Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr. (June 20, 1920 – September 16, 1999) was a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was he ...

notable for issuing the 1974 order in '' Morgan v. Hennigan'' which mandated that Boston schools be desegregated by means of busing.

Education and career

Born in

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, Garrity received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from College of the Holy Cross in 1941, and was then a Sergeant in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, from 1943-45. He received a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...

from Harvard Law School in 1946, and served as a law clerk to Francis Ford of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1946 to 1947. Garrity entered private practice in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and Worcester from 1947 to 1948. He was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1948 to 1950, lecturing in federal jurisdiction and procedure at

Boston College Law School Boston College Law School (BC Law) is the law school of Boston College. It is situated on a wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts, about 1.5 miles from the university's main campus in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. With approximately 800 stud ...

from 1950 to 1951. He was in private practice in Boston from 1951 to 1961. He was the

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

for the District of Massachusetts from 1961 to 1966.

Federal judicial service

Garrity was nominated by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

on May 23, 1966, to the

, to a new seat authorized by 75 Stat. 80. He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on June 24, 1966, and received his commission on June 24, 1966. He assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on December 1, 1985. His service terminated on September 16, 1999, due to his death of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Boston school busing case

As a federal judge, Garrity was at the center of a contentious battle over desegregation busing in Boston from the 1970s to the 1980s. He found a recurring pattern of racial discrimination in the operation of the

public schools in a 1974 ruling. His ruling found the schools were unconstitutionally segregated. As a remedy, he used a busing plan developed by the Massachusetts State Board of Education to implement the state's Racial Imbalance Law that had been passed by the

state legislature a few years earlier, requiring any school with a student enrollment that was more than 50% nonwhite to be balanced according to race. The Boston School Committee consistently disobeyed orders from the state Board of Education. Garrity's ruling, upheld on appeal by conservative judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and by the Supreme Court led by

Warren Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney and jurist who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the St. Paul Colleg ...

, required school children to be brought to different schools to end segregation and led to the Boston busing crisis of 1974-88. By the final Garrity-decided court case in 1988, Garrity had assumed more control over a school system than any judge in American history. An obituary in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted that

Family

Garrity's brother was John T. Garrity, former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company, and his nephew is technology analyst David Garrity.

References

Sources

External links

W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation Case, 1972-1997
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library,

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Massa ...

Digitized materials from the W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. chambers papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation case
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library,

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garrity, W. Arthur Jr. 1920 births 1999 deaths People from Worcester, Massachusetts Military personnel from Massachusetts College of the Holy Cross alumni Harvard Law School alumni Boston College faculty United States Attorneys for the District of Massachusetts Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts United States district court judges appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson 20th-century American judges United States Army personnel of World War II Assistant United States Attorneys