W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. chambers papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation Case

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The papers in this collection constitute a day-to-day file documentation of the "Boston Schools Case," a class action lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Boston School Committee. The 1974 case (Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410) went to trial before Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., who, on June 21, 1974, filed a 152-page opinion ruling that the School Committee of the City of Boston had "intentionally brought about and maintained racial segregation" in the Boston Public Schools. The opinion required the School Committee to use a temporary desegregation plan for the 1974-1975 school year and ordered the Committee to begin formulating a permanent plan. By January 1975, the School Committee had failed to present an adequate desegregation plan to the court and the court assumed an active role in the formulation of the desegregation remedy, overseeing implementation of court-ordered desegregation (through busing) in the Boston Public Schools for the next fifteen years. University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston has digitized three different series from the much larger W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. chambers papers.