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The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North
The epic story of Detroit's struggle to integrate schools in its suburbs—and the defeat of desegregation in the North.
In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why?
In The Containment, the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution. Adams chronicles the devoted activists who tried to uplift Detroit's students amid the upheavals of riots, Black power, and white flight—and how their efforts led to federal judge Stephen Roth’s landmark order to achieve racial balance by tearing down the walls separating the city and its suburbs. The “metropolitan remedy” could have remade the landscape of racial justice. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that the suburbs could not be a part of the effort to integrate—and thus upheld the inequalities that remain in place today.
Adams tells this story via compelling portraits of a city under stress and of key figures—including Detroit’s first Black mayor, Coleman Young, and Justices Marshall, Rehnquist, and Powell. The result is a legal and historical drama that exposes the roots of today’s backlash against affirmative action and other efforts to fulfill the country's promise.
In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why?
In The Containment, the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution. Adams chronicles the devoted activists who tried to uplift Detroit's students amid the upheavals of riots, Black power, and white flight—and how their efforts led to federal judge Stephen Roth’s landmark order to achieve racial balance by tearing down the walls separating the city and its suburbs. The “metropolitan remedy” could have remade the landscape of racial justice. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that the suburbs could not be a part of the effort to integrate—and thus upheld the inequalities that remain in place today.
Adams tells this story via compelling portraits of a city under stress and of key figures—including Detroit’s first Black mayor, Coleman Young, and Justices Marshall, Rehnquist, and Powell. The result is a legal and historical drama that exposes the roots of today’s backlash against affirmative action and other efforts to fulfill the country's promise.
510 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2025
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Michelle Adams
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
May 23, 2025
Strap in for a long review.
I grew up in suburban Detroit at the same time as the author of this book grew up in the city. Desegregation was part of daily discussion in my home when I was in elementary school. My father pledged that if there were busing that we would be on those buses going to Detroit; my mother, in a rare show of defiance, pledged we would not be. When I was 9, a group of housewives (with the assistance of the Klan) bombed a fleet of school buses recently purchased to begin transporting students from Pontiac to Detroit. Finally, the tension ended when the Supreme Court destroyed the promise of Brown v. Board of Ed and killed any hope for meaningful desegregation. The case that reaffirmed commitment to separation by race (and which the Court still uses to dismantle any attempts to create a more equitable country) was the Milliken case, which addressed cross-district busing in the Detroit metro. School desegregation in Detroit without crossing districts would have been meaningless. When I was in elementary school, Detroit was nearly 90% Black. I lived perhaps 10 minutes from the border of Detroit (there is an actual wall, though it is mostly gone now) and there was not a single Black student at my public school. My experience of this apartheid was different from Adams' since she is Black and I am White, but not as different as it was for the majority of Detroit children muddling through in abysmal schools (for a time the lowest performing in the nation) since she went to Roeper, a very exclusive progressive private school in the suburbs -- we likely know people in common. For both Adams and I this period was formative and for the country it was the death of hope that White and Black Americans could come together in any broad sense. Of course there are now integrated communities to be found, and I think it would be rare for a child in 2025 to be in a school/neighborhood like my own that was 100% White, but segregation is still very typical. Perhaps growing up in the middle of the craziness is what sent us both to law school? Of course she fought for justice and I ended up protecting luxury brands and pharmaceutical companies, but we are both, in our ways, crusaders for the promise and potential of the Constitution. I think we would both agree that we have lost that battle.
I believed myself to be pretty knowledgeable about the Milliken case, but I learned a ton from Adams, particularly about the trial process before the Supreme Court got a hold of it. This book is scrupulously researched. For people like me who are deeply interested in America's continuing (and growing) inequality and how the courts have addressed that inequality (whether to further entrench or attempt to cure the injustice), there is a lot of valuable information here. That said, it was a bit disjointed, and even I found this dry, and I read a lot of academic legal journals, so my tolerance for dryness is pretty high. I also wish Adams had spent a little more time setting out the ways housing segregation was enforced by the government (federal, state, and local) since that is essential to understanding why school desegregation is a constitutional matter in the absence of specific laws mandating separation by race in schools. She perhaps overexplains procedural matters in the book, thinking, rightly, that many readers won't understand how cases travel through the courts and how motion practice works. Unfortunately, she then perhaps assumes readers understand how Black Americans were blocked from living in many areas through economic disempowerment (they were paid less for the same work and many businesses did not allow POC to take better-paying positions) and actual laws and policies that barred Black people from buying homes in many suburbs/neighborhoods. I passionately recommend anyone interested in those policies to read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. This is all essential to showing that there was de jure segregation that made neighborhood school segregation a foregone conclusion, and that the issue could therefore be addressed by the courts. Addressing segregation in the South was easy; there were laws against "race-mixing," but in the North, there were no clear laws. That said, there were laws and government actions that led to segregation -- that is the Containment of the title -- and that is where I think the book needed to be clearer. I may be giving myself too much credit, but I suspect that if I had a hard time following some arguments that non-lawyers and those without a good grounding in the relevant history will feel lost at some points.
In the end, Adams does bring a lot of things together when she discusses the missed opportunity promised by Brown and the deleterious lasting effects of the Supreme Court's cowardice and racism. I thought the last quarter of the book flowed better and made its points more effectively than the first 75%. Still, even with the book coalescing, I don't think she overcame the lack of clarity around the conditions that led inexorably to containment and unequal access to education covered in the majority of the book.
This is a very good book, a very important book, but one I fear will be baffling to many people who don't already know a good deal about the topic.
I grew up in suburban Detroit at the same time as the author of this book grew up in the city. Desegregation was part of daily discussion in my home when I was in elementary school. My father pledged that if there were busing that we would be on those buses going to Detroit; my mother, in a rare show of defiance, pledged we would not be. When I was 9, a group of housewives (with the assistance of the Klan) bombed a fleet of school buses recently purchased to begin transporting students from Pontiac to Detroit. Finally, the tension ended when the Supreme Court destroyed the promise of Brown v. Board of Ed and killed any hope for meaningful desegregation. The case that reaffirmed commitment to separation by race (and which the Court still uses to dismantle any attempts to create a more equitable country) was the Milliken case, which addressed cross-district busing in the Detroit metro. School desegregation in Detroit without crossing districts would have been meaningless. When I was in elementary school, Detroit was nearly 90% Black. I lived perhaps 10 minutes from the border of Detroit (there is an actual wall, though it is mostly gone now) and there was not a single Black student at my public school. My experience of this apartheid was different from Adams' since she is Black and I am White, but not as different as it was for the majority of Detroit children muddling through in abysmal schools (for a time the lowest performing in the nation) since she went to Roeper, a very exclusive progressive private school in the suburbs -- we likely know people in common. For both Adams and I this period was formative and for the country it was the death of hope that White and Black Americans could come together in any broad sense. Of course there are now integrated communities to be found, and I think it would be rare for a child in 2025 to be in a school/neighborhood like my own that was 100% White, but segregation is still very typical. Perhaps growing up in the middle of the craziness is what sent us both to law school? Of course she fought for justice and I ended up protecting luxury brands and pharmaceutical companies, but we are both, in our ways, crusaders for the promise and potential of the Constitution. I think we would both agree that we have lost that battle.
