The reference to this earlier exercise of judicial power was followed by his protest in that commentary to its present day extension, on grounds beyond those permitted in federal actions, to legislate busing assignments. This power arose in a lawsuit brought by busing proponents before California's highest court in 1976 in a case known as Crawford I.

Thus, we have seen racial assignments of public school children judicially ordered in class actions like Crawford I. At one point in that case the mandatory racial reassignment of over 80,000 Los Angeles first-through ninth-grade students was effectuated for the Fall, 1980 semester by a trial judge opposed by their school board and many parents, whose objections were later found valid by the Supreme Court.

Not only did the Crawford class action have a discriminatory impact upon those unwilling to be subjected to busing, it drew resources from the district which could have been directed toward education. The Los Angeles school district in a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court in its October Term, 1984, stated the nearly one billion dollars' cost of the litigation leading to the Crawford massive busing order:

“During 1969-1981 the Crawford litigation resulted in 26,351 pages of written testimony, 91 witnesses called, 564 documentary exhibits, 29 special writ proceedings taken, and 17 applications for state appellate review.

“The cost to the District of all the foregoing proceedings and the court ordered desegregation plans was in excess of $910,000,000.”

Los Angeles Unified School District, et al. v. Los Angeles NAACP, et al., on Petition for Writ to the Ninth Judicial Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, No. CA-81-5772 (p.9).

And recently ACLU-affiliated counsel, who led in securing the above fall, 1980 court busing order, filed in Superior Court, San Francisco, another class action entitled Williams, et al. v. State of California, et al., as reported on the ACLU Los Angeles website on June 26, 2000:

A statewide class action suit was filed on May 17, 2000 on behalf of California public school children who are deprived of educational opportunities because they attend schools that lack