The 1970 census showed that whites still made up a majority of Detroit's population. However, by the 1980 census, whites had fled at such a large rate that the city had gone from 55 percent white to only 34 percent white in a decade. The decline was even more stark considering that when Detroit's population reached its all-time high in 1950, the city was 83 percent white.
Economist Walter E. Williams writes that the decline was sparked by the policies of Mayor Young, who Williams claims discriminated against whites [30]. In contrast, urban affairs experts largely blame federal court decisions which decided against NAACP lawsuits and refused to challenge the legacy of housing and school segregation - particularly the case of Milliken v. Bradley, which was appealed up to the Supreme Court [31].
The District Court in Milliken had originally ruled that it was necessary to actively desegregate both Detroit and its suburban communities in one comprehensive program. The city was ordered to submit a “metropolitan” plan that would eventually encompass a total of 54 separate school districts, busing Detroit children to suburban schools and suburban children into Detroit. The Supreme Court reversed this in 1974, maintaining the suburbs as a lily-white refuge from the city desegregation plan. In his dissent, Justice William O. Douglas argued that the majority's decision perpetuated "restrictive covenants" that “maintained...black ghettos” [32].
Gary Orfield and Susan E. Eaton wrote that the "suburbs were protected from desegregation by the courts, ignoring the origin of their racially segregated housing patterns." John Mogk, an expert in urban planning at Wayne State University in Detroit, says, "Everybody thinks that it was the riots [in 1967] that caused the white families to leave. Some people were leaving at that time but, really, it was after Milliken that you saw mass flight to the suburbs. If the case had gone the ...