Desegregation busing in the United States (also known as simply busing or forced busing) is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in an effort to reduce the racial segregation in schools. While the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many American schools continued to remain largely segregated due to housing inequality. In an effort to address the ongoing de facto segregation in schools, the 1971 Supreme Court decision, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ruled that the federal courts could use busing as a desegregation tool to achieve racial balance.