I believed myself to be pretty knowledgeable about the Milliken case, but I learned a ton from Adams, particularly about the trial process before the Supreme Court got a hold of it. This book is scrupulously researched. For people like me who are deeply interested in America's continuing (and growing) inequality and how the courts have addressed that inequality (whether to further entrench or attempt to cure the injustice), there is a lot of valuable information here. That said, it was a bit disjointed, and even I found this dry, and I read a lot of academic legal journals, so my tolerance for dryness is pretty high. I also wish Adams had spent a little more time setting out the ways housing segregation was enforced by the government (federal, state, and local) since that is essential to understanding why school desegregation is a constitutional matter in the absence of specific laws mandating separation by race in schools. She perhaps overexplains procedural matters in the book, thinking, rightly, that many readers won't understand how cases travel through the courts and how motion practice works. Unfortunately, she then perhaps assumes readers understand how Black Americans were blocked from living in many areas through economic disempowerment (they were paid less for the same work and many businesses did not allow POC to take better-paying positions) and actual laws and policies that barred Black people from buying homes in many suburbs/neighborhoods. I passionately recommend anyone interested in those policies to read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. This is all essential to showing that there was de jure segregation that made neighborhood school segregation a foregone conclusion, and that the issue could therefore be addressed by the courts. Addressing segregation in the South was easy; there were laws against "race-mixing," but in the North, there were no clear laws. That said, there were laws and government actions that led to segregation -- that is the Containment of the title -- and that is where I think the book needed to be clearer. I may be giving myself too much credit, but I suspect that if I had a hard time following some arguments that non-lawyers and those without a good grounding in the relevant history will feel lost at some points.
In the end, Adams does bring a lot of things together when she discusses the missed opportunity promised by Brown and the deleterious lasting effects of the Supreme Court's cowardice and racism. I thought the last quarter of the book flowed better and made its points more effectively than the first 75%. Still, even with the book coalescing, I don't think she overcame the lack of clarity around the conditions that led inexorably to containment and unequal access to education covered in the majority of the book.
This is a very good book, a very important book, but one I fear will be baffling to many people who don't already know a good deal about the topic.
March 3, 2025
This book is an absolute unit, perfect for those who like a deep cut. It's legal history but it's written in a very accessible style. It's a little dry at times but by the end you can really feel the love and passion that went into it. Highly recommend.
November 7, 2024
This has been a hell of a read in the leadup to Trump getting re-fucking-elected, and actually starts to show the cracks of the judicial system when it comes to segregation, and does a hell of a job breaking down all the local, state, and national politics that ended up playing out in this particular Supreme Court case, and how it all affected the children who experienced the school systems and their differences. Gives you an idea of what we're about to be in for to some degree for the next four years. (Dr. Adams, I am so sorry that you are going to have the one of the objectively worst launch dates in 2025, by the by, and that there's now new context you weren't expecting when you wrote this originally.) Worth your time.
January 18, 2025
This was history related to my hometown of Detroit, Michigan, that I had no idea even existed. I devoured this book it was so educational and easily digested. With the exception of the opening in which all of the government players and basic history is told as a resource for the story. I think it probably functions better in print than in audiobook format. Otherwise, this was surprisingly engrossing.
I'm about a decade younger than the author of this book, and I was also born & raised in Detroit. Though I attended Detroit Public Schools and am proud of the quality education I received.
I had no idea about any of the history covered in this about attempts by Detroit officials to bus Black Detroit kids out to suburban schools and equalize the educational experience for all Michigan students. I think this author and I were from similar families and born in a similar time. While we agree that the school disparities are unfair and in violation Brown vs. Board of Education. I think on a national level, we need to level the playing field in public schools so that children in poor areas receive the same resources as kids in wealthier school districts. I prefer that to bussing Black kids to white schools.
I want Black teachers and administrators for Black students. Desegregation destroyed Black schools and disenfranchised Black teachers. That created a boom in the school to prison pipeline. White students do better with Black teachers, but Black students do worse with white teachers. Teaching in the US is dominated by white women, and they statistically are substandard teachers for Black students. Suburban Metro Detroit schools are hostile to Detroit kids and, by default, Black kids. Why would we want to bus our kids to that environment? Let's bring suburban resources to inner city schools instead.
While the author and I have different solutions to this problem, we both very much agree this is a horribly unjust and, by default racist way to handle school resources. I was also totally unaware of the efforts to bring the Brown school desegregation decision to the North. What a lofty goal. I'm personally grateful I wasn't bused to a suburban school. School integration was a brutally traumatic event for most Black students. None the less the disparity between school districts is criminally negligent on the governments part.
This important nonfiction history book is wonderfully narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Janina Edwards. Ms. Edwards brings a lightness to the heavy parts of this history that is much appreciated by me as the reader. Her voice also has a stoic quality that really works with the history being covered in this.
This is phenomenally researched, fascinating, and extremely timely. As the US outlaws DEI programs and guts voting rights programs, we find ourselves and our nation headed back to formal, possibly legal, segregation.
Thank you to Michelle Adams, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.
I'm about a decade younger than the author of this book, and I was also born & raised in Detroit. Though I attended Detroit Public Schools and am proud of the quality education I received.
I had no idea about any of the history covered in this about attempts by Detroit officials to bus Black Detroit kids out to suburban schools and equalize the educational experience for all Michigan students. I think this author and I were from similar families and born in a similar time. While we agree that the school disparities are unfair and in violation Brown vs. Board of Education. I think on a national level, we need to level the playing field in public schools so that children in poor areas receive the same resources as kids in wealthier school districts. I prefer that to bussing Black kids to white schools.
I want Black teachers and administrators for Black students. Desegregation destroyed Black schools and disenfranchised Black teachers. That created a boom in the school to prison pipeline. White students do better with Black teachers, but Black students do worse with white teachers. Teaching in the US is dominated by white women, and they statistically are substandard teachers for Black students. Suburban Metro Detroit schools are hostile to Detroit kids and, by default, Black kids. Why would we want to bus our kids to that environment? Let's bring suburban resources to inner city schools instead.
While the author and I have different solutions to this problem, we both very much agree this is a horribly unjust and, by default racist way to handle school resources. I was also totally unaware of the efforts to bring the Brown school desegregation decision to the North. What a lofty goal. I'm personally grateful I wasn't bused to a suburban school. School integration was a brutally traumatic event for most Black students. None the less the disparity between school districts is criminally negligent on the governments part.
This important nonfiction history book is wonderfully narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Janina Edwards. Ms. Edwards brings a lightness to the heavy parts of this history that is much appreciated by me as the reader. Her voice also has a stoic quality that really works with the history being covered in this.
This is phenomenally researched, fascinating, and extremely timely. As the US outlaws DEI programs and guts voting rights programs, we find ourselves and our nation headed back to formal, possibly legal, segregation.
