Litigation Timeline

Adapted with permission from Glenn M. Linden, Desegregating Schools in Dallas: Four Decades in the Federal Courts 224-31 (1995).

  • 10/06/1970: Tasby v. Estes filed
  • 07/17/1971: Judge William Taylor hears the case and declares the existence of a dual school system in Dallas
  • 08/02/1971: Judge Taylor issues desegregation ruling involving high school busing
  • 08/21/1971: Taylor’s decision appealed by Plaintiffs; portions stayed
  • 09/07/1971: Busing begins
  • 1971-75: Taylor’s decision remains with the Fifth Circuit
  • January 1974: Creation of Dallas Alliance
  • 06/05/1974: Judge Sarah Hughes finds institutional racism by DISD
  • 07/23/1975: Fifth Circuit reverses portions of Judge Taylor’s desegregation ruling
  • Aug.-Jan. 1976: Taylor holds hearings to determine successful desegregation plan
  • October 1975: Dallas Alliance establishes desegregation plan
  • 03/10/1976: Taylor issues desegregation order based on Dallas Alliance plan
  • Spring 1976: NAACP appeals Taylor’s order
  • Summer 1976: Fifth Circuit denies NAACP appeal
  • 08/25/1976: DISD schools open under desegregation order
  • 01/07/1977: NAACP appeals Taylor’s order
  • 04/24/1978: Taylor’s order partially reversed
  • August 1978: DISD appeals Fifth Circuit ruling to United States Supreme Court
  • Fall 1978: Linus Wright becomes superintendent of DISD
  • 02/21/1979: United States Supreme Court grants certiorari
  • 10/28/1979: Oral Arguments before Supreme Court
  • 01/21/1980: Supreme Court remands to Fifth Circuit
  • 01/22/1981: Black Caucus to Maximize Education joins suit
  • 03/21/1981: Judge Taylor steps down
  • 03/23/1981: Judge Barefoot Sanders assigned to Tasby litigation
  • April 1981: Hearings on the formulation of new student assignment plan
  • 08/03/1981: Sanders issues desegregation order
  • 12/21/1981: Sanders issues second desegregation order
  • 02/01/1982: Final desegregation order
  • 02/09/1982: DISD appeals order
  • 08/11/1982: Sanders’s order affirmed
  • 08/18/1982: DISD drops desegregation fight
  • 04/30/1984: Creation of South Dallas Education Centers
  • June 1984: Black Coalition appeals Sanders’s order
  • 12/19/1984: Sanders requests feasibility studies with regards to West Dallas Educational Centers
  • 04/23/1985: Sanders rejects plan to cut back on busing
  • 09/20/1985: Fifth Circuit upholds Sanders’s order creating South Dallas Education Centers
  • 04/08/1986: Sanders orders creation of West Dallas education centers
  • 09/05/1986: Sanders orders DISD to make diligent efforts to recruit black & Hispanic teachers according to a recruiting plan
  • 05/02/1989: DISD seeks unitary status
  • 08/22/1989: Sanders dismisses DISD’s motion for unitary status and prohibits further appeals on the matter until 01/15/1990
  • 12/17/1993: DISD moves for declaration that it is desegregated
  • 05/9-17/1994: Hearings with regards to DISD’s motion
  • 07/26/1994: Sanders declares DISD desegregated
  • 09/01/1994: Plaintiffs do not appeal
  • 06/05, 23/2003: Sanders grants DISD’s motion to dismiss, stating “the segregation prohibited by the United States Constitution, the United States Supreme Court and federal statutes no longer exists in the DISD.”