To meet those objections the intervenors had to concede that they were taking the proceedings as they found them. That meant they were not in as strong a position as to past rulings as they would have been with continuous representation from the start. Nevertheless they were now in a position, as to any future decree adding a busing segment, for example, to invoke the provision in the California constitution (as amended by Prop. 1) that provides for modification of decrees involving pupil assignment and transportation "as applied to the facts which exist at the time of such modification."

The successful intervention by non-class students and parents gave them standing to make and establish the above claims as "persons," for presentation, if necessary, to an appellate court. In the absence of such an intervention, the non-class students faced treatment by the board and Court as "elements" in the integration plan.

Following the intervention, members of intervenor Groundswell circulated petitions among residents of the SDUSD in the following three categories: (1) taxpayers-parents, (2) students, and (3) taxpayers-voters. On March 3, 1981, the president of "Groundswell", Mr. Lester, presented to the SDUSD board a number of petitions bearing approximately 5983 signatures, including signatures in each of the above three categories objecting to the mandatory assignment of children because of their race, away from their neighborhood public school location as a violation of their rights as taxpayers/parents, students, and taxpayers/voters.

Among the purposes of this exercise of the right of petition under the First Amendment were (1) to support intervenors' claims of the discriminatory nature of such assignments, (2) to show the broad, adverse and unlawful nature of such assignments, and (3) to show the broad opposition to them by intervenors and others similarly situated.

"Anti-busing" students and parents in the precedent-setting "busing" cases have not been able to legally articulate such opposition because they have not had this type of separate representation. In contrast, San Diego intervenors could offer evidence in support of their claim, among others, that it was unconstitutional to mandatorily assign student intervenors, and others similarly situated, solely because of their race, to particular schools. And they did proffer evidence in the form of signed petitions by 1856 district students, each "object(ing) to school authorities making me, because of my race, go away from my neighborhood