Thank you to Michelle Adams, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.
May 27, 2025
I think this is the best book I’ve ever read. The rich history, excellent writing, gripping narrative structure, compelling historical characters, themes and storylines all combine to create an absolutely incredible book. As I prepare to begin law school, I think that I’ll continue to reflect on school integration and The Containment both in school and for a long, long time.
February 8, 2025
Thanks to Macmillan Audio through Net Galley who allowed me to listen to the audio version of this book. Janina Edwards’s narration was excellent.
This book covers an important part of recent U.S. history that is not well known. It is about a court case in the early 1970s that sought to desegregate schools in a northern city, Detroit, rather than a southern city. The Brown vs. Board of Education case in the 1950s outlawed legal segregation and focused on southern states. The court case in Detroit attempted to extend the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling to include northern states and places that didn’t have explicit laws that required segregation.
In the case, the NAACP proved that segregation was brought about by government action through gerrymandered school districts, and by preventing Black people from buying property in the suburbs around Detroit or in wealthier areas of Detroit.
It was encouraging to learn that the initial judge in the court case was convinced by the NAACP that government action had created segregation in Detroit. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court mostly struck down the judge’s ruling. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has essentially ended desegregation, and schools are mostly segregated again.
This book showed that school segregation is largely a product of segregated housing which was created by actions at all levels of government as well as through the racist actions of individual white people. Even though overt laws are no longer in place that continue segregation, their legacy continues. There are also many laws that covertly keep segregation alive.
I highly recommend this book and other books like it that teach Americans the truth about why our country is the way it is. When we know the truth, maybe we will have the will to change it.
This book covers an important part of recent U.S. history that is not well known. It is about a court case in the early 1970s that sought to desegregate schools in a northern city, Detroit, rather than a southern city. The Brown vs. Board of Education case in the 1950s outlawed legal segregation and focused on southern states. The court case in Detroit attempted to extend the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling to include northern states and places that didn’t have explicit laws that required segregation.
In the case, the NAACP proved that segregation was brought about by government action through gerrymandered school districts, and by preventing Black people from buying property in the suburbs around Detroit or in wealthier areas of Detroit.
It was encouraging to learn that the initial judge in the court case was convinced by the NAACP that government action had created segregation in Detroit. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court mostly struck down the judge’s ruling. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has essentially ended desegregation, and schools are mostly segregated again.
This book showed that school segregation is largely a product of segregated housing which was created by actions at all levels of government as well as through the racist actions of individual white people. Even though overt laws are no longer in place that continue segregation, their legacy continues. There are also many laws that covertly keep segregation alive.
I highly recommend this book and other books like it that teach Americans the truth about why our country is the way it is. When we know the truth, maybe we will have the will to change it.
June 1, 2025
Maybe for a non-lawyer or non-native Michigander for whom the places in ths book are all familiar, this wouldn't be quite as interesting, but it is the new-to-me story of the failed attempt to enforce Brown v. Board of Education in the Detroit Public Schools, and it covers the politics, the procedure, the substance, and the effect of the case. It is a damning record of systemic racism in this nation and how it still exists today, both in actual practice and lingering impact. It's a fun exercise to think what about could have been had they done the inter-district re-assignment mandated by the district and appellate courts back in the 1970s. (As further testament to how Jim Crow just isn't that removed, this case wasn't full resolved until *I* was in elementary school, let alone my parents or grandparents!).
If you aren't sure what systemic racism means or don't think it exists, you owe it to your fellow-countrymen to give this book a read.
If you aren't sure what systemic racism means or don't think it exists, you owe it to your fellow-countrymen to give this book a read.
August 20, 2025
I would almost recommend starting this book with reading the last two chapters, "True Integration", and the "Epilogue", so one can see the enormous stakes of Milliken vs. Bradley before reading.
The fact that segregation was de jure in the South combined with the differing administrative and geographic structure of school districts in the South vs. the North led to schools in the South being integrated while the rest of the country was not required to integrate.
This case not only halted school desegregation in the North, the author makes the point that the rejection of the metropolitan inter-district remedy to school desegregation in Detroit essentially enabled continued white flight from America's cities and continued segregation in housing and where Americans live. Detroit is today the most segregated metropolitan area in the United States.
Where Americans are educated together they also live together.
Milliken v. Bradley allowed segregation in the North to persist by finding segregation there to be de facto vs. de jure in the South, despite the plaintiffs making a strong case that government policy contributed to residential segregation which led to segregation in schools, as well as school districts choosing sites for schools that would preserve segregation.
The fact that segregation was de jure in the South combined with the differing administrative and geographic structure of school districts in the South vs. the North led to schools in the South being integrated while the rest of the country was not required to integrate.
This case not only halted school desegregation in the North, the author makes the point that the rejection of the metropolitan inter-district remedy to school desegregation in Detroit essentially enabled continued white flight from America's cities and continued segregation in housing and where Americans live. Detroit is today the most segregated metropolitan area in the United States.
Where Americans are educated together they also live together.
Milliken v. Bradley allowed segregation in the North to persist by finding segregation there to be de facto vs. de jure in the South, despite the plaintiffs making a strong case that government policy contributed to residential segregation which led to segregation in schools, as well as school districts choosing sites for schools that would preserve segregation.
January 16, 2025
3.75 for the audio aspect
The Containment by Michelle Adams dives into segregation and fairness, focusing on Detroit and the Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley. Listening to the audiobook wasn’t easy—it’s packed with important info that comes at you fast—but it was worth it. Adams’ personal ties to Detroit made it feel real, and hearing how segregation affected actual people, not just numbers, really hit home. One thing that stuck with me was how Judge Stephen Roth proposed integrating Detroit schools with suburban ones to address racial imbalance, but the Supreme Court shot it down, keeping things divided. Even though it’s a lot to take in, this book is an eye-opener about the long-term impact of legal and educational inequality.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michelle Adams for helping me understand more of our history through such a personal lens.
The Containment by Michelle Adams dives into segregation and fairness, focusing on Detroit and the Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley. Listening to the audiobook wasn’t easy—it’s packed with important info that comes at you fast—but it was worth it. Adams’ personal ties to Detroit made it feel real, and hearing how segregation affected actual people, not just numbers, really hit home. One thing that stuck with me was how Judge Stephen Roth proposed integrating Detroit schools with suburban ones to address racial imbalance, but the Supreme Court shot it down, keeping things divided. Even though it’s a lot to take in, this book is an eye-opener about the long-term impact of legal and educational inequality.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michelle Adams for helping me understand more of our history through such a personal lens.
March 10, 2025
Our public education system could have all been so different...
November 14, 2025
4.5 stars, rounded up. Have a lot of thoughts about this book and what it says about today. I expected a little more about redlining but Michelle Adams stays true to her legal focus on desegregation in the North. So interesting, the kind of stuff that makes up the fabric of our society.
