 1955 in Brown II the Supreme Court instructed school authorities and federal judges how to implement its decision in Brown I that racially segregated public schools violated the constitution. This article summarizes the half-century of federal injunctions that the courts granted to desegregate schools. It organizes the injunctions chronologically under three headings, all deliberate speed, desegregate now, and unitary districts. Rejecting both extravagant hoopla and charges of failure, the article approves disciplined judicial discretion leading to large-scale structural injunctions when the times are ripe because unconstitutional conditions warrant massive judicial reconstruction. In particular, the article maintains that the courts\u27 job of managing the schools\u27 transition from mandated race segregation to desegregated districts has touched almost everyone, mostly for the better, but remains incomplete