Parents Can Challenge Perpetual
Court Assignment of Pupils,
In Pending Class Actions,
Toward Restoring Local Control
According to the Constitution

(citations omitted); that public schooling, even in the South, should be controlled by locally elected authorities acting in conjunction with parents (citations omitted); and that it is “desirable” to permit pupils to attend schools nearest their homes.... 112 S.Ct. 1453,54.

This concurring opinion points out the difficulties in ending court supervision facing school boards whose predecessors had de jure segregated schools before desegregation actions were filed against them in the mid 1960s or earlier. As stated, before being released from court supervision in these actions, these school boards have to overcome the “increasingly counterfactual presumption of Green.”

The Green presumption requires current boards to obtain “a finding that no portion of the current racial imbalance is a remnant of prior de jure discrimination.” As pointed out, it unduly encumbers, under current circumstances, boards in endeavoring to end court supervision.

One can see the reason for this opinion's concern in the burden placed upon the school board in DeKalb County School System by the Eleventh Circuit ruling on appeal in Freeman. For it ruled DCSS would not achieve unitary status “until it maintains at least three years of racial equality in (the six Green) categories: student assignment, faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities.” After 20 years of court supervision, the Eleventh Circuit concluded, “DCSS continues to operate racially identifiable schools. The DCSS has never achieved unitary status and it retains the duty to eliminate all vestiges of the dual school system.” See Argument before Supreme Court in Freeman v. Pitts, Challenge Three, supra, pp. 47-49.

Fortunately for parents dedicated to local control, the high court overruled the Eleventh Circuit and upheld the trial court's ruling that DCSS had met its duty to the extent practicable as to the Green category of student assignment, and released it from court supervision. It further held the district court has the authority to relinquish supervision and control over a school district in incremental stages before full compliance has been achieved in every (Green) area of school operations.

Especially encouraging to parents seeking return of local control over student assignment at the earliest practicable date were these words in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion:
 

Green 

Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430 (1968)
New Kent County, Virginia
 

Freeman 

Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 112 S.Ct. 1430 (1992)
DeKalb County School System (DCSS),
DeKalb County, Georgia
 

— Handbook: Challenge Six, pages 75 - 84 —