In June of 1977 thirty-five people met in response to a note posted by a fellow citizen at the entrance to the Scripps Ranch area of San Diego. This note had reminded them that their children were faced with "some sort of mandatory busing assignment," arising from a "desegregation" class action filed in 1967 known as the Carlin case.

They had reason to be concerned because their school board seemed to be preparing them for the forced busing of their children away from their neighborhood schools in meetings "staged" by the district, as described by this citizen:

...The whole tenor of the meeting was — get ready because it's [busing] coming and there is nothing you can do about it. That was the way it was presented. Make whatever accommodations you have to but just accept it.

During this same period in 1977, the author of this book, a retired federal magistrate judge, via TV was watching vigorous opposition by Los Angeles citizens to the mandatory busing of their children in the course of a similar action there. It struck him that the exercise of this governmental affirmative action, mandating school assignments based on the race of the assignee, violated the rights of those unwillingly subjected to it.

Accordingly, the author expressed his views in a commentary titled Busing, Not Integration, Opposed, published in the September 18, 1977 issue of The San Diego Union. Upon learning of this controversy, the group calling themselves "Groundswell" obtained his assistance on a pro bono basis to voice their objections to forced busing by intervention on December 15, 1980, which he continuously rendered until the jurisdiction of the Court over the San Diego school district was ended on July 1, 1998 upon his motion. Court of Appeal Ruling February 9, 1998 at California Court Information.

There remain throughout the United States school districts under judicial control where persons unwillingly are subjected to, or face, coercive race-based student assignments in "desegregation" class actions to which they are not parties. The author details for them the lengthy "Groundswell" experience to enable them to similarly successfully assert individually the full range of their legal objections to such discrimination.

Underlying the "Groundswell" objections is the interpretation of our Constitution in the famous Plessy dissent of Justice Harlan that it is color-blind and does not permit such governmental action against persons innocent of any offense against the plaintiff-class seeking its imposition.

The author also offers this reasoned opposition to race-based affirmative action in public schools to the dialogue invited by the President's Initiative on Race.

Elmer Enstrom, Jr.

July 1, 1998