November 2, 2024
Michelle Adams’ passion for Detroit history is vividly portrayed through this in-depth look at the fight for desegregation in public schools. “The Containment” refers to the intentional racial discrimination in housing that had the deliberative result of keeping African Americans limited to certain areas of Detroit. Adams provides not only a local and state view of the broader impacts of Brown v. Board of Education, but she also weaves personal impacts and activism throughout. The Containment is an exemplar case in how to contextualize historical events within the broader period. Additionally, Adams provides comparison to other desegregation efforts around the nation, highlighting the different ways that communities sought to support and oppose integration efforts and how that has resulted in vastly different outcomes for those areas today. I was incredibly impressed with the level of research that was done to make this book come together in such an accessible and understandable way, despite the complex nature of litigation and the court process. Due to the length and comprehensiveness, I would recommend this book to readers highly interested in Detroit and civil rights efforts toward desegregation.
I am grateful to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an advanced reader copy of Michelle Adams’ The Containment.
May 5, 2025
Incredibly eye opening, rather depressing/infuriating, and deeply important. I’d go so far as to say understanding the modern day requires understanding Milliken v. Bradley, and I can’t imagine a better way to do that than by Michelle Adam’s easily-readable book.
February 21, 2025
Michelle Adams' story of the lawsuit seeking to integrate Detroit's public schools, which resulted in the 1974 Supreme Court decision of Milliken v Bradley, barring busing across school district lines and beginning a long retreat from the ideals and principles that underlay the Brown v Board of Education decision twenty years earlier, is an amazing achievement and should be read by anyone interested in racial discrimination, particularly in a year in which a white supremacist has been returned to the US Presidency. While Adams is a law professor who can explain legal procedures and Constitutional rights better than anyone whom I've read (I am a lawyer as well), the book is much more than a dry recitation of legal arguments made half a century ago. She clearly outlines the history of attempts to improve educational opportunities for black inner-city students and the competing visions, mostly involving integration vs. community control. She also ties the school issues to larger concerns, such as the long history of housing discrimination and changes brought about by economic factors, primarily the decline of the auto industry within the city limits of Detroit.
The big controversy in the litigation involved the proposed remedy to create an integration plan that would involve the Detroit suburbs, with some students being bused out of the city into the suburbs and others from the suburbs into the city. Adams clearly describes how the trial judge, initially resistant to the plaintiffs' claims, came to embrace the more extensive busing solution and her explanation is convincing. As Adams shows, whites sought to "contain" minorities within a limited geographic area and as blacks moved into additional areas of the city, the result would invariably be the flight of whites further and further away from the center of the city. This is always the rub in desegregation cases. Whites never want to send their children to schools where they will be outnumbered by blacks and historically have viewed assignment to a "black" school as a form of punishment. This has occurred over and over again (another good book on this subject is Laura Meckler's "Dream Town") despite the existence of evidence, reviewed thoroughly by Adams in this book, that blacks AND whites do better academically when schools are integrated.
Adams interviewed many of the principals in the school district litigation and she expertly shows the human side of the story, while adding an incisive legal analysis. She is obviously passionate about her subject, and knowledgeable as well. Adams grew up in Detroit and her familiarity with the city and its neighborhoods adds a lot to the narrative. She injects a few personal experiences, but these are limited and do not interfere with her examination of the big picture. The book is long, but flows well.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book was Adams' observation of the way in which the way that an issue is presented determines how people react to it. For example, the media always referred to school integration cases as "busing" cases. That created an image of little children sitting on buses for hours on end, traveling to schools far from their own neighborhoods, certainly a negative picture. But is it accurate? Most children take buses to school and the rides associated with desegregation efforts generally were not lengthy. If the cases were described as desegregation cases, some of the negative stigma might have been lessened.
Similarly, most readers react warmly to "neighborhood schools" as some sort of ideal. Is that the case, though? As Adams points out, it matters where you draw the neighborhood lines. If the lines are drawn to separate white neighborhoods from black ones (or a wall is erected, as vividly described in the book), the description may be a bit more sinister.
The book raises a lot of questions, and many of them are addressed by Adams. As she points out, school segregation, particularly in the north, is largely driven by housing segregation. Can school desegregation efforts ever succeed if so many people are determined to live surrounded by others of the same race, or are they doomed to failure? Adams downplays the effect of busing on children (based partially on her own experiences), but there are complications and limitations on extracurricular opportunities and parental engagement when a child attends a school far from home. The solution, of course, is to try to work things out by considering multiple options, but Adams points out that some successful integration efforts, such as those in Louisville and Seattle, have been met with hostility by the courts. As a result, many of the advances that came about as a result of decisions made by the Warren court have been undone by their more conservative successors.
This is a great book, absorbing and important, and it has my highest recommendation.
The big controversy in the litigation involved the proposed remedy to create an integration plan that would involve the Detroit suburbs, with some students being bused out of the city into the suburbs and others from the suburbs into the city. Adams clearly describes how the trial judge, initially resistant to the plaintiffs' claims, came to embrace the more extensive busing solution and her explanation is convincing. As Adams shows, whites sought to "contain" minorities within a limited geographic area and as blacks moved into additional areas of the city, the result would invariably be the flight of whites further and further away from the center of the city. This is always the rub in desegregation cases. Whites never want to send their children to schools where they will be outnumbered by blacks and historically have viewed assignment to a "black" school as a form of punishment. This has occurred over and over again (another good book on this subject is Laura Meckler's "Dream Town") despite the existence of evidence, reviewed thoroughly by Adams in this book, that blacks AND whites do better academically when schools are integrated.
Adams interviewed many of the principals in the school district litigation and she expertly shows the human side of the story, while adding an incisive legal analysis. She is obviously passionate about her subject, and knowledgeable as well. Adams grew up in Detroit and her familiarity with the city and its neighborhoods adds a lot to the narrative. She injects a few personal experiences, but these are limited and do not interfere with her examination of the big picture. The book is long, but flows well.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book was Adams' observation of the way in which the way that an issue is presented determines how people react to it. For example, the media always referred to school integration cases as "busing" cases. That created an image of little children sitting on buses for hours on end, traveling to schools far from their own neighborhoods, certainly a negative picture. But is it accurate? Most children take buses to school and the rides associated with desegregation efforts generally were not lengthy. If the cases were described as desegregation cases, some of the negative stigma might have been lessened.
Similarly, most readers react warmly to "neighborhood schools" as some sort of ideal. Is that the case, though? As Adams points out, it matters where you draw the neighborhood lines. If the lines are drawn to separate white neighborhoods from black ones (or a wall is erected, as vividly described in the book), the description may be a bit more sinister.
The book raises a lot of questions, and many of them are addressed by Adams. As she points out, school segregation, particularly in the north, is largely driven by housing segregation. Can school desegregation efforts ever succeed if so many people are determined to live surrounded by others of the same race, or are they doomed to failure? Adams downplays the effect of busing on children (based partially on her own experiences), but there are complications and limitations on extracurricular opportunities and parental engagement when a child attends a school far from home. The solution, of course, is to try to work things out by considering multiple options, but Adams points out that some successful integration efforts, such as those in Louisville and Seattle, have been met with hostility by the courts. As a result, many of the advances that came about as a result of decisions made by the Warren court have been undone by their more conservative successors.
