Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools.

Judge John J. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit interpreted the Brown v. Board of Education case as a charge not to segregate rather than an order to integrate.

Experts from Rhode Island College were brought in for the Plaintiff's side to judge the effectiveness of the school board's new plan.

The Board eventually submitted a plan rezoning neighborhoods into pie-shaped wedges, where blacks living in the center of Charlotte would be divided up and distributed to outlying, formerly white high schools.

The opinion was 3-2-1 that the restructured busing orders should be affirmed for older students, but that it be remanded for those of elementary school age.

Despite his relative youth and inexperience, Julius Chambers argued the case, because of his intimate knowledge of the facts involved.

Erwin Griswold, the Solicitor General of the United States, represented the federal government, advocating Nixon's “go-slow” policy.

Justice Stewart also reacted strongly after carefully considering the facts of the case, and wrote a “dissent” that would have been the opinion of the court without revisions of Burger's drafts.

[5] However, due to the booming economy of the city in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Charlotte experienced a rapid immigration from the Northeast and the Midwest, which resulted in a decline of the acceptance of busing.

In 1992, in response to these complaints, CMS created a managed choice plan to reduce the number of students being bused.

This ruling was upheld by the appeals court in Richmond, Virginia in 2000 and after the final appeal was declined to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, federal order of busing was ended in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and it was left in the hands of the city school board to decide how to redo the assignment policy for school attendance.