Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of Education

BAILEY BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge.

The issues presented in this proceeding involve the scope of the district court’s remedial powers in a school desegregation case once a constitutional violation has been determined. The primary issue is whether the court has the power, nine years after issuing an injunction desegregating the students, to impose a quota for the hiring of black teachers and, concomitantly, to override the contractual seniority rights and state statutory tenure rights of white teachers in order to prevent the layoff of a disproportionate number of black teachers.

I

In 1971 the…