This is a great book, absorbing and important, and it has my highest recommendation.
June 4, 2025
If you liked the Color of Law by Richard Rothenstien you must read this one.
I grew up in Southeast Michigan, a suburb in Metro-Detroit. This book makes me feel like I understand why the area is the way it is, and why the US is the way it is. It surfaced so many memories and so many thoughts.
I remember learning about Brown v Board of Education in high school (the ruling that stopped explicit segregation of Southern schools) and thinking that it must have desegregated our communities completely (which is totally ignorant). As I've gotten older, I've heard more and more conservatives signaling their worries about the 'great replacement' (where whites are being attacked and replaced), and that 'ideas' like systemic racism are not real, but just propaganda to feed liberals.
This idea that systemic racism isn't actually real and that racism happens only rarely these days on an individual level is wrong, and also dangerous. To illustrate what systemic racism is and why it is real, I point to the fact that my school system growing up was 95%+ white, while Pontiac schools just down the road were 99% black. If Brown v Board of Education was ruled in 1954 to desegregate our communities, then why are our communities still _clearly_ segregated? Sure, the law is no longer explicitly racist, but we are still segregated. It is clear that after decades (centuries really) of unequal treatment between races that our communities ended up segregated. Zoning laws, real estate discrimination, school discrimination; it all lead to having a system that is racist. We live in two separate communities, meaning the system divided us _by race_ (which is racist). Calling this fake shows that someone hasn't not critically thought about how generational history can shape societies. Individualism can shape someone, but we can't ignore that history can shape society.
The book answers and expands on this in great detail. It details an segregated school court case - Bradley v Miliken - that proved both state and private actions caused segregation in Michigan, effectively Northern Jim Crow laws, and how the supreme court dropped the ball on actually doing anything to stop it. In fact, the supreme court knowingly or unknowingly made things far worse by causing white flight from the inner city of Detroit to the suburbs, which just segregated us even more.
I remember my conservative mother talking to my cousin who was worried about putting her kids in public schools because of their exposure to 'other races'. Now, I disagree with my mother about so so many things, but her response here surprised me and is spot on with actual research to confirm it. She said that putting her kids through a multi-cultural public schools was the best decision she made when it came to our development. Even with the extremely limited cultures in the school (still mostly white), us kids got to be around new cultures. It broke down walls and has made us all better, more empathetic human beings.
This country really would look and be better if we have real experiences with other cultures growing up. It would make us understand each other better. Kids don't come to this world as asshole racists. Black and white, asian, hispanic; if we all got to play and learn together as kids it would break down barriers and minimize the racists asshole beliefs in our country. And it really starts with kids. It's too late for adults imo. You learn the basics of life from your parents, but your friends and classmates are the ones who truly shape who you are. If our kids have multi-cultural friends, I truly believe they would grow up to be good people with a greater understanding of the world. I have a hard time thinking that would could survive as a racist asshole if your friends were multi-racial. And I know, having like one black friend does not solve the problem of being a racist asshole - I mean growing up in an integrated community is what can really heal us.
Many of our parent's generation grew up in segregated schools. Many never had multi-cultural friends; shit, many never even had friends of the opposite sex, let alone non-binary friends. I believe this has stripped them of a huge, important part of humanity, and it shows. I'm worried that our segregated communties are more easily persuaded by racist bullshit ideas, like thinking that brown immigrants are raping and killing at high rates, while not even questioning that white citizens commit those crimes at higher rates. I'm worried that it's easy for those communities to believe that other races or cultures or genders are dangerous inhumane animals.
Integration would let us have a chance at understand each other's human experience.
edit- in my rant i unbelievably forgot to add the very clear education benefits to all races if we had integrated schools. if we leave behind our black communities we will alllll suffer from it.
I grew up in Southeast Michigan, a suburb in Metro-Detroit. This book makes me feel like I understand why the area is the way it is, and why the US is the way it is. It surfaced so many memories and so many thoughts.
I remember learning about Brown v Board of Education in high school (the ruling that stopped explicit segregation of Southern schools) and thinking that it must have desegregated our communities completely (which is totally ignorant). As I've gotten older, I've heard more and more conservatives signaling their worries about the 'great replacement' (where whites are being attacked and replaced), and that 'ideas' like systemic racism are not real, but just propaganda to feed liberals.
This idea that systemic racism isn't actually real and that racism happens only rarely these days on an individual level is wrong, and also dangerous. To illustrate what systemic racism is and why it is real, I point to the fact that my school system growing up was 95%+ white, while Pontiac schools just down the road were 99% black. If Brown v Board of Education was ruled in 1954 to desegregate our communities, then why are our communities still _clearly_ segregated? Sure, the law is no longer explicitly racist, but we are still segregated. It is clear that after decades (centuries really) of unequal treatment between races that our communities ended up segregated. Zoning laws, real estate discrimination, school discrimination; it all lead to having a system that is racist. We live in two separate communities, meaning the system divided us _by race_ (which is racist). Calling this fake shows that someone hasn't not critically thought about how generational history can shape societies. Individualism can shape someone, but we can't ignore that history can shape society.
The book answers and expands on this in great detail. It details an segregated school court case - Bradley v Miliken - that proved both state and private actions caused segregation in Michigan, effectively Northern Jim Crow laws, and how the supreme court dropped the ball on actually doing anything to stop it. In fact, the supreme court knowingly or unknowingly made things far worse by causing white flight from the inner city of Detroit to the suburbs, which just segregated us even more.
I remember my conservative mother talking to my cousin who was worried about putting her kids in public schools because of their exposure to 'other races'. Now, I disagree with my mother about so so many things, but her response here surprised me and is spot on with actual research to confirm it. She said that putting her kids through a multi-cultural public schools was the best decision she made when it came to our development. Even with the extremely limited cultures in the school (still mostly white), us kids got to be around new cultures. It broke down walls and has made us all better, more empathetic human beings.
This country really would look and be better if we have real experiences with other cultures growing up. It would make us understand each other better. Kids don't come to this world as asshole racists. Black and white, asian, hispanic; if we all got to play and learn together as kids it would break down barriers and minimize the racists asshole beliefs in our country. And it really starts with kids. It's too late for adults imo. You learn the basics of life from your parents, but your friends and classmates are the ones who truly shape who you are. If our kids have multi-cultural friends, I truly believe they would grow up to be good people with a greater understanding of the world. I have a hard time thinking that would could survive as a racist asshole if your friends were multi-racial. And I know, having like one black friend does not solve the problem of being a racist asshole - I mean growing up in an integrated community is what can really heal us.
Many of our parent's generation grew up in segregated schools. Many never had multi-cultural friends; shit, many never even had friends of the opposite sex, let alone non-binary friends. I believe this has stripped them of a huge, important part of humanity, and it shows. I'm worried that our segregated communties are more easily persuaded by racist bullshit ideas, like thinking that brown immigrants are raping and killing at high rates, while not even questioning that white citizens commit those crimes at higher rates. I'm worried that it's easy for those communities to believe that other races or cultures or genders are dangerous inhumane animals.
