What if all the Green factors are satisfied, Stevens asked, but a student imbalance remains?

It is the obligation of the board, Hansen answered, to break the pattern of segregation....

In response to a question from Stevens dealing with the difficulty DCSS may have desegregating at this point, Hansen said that if the job is harder today, "that's the board's fault." Had the board followed the mandate of either Brown or the decree when they were handed down, the system would already be desegregated and there would be no problem....

In rebuttal, Lee said it is easy to suggest what should have been done in the past. But, he continued, the district court opinion says nothing would have worked. Furthermore, nothing in the court of appeals' opinion indicates that anything could have been done by the board. This case is not fact specific, Lee said, it's legal. The students have conceded that after the black schools were closed the system was desegregated, and thus this case should go back to the district court so DCSS can prove that its faculty assignments meet the requirements of the plan.

On March 31, 1992, in Freeman v. Pitts, 112 S.Ct. 1430, as summarized in the heading, in deciding the case on the issues presented by the parties:

The Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy, held that district court has authority to relinquish supervision and control over school district in incremental stages before full compliance has been achieved in every area of school operations.

Justice Kennedy, in the concluding paragraph, stated 112 S.Ct. at 1450:

The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals. It should determine what