More than most lawsuits, school desegregation cases touch basic economic interests and deep-seated psychic sensitivities of entire communities. In this context, legal notions of the "intent" of governmental bodies and the "effect" of their actions on massive, intricate social processes seem eerily abstract. Though limited and necessarily artificial, these legal concepts are nonetheless the jurisprudential links by which courts must legitimize their efforts to define "rights" worthy of recognition in desegregating schools in large urban areas.

This article focuses primarily on this term's decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit involving desegregation of the Milwaukee and Indianapolis public schools. It also briefly reviews the court's decisions this term involving employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex or age, and first amendment freedoms. Related topics which are discussed include the standards of review and the requisites of "state action" in equal protection cases, and federal court deference to state judicial or administrative proceedings which threaten freedom of expression. This term's decisions by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in other areas of civil rights and civil liberties law are catalogued, without comment, in the accompanying footnote.