Integration would let us have a chance at understand each other's human experience.
edit- in my rant i unbelievably forgot to add the very clear education benefits to all races if we had integrated schools. if we leave behind our black communities we will alllll suffer from it.
August 5, 2025
This is an excellent book about a very important court case that decided that most American children living in the Northern metro areas would continue to attend schools that were overwhelmingly segregated. The case was "Bradley v. Milliken" (1974) and it concerned the schools of Detroit. The book does a fantastic job of digging into the reasons that, by the late 1960's, Detroit had one of the most racially segregated school systems in the nation. It tells the stories of the parents who brought the original law suit against Michigan governor William Milliken (Verda Bradley was one of many, but first in the alphabetical listing), as well as the philosophical debate within the black community between those pushing for integrated schools and those, like minister Albert Cleage, who pushed for separate black schools under control of their respective communities. The book spends a lot of time discussing the details of the various trials- federal district court (under the jurisdiction of Judge Stephen Roth), appellate court, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court. The author is a law professor at the University of Michigan (and is from Detroit herself), so I was initially worried that she might lose the average reader (like me) among the weeds of legalese. But she is masterful in how she tells the stories surrounding the court cases in a way that is both accessible and detailed. I learned a lot about the ways in which the Detroit area kept itself residentially segregated (in one part of the city a literal wall was built between black and white neighborhoods) and how that residential segregation was the basis of Judge Roth's decision to bring about an integrated metro school system by mandating that dozens of suburban Detroit districts merge with the city schools. But the prospect of using bussing to achieve integrated schools (the most vocal critics were white parents who did not want their children bussed into the city) is what caused the Supreme Court to overturn Roth's, and the appellate court's, decisions to create a metro school district for Detroit. In the end the Court ordered the schools within the city to desegregate, which caused thousands of white families to move. (Detroit schools today are 2% white.) The court case also meant that most northern metro regions have school systems that are very much racially segregated. (For a great look at this story in Rochester, New York's schools, the book "Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger" is indispensable.). There were a handful of things in Adams' book that I was a little disappointed with. She made quite a bit of use of slang, clichés, and vernacular, perhaps in her attempt to make the book accessible, which wouldn't have bothered me much. But I didn't like how some of these turns of phrase were used to throw "zingers" at the ideas of people with whom she did not agree. I am very sympathetic to her thesis about the importance of integrated schools, but I would have preferred that she just let the critics' words speak for themselves, rather than toss an extra helping of ridicule at them. A woman named Irene McCabe was the most prominent of the anti-bussing crowd, and some of what she said was truly cringeworthy. So the book did not need to reproduce some quotes from a Detroit newspaper that ridiculed her personal appearance. That was completely extraneous, in my view. But placed against the enormous value of this study, those were minor quibbles, and I recommend this book as both a fascinating examination of the fight over schools in one America community, as well as look at one of the many roots of the MAGA movement.
May 31, 2025
Michelle Adams has produced an extraordinary work of legal scholarship and historical analysis that illuminates one of the most significant yet underexamined Supreme Court decisions in American civil rights history. Through her passionate and meticulously researched examination of Milliken v. Bradley—the 1974 case that effectively ended the promise of school desegregation—Adams provides essential understanding of how legal victories can be transformed into lasting defeats.
What makes this book exceptional is Adams' ability to combine rigorous legal analysis with deeply human storytelling. Her focus on Ronald Bradley, a Black child in an under-resourced Detroit school where ninety-seven percent of students were Black, transforms abstract legal principles into concrete human experiences. This approach allows readers to understand not just the legal mechanics of the case but its profound impact on real families and communities seeking educational equality.
Adams demonstrates remarkable skill in tracing the case's journey through the court system, from the initial NAACP class-action lawsuit through the district court victory that ordered busing for nearly eight hundred thousand Detroit students, to the devastating Supreme Court reversal. Her documentation of how this became "the first major defeat for Black people in a school case after Brown v. Board of Education" provides crucial context for understanding the limitations of legal strategies for achieving racial justice.
Perhaps most powerfully, Adams' insight that Milliken v. Bradley "was where the promise of Brown ended" reframes our understanding of civil rights history and helps explain persistent educational inequalities. Her "full appreciation of the campaign for racial justice—in all its complexities" avoids both oversimplification and despair, instead offering nuanced analysis that honors both the courage of civil rights advocates and the institutional obstacles they faced. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how legal decisions shape educational opportunity and why school segregation persists decades after Brown.
What makes this book exceptional is Adams' ability to combine rigorous legal analysis with deeply human storytelling. Her focus on Ronald Bradley, a Black child in an under-resourced Detroit school where ninety-seven percent of students were Black, transforms abstract legal principles into concrete human experiences. This approach allows readers to understand not just the legal mechanics of the case but its profound impact on real families and communities seeking educational equality.
Adams demonstrates remarkable skill in tracing the case's journey through the court system, from the initial NAACP class-action lawsuit through the district court victory that ordered busing for nearly eight hundred thousand Detroit students, to the devastating Supreme Court reversal. Her documentation of how this became "the first major defeat for Black people in a school case after Brown v. Board of Education" provides crucial context for understanding the limitations of legal strategies for achieving racial justice.
Perhaps most powerfully, Adams' insight that Milliken v. Bradley "was where the promise of Brown ended" reframes our understanding of civil rights history and helps explain persistent educational inequalities. Her "full appreciation of the campaign for racial justice—in all its complexities" avoids both oversimplification and despair, instead offering nuanced analysis that honors both the courage of civil rights advocates and the institutional obstacles they faced. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how legal decisions shape educational opportunity and why school segregation persists decades after Brown.
February 16, 2025
I think this book is really important, especially in the current political atmosphere that seems to suffocate any thought about these kinds of discussions. It provides a very easily comprehensable history that was attached with Milliken v Bradley, which just is drenched with this sense of disappointment in the face of judicial inactivity.
I also will say that as a native Metro Detroit resident for my life, it really made me consider my "roots" and the inherent harm that people that are close enough to me to be my grandparents caused with the incessant threat of white flight within the city, which even with discussions of the riots within Detroit I never considered until this book.
That being said, I think even though Milliken ends with a sad ending with the SCOTUS opinion essentially gutting the metropolitian integration plan, the epilogue truly does give hope for the future, basing itself both within the usage of law and jurisprudence to advance civil rights and the need for an undying spirit, even in what feels like hopeless times.
Although many advocate for violent action to change the status quo, especially with recent actors focused on the inherent corruption of certain executives, I think the epilogue truly provides a sobering reminder that we cannot progress without people fighting onward, regardless of the political climate or if it's seen as "appropriate" for this time. Only through fervent advocacy and constant, unrelenting pressure can we hope to see the wrongs that have plagued us be rectified.
I also will say that as a native Metro Detroit resident for my life, it really made me consider my "roots" and the inherent harm that people that are close enough to me to be my grandparents caused with the incessant threat of white flight within the city, which even with discussions of the riots within Detroit I never considered until this book.
