Goss et al. v. Board of Education of Knoxville, Tennessee, et al.

No. 217. Goss et al. v. Board of Education of Knoxville, Tennessee, et al. Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Carl A. Cowan and Z. Alexander Looby for petitioners. S. Frank Fowler and K. Harlan Dodson, Jr. for respondents. [MAJORITY] The petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is granted limited to Question 1 presented by the petition, which reads as follows: “Whether petitioners, Negro school children seeking desegregation of the public school systems of Knoxville, Tennessee (Goss case), and Davidson County, Tennessee (Maxwell case), are deprived of rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by judicial approval of a provision in desegregation plans adopted by their local school boards, which expressly recognizes race as a ground for transfer between schools in circumstances where such transfers operate to preserve the pre-existing racially segregated system, and which operate to restrict Negroes living in the zones of all-Negro schools to such schools while permitting white children in such areas to transfer to other schools solely on the basis of race.”