This report provides an overview of the struggle to desegregate schools in the United States. It describes the two phases of desegregation, focusing on court decisions that influenced desegregation and how these decisions changed the composition of the schools. It opens with the 1849 decision that asserted that desegregation was for the good of both races, and then quickly traces the progression to "Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896), which established that separate but equal met the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. The report outlines events leading up to the "Brown" decision and the court order that desegregation efforts were to be approached with all deliberate speed. Following the "Brown" case, questions arose over de jure and de facto segregation and the issue of freedom of choice. Much of this debate culminated in the landmark case "Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education," which reaffirmed the fact that district courts have broad powers to fashion remedies in desegregation cases and may use experts for the development of desegregation plans, such as racial quotas, one-race schools, and transportation. During the 1970s, freedom-of-choice debates arose with pressing frequency, particularly as concerns judicial power. The 1980s witnessed a loosening of court jurisdiction and a return to the concept of neighborhood schools. (Contains 35 endnotes.) (RJM)