That being said, I think even though Milliken ends with a sad ending with the SCOTUS opinion essentially gutting the metropolitian integration plan, the epilogue truly does give hope for the future, basing itself both within the usage of law and jurisprudence to advance civil rights and the need for an undying spirit, even in what feels like hopeless times.
Although many advocate for violent action to change the status quo, especially with recent actors focused on the inherent corruption of certain executives, I think the epilogue truly provides a sobering reminder that we cannot progress without people fighting onward, regardless of the political climate or if it's seen as "appropriate" for this time. Only through fervent advocacy and constant, unrelenting pressure can we hope to see the wrongs that have plagued us be rectified.
May 22, 2025
The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North is an engaging lesson in American history by University of Michigan law professor Michelle Adams. For those who learned that Brown v. Board of Education ended school segregation, her account of Milliken v. Bradley dispels you of that notion. Even though Michigan outlawed segregation in public education before Brown, public schools in Detroit remained severely segregated. This book helps explain why.
The title refers to the effect of Black people being contained within the core of Detroit due to various structural forces leading to housing segregation while white people left for the suburbs. In 1970, the NAACP sued state officials, including Governor Milliken. Professor Adams provides a detailed account of the different opinions within the Black community (e.g., is desegregation or greater local control of (segregated) schools the solution) and the legal strategies to argue about de facto as opposed to de jure segregation. The evidence presented in district court led Judge Stephen Roth to rule for a metropolitan desegregation plan that involved moving students across school district lines with busing. The narrative changed to one about busing. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the lower courts' decisions.
I thought this was an engaging account of the struggle for racial progress. Learning about legal strategies and distinctions seems relevant given all the lawsuits in the news.
The title refers to the effect of Black people being contained within the core of Detroit due to various structural forces leading to housing segregation while white people left for the suburbs. In 1970, the NAACP sued state officials, including Governor Milliken. Professor Adams provides a detailed account of the different opinions within the Black community (e.g., is desegregation or greater local control of (segregated) schools the solution) and the legal strategies to argue about de facto as opposed to de jure segregation. The evidence presented in district court led Judge Stephen Roth to rule for a metropolitan desegregation plan that involved moving students across school district lines with busing. The narrative changed to one about busing. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the lower courts' decisions.
I thought this was an engaging account of the struggle for racial progress. Learning about legal strategies and distinctions seems relevant given all the lawsuits in the news.
December 10, 2025
An important, incredibly well-researched look at the attempt to overthrow Jim Crow in Detroit (and the Tri-County area) in the 1970s. Michelle Adams is a highly esteemed law professor at the University of Michigan who grew up in Detroit and spent 10 years researching exactly how Detroit became a battleground for racial justice. The contributing factors are many and complex, as Adams skillfully and patiently shows the reader. A lifetime of redlining - containment - of property by realtors (white) and brokers whose hands were tied (black) plus the landmark case of Brown v Board of Ed 10 years earlier, leads to a brave woman of color challenging the equity, if not the equality, of the schools available to students of color in Detroit.
Adams paints a vivid picture of knowing and ignorant compliance with a white status quo that contributes to separate and unequal education and housing systems in Detroit and the suburbs. As someone who was born and grew up in Northwest Detroit in the 1950s and 60s, this book illuminated what I merely intuited at the time - the social construct of race creates fear of losing power for those who control government, politics, the courts, and the economy.
I highly recommend this great and challenging (for me) read. Sadly, it serves as a reminder that we as a society have still not realized the promise of racial and socioeconomic equality that Dr. King and others fought for. Adams also reminds us of the far-reaching effects of presidents stacking the Supreme Court with their appointees.
Adams paints a vivid picture of knowing and ignorant compliance with a white status quo that contributes to separate and unequal education and housing systems in Detroit and the suburbs. As someone who was born and grew up in Northwest Detroit in the 1950s and 60s, this book illuminated what I merely intuited at the time - the social construct of race creates fear of losing power for those who control government, politics, the courts, and the economy.
I highly recommend this great and challenging (for me) read. Sadly, it serves as a reminder that we as a society have still not realized the promise of racial and socioeconomic equality that Dr. King and others fought for. Adams also reminds us of the far-reaching effects of presidents stacking the Supreme Court with their appointees.
April 3, 2025
I teared up by the end of this book. Very difficult to swallow and keep swallowing; this is one of the best (if not the best) chronicles of (what began as) the Bradley v. Milliken case— and ended as a decisive defeat for Northern school/housing desegregation by Nixon and his reactionary SCOTUS, famously staffed with segregationists (and those are just the justices Congress let in, not even getting into the Nixon nominees they rejected!).
Revisiting this case and the culture shifts it operated atop of feels very prescient & timely, as the landmark cases which once defined the institution of SCOTUS have been struck down under the Roberts' Court. As a history of the city of Detroit it was interesting to me, but lacked a full-bodied approach. I did find most valuable the idea that it was not the plaintiff's case itself which was argued badly, or doomed from the start (though inarguably both of those played their part in Bradley's eventual loss)— for me, it was about the push/pull relationship between hope and violence which was the heart of the book. The claims of ignorance by the Detroit metro area's white population, even as they actively enforced/re-enforced segregation by any means necessary... what's changed, truly? Today in 2025 the battle over dismantling the US Department of Education is rooted in white parents privileging their racism & queerphobia over the rights of all children to learn in a fair, equal, and representative environment. Once again the Court is inclined to agree.
Revisiting this case and the culture shifts it operated atop of feels very prescient & timely, as the landmark cases which once defined the institution of SCOTUS have been struck down under the Roberts' Court. As a history of the city of Detroit it was interesting to me, but lacked a full-bodied approach. I did find most valuable the idea that it was not the plaintiff's case itself which was argued badly, or doomed from the start (though inarguably both of those played their part in Bradley's eventual loss)— for me, it was about the push/pull relationship between hope and violence which was the heart of the book. The claims of ignorance by the Detroit metro area's white population, even as they actively enforced/re-enforced segregation by any means necessary... what's changed, truly? Today in 2025 the battle over dismantling the US Department of Education is rooted in white parents privileging their racism & queerphobia over the rights of all children to learn in a fair, equal, and representative environment. Once again the Court is inclined to agree.
April 25, 2025
When I started afternoon kindergarten in Roseville in 1971, my mom walked me the three blocks there and back every day, probably not for the whole year but I can't recall walking solo until 1st grade. The neighborhood elementary school was the cornerstone of the community, but I also knew it was under threat because, as we all were told, the government was going to put us on buses and make us attend an elementary school in Detroit. I had cousins in Detroit and not one of them attended a non-parochial school. The whole thing seemed so improbable and daft!
