US Supreme Court post-1954 school rulings gradually shifted. Between 1954 and 1972 the Court focused its decisions, including Swann (1971), on legally segregated schools. In Keyes v. School District of Denver (1973), however, it let stand a distinction between de jure or legal and de facto segregation in a northern school district.

Thus the Court narrowed its orders to desegregate northern schools. Black second-grader Ronald Bradley's parents sued Detroit Public Schools, which put him in a kindergarten class that was 97 percent black. Black pupils were 70 percent of Detroit's pupil population at the time. For plaintiffs’ relief, a Federal District Court ordered an interdistrict desegregation plan, linking Detroit and fifty-three white suburban districts in a busing order desegregating inner-city and suburban schools. Its ruling fueled antibusing sentiment among whites, who protested and litigated against the plan, but the Federal Appellate Court for the 6th Circuit sustained it. Yet, on appeal the Supreme Court majority found no solid evidence that segregation in Detroit was caused by discriminatory actions of outlying districts and struck down a metropolitan remedy. Milliken signaled a retreat. In his strong dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall declared that white parents’ fears had undermined the Court's Brown decision.