Until I read Michelle Adams' masterpiece, the busing saga remained a curious footnote, as in, Wow, what a terrible misguided idea to solve the problem of racial disparities in American education, how on earth did this idea make it all the way to the Supreme Court? Adams recounts here with precision the path to the proposed busing solution, explaining for the lay reader the legal arguments that brought it to the brink of reality. She also does a marvelous job of revealing the way Nixon exploited this (when he turned up to open the new Utica Eisenhower High School in August of 1972 on a campaign stop, the gymnasium was so packed with his Macomb County supporters that a couple of these losers fainted from the heat) and selected a goddamn KKK judge from the South for a Supreme Court appointment. Not surprisingly, Lewis Powell is still lionized today, because we still live in the same AmeriKKKa.
Until I read Michelle Adams' masterpiece, the busing saga remained a curious footnote, as in, Wow, what a terrible misguided idea to solve the problem of racial disparities in American education, how on earth did this idea make it all the way to the Supreme Court? Adams recounts here with precision the path to the proposed busing solution, explaining for the lay reader the legal arguments that brought it to the brink of reality. She also does a marvelous job of revealing the way Nixon exploited this (when he turned up to open the new Utica Eisenhower High School in August of 1972 on a campaign stop, the gymnasium was so packed with his Macomb County supporters that a couple of these losers fainted from the heat) and selected a goddamn KKK judge from the South for a Supreme Court appointment. Not surprisingly, Lewis Powell is still lionized today, because we still live in the same AmeriKKKa.
April 26, 2025
Michelle Adams has written a history of a Supreme Court case that marked the end of school desegregation. In essence, this case is about the effort to desegregate a metro region (Detroit) to prevent white flight to the suburbs and improve school outcomes for all children. The lawyers from the NAACP did impressive work at the district level to persuade the sceptical judge of the interrelationship between residential segregation and school segregation, and he issued a sweeping ruling calling for a metro-area-wide solution. But the Burger court overturned the case, choosing to ignore this link. The topic matter is compelling, she's done incredible primary research and interviews, and she's a clear and vivid writer. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is just because it is a lot of book. The primary text is 400 pages, and some of the detail is more granular than the general reader probably wants. (I am an academic, and teach and write in part on residential segregation and redlining, so this book was right up my alley, and even I thought some of the level of detail was more than necessary.) That said, it's absolutely worth reading, and you do not want to miss the final two chapters, where Adams surveys the lasting negative impacts of Milliken, and compares it to impressive integrative efforts made elsewhere in the US, like Minnesota. The conclusion is forceful and lyrical.
April 29, 2025
Michelle Adams is a professor of law at the University of Michigan and like me, was a child in the Detroit metropolitan area when this historic desegregation case came before the Supreme Court in Milliken vs. Bradley in 1974. At the time, I was in the Melvindale school district and the possibility of busing would not affect me (as it was not one of the districts included possibly)?
That Detroit came so very close to being intentionally educationally desegregated was news to me, but I can see the hopefulness in the case as even the judge was persuaded by the evidence of Northern segregation--it came down to housing. And this is still evident today.
Though the book really gets down into the weeds of the case and its opponents and proponents, the historical motivation for change, and the consequences rooted in studies, it's still very accessible and compelling. I've been motivated to read more a lot about the law in this current and troubling federal administration lately and, though it's sometimes beyond my (legal) comprehension, it's still fascinating and gives me insight into thought processes and their ramifications. A bonus: this is an important chapter in Detroit history and racism in the United States.
That Detroit came so very close to being intentionally educationally desegregated was news to me, but I can see the hopefulness in the case as even the judge was persuaded by the evidence of Northern segregation--it came down to housing. And this is still evident today.
Though the book really gets down into the weeds of the case and its opponents and proponents, the historical motivation for change, and the consequences rooted in studies, it's still very accessible and compelling. I've been motivated to read more a lot about the law in this current and troubling federal administration lately and, though it's sometimes beyond my (legal) comprehension, it's still fascinating and gives me insight into thought processes and their ramifications. A bonus: this is an important chapter in Detroit history and racism in the United States.
April 14, 2025
Adams is a professor of law at the University of Michigan with particular expertise regarding the Supreme Court and constitutional law. She was born and grew up inDetroit. The combination of these factors works to make this detailed study of the legal battles to integrate the schools of the city of Detroit along with those of the Detroit suburbs compelling. The primary focus is on the case of Bradley vs Milliken in 1971 in which the plaintiffs sought to effect integration of the Detroit metropolitan area schools. The story can be a bit of a slog at times as there is considerable legalese and repetition of the arguments, not surprising when you realize the case was argued in the federal district court, the federal court of appeals and then the Supreme Court in 1974. There is ample comparison to cases in other areas of the country. The reader comes away with a greater appreciation of the factors behind racial residential and economic segregation and how they influence the education of both Black and White students.
November 23, 2025
long, exhausting, boring, and important. this book shows the ways in which segregation has functioned in a codified way and the various legal boundaries to desegregating a society that has made as many semantic boundaries as possible. we know that it's better for kids to learn together and we know that society is uplifted when everyone collectively is offered the best kind of education, so what stops us from doing that? well it turns out a lot of stuff stops us from doing that, in addition to the run of the mill racists, there is a ton of legal red tape and precedent and other detours that make Detroit specifically a case worth studying. I also think that my brain is broken and I forgot how to write intelligently about books. I'm sorry it's been like a month or two since I've actually finished a book beside the Roth book I finished yesterday and it feels like my brain is waking up from a crazy deep sleep. sorry for the bad review.
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April 22, 2025This is an exceptionally well-written exposition of the lawsuit brought by the NAACP to desegregate Detroit's public school system in the 1970s. Spoiler: the U.S. Supreme Court shot down measures that would have meaningfully desegregated Detroit schools by forcing the white suburban schools to integrate, and the case is today considered the beginning of the end of the school desegregation movement. Michelle Adams has a gift for engaging, accessible writing about legal topics. My only word of caution is that Adams is a thorough writer and researcher, and this is a 400-page book about one single court case. If you are not already interested in school desegregation efforts or Detroit history, it may be more detailed than you have the patience for.
September 26, 2025
This is an exceptional book about the impact of the Bradley decision and its impact in ending attempts to desegregate America. It does an exceptional job of addressing how white America sought to remove any of their own culpability for segregation in the North and pretend it just happened so they thus did not have to have role in solving it. This will lead directly into the modern attempts to ignore segregation and racism under the myth of colorblindness.
The author shows how the case for the prosecutors showed that the segregation was intentional in meticulous detail and then how the larger media and conservative courts just ignored it. This books explains exactly why we have not been able to address this issue and that it is getting worse.
The author shows how the case for the prosecutors showed that the segregation was intentional in meticulous detail and then how the larger media and conservative courts just ignored it. This books explains exactly why we have not been able to address this issue and that it is getting worse.
February 3, 2025
When I moved to a suburb outside of Detroit as a new bride almost 50 years ago, I was amazed to discover that the schools had no black people in them, my husband and his siblings had never attended school with a black person, their neighborhood had a covenant denying home ownership to people of "African origin" and most students walked to school. NO DESEGRETATION. In Virginia, I had spent almost two hours per day riding a school bus due to desegregation. I was told that segregation was a southern problem. Southerners were racist. Northerners weren't. I'm so glad to have found this book explaining what was really going on.
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