Board Unsuccessfully Petitions
the Court of Appeal to Reinstate
Termination Date of January 1, 2000

In early October, I was beginning to hope that I had completed a long-extended but satisfactory, indeed happy, representation of a worthy cause. Failed efforts, led by the ACLU co-counsel of Plaintiffs, to obtain stays in the Coalition case before the Supreme Court gave every indication that the Ninth Circuit's ruling in that case would be upheld.

But I received a jolt on October 22, 1997 when I received from the Board a Petition to the Court of Appeal for Writ of Mandate or Prohibition, with a massive set of exhibits, filed a day earlier. It sought “review of the portion of Respondent San Diego Superior Court's September 5, 1997 Order which modified its prior August 1996 Final Order and set an earlier date for terminating Court jurisdiction in this school integration case.” In summary, the Board argued:

On its face Proposition 209 specifically exempts from its application preexisting orders such as the Final Order in this case, and in any event Proposition 209 was not intended to effect or interfere with a local school district's voluntary integration program. Under the circumstances, this Court should grant this writ and vacate the portion of the Respondent Court's order which changed the termination date of the Court's jurisdiction from January 1, 2000, to an earlier date. Failure to grant this Writ could cause the District irreparable harm particularly if, as a result of this Order, it should lose $50 million in annual state integration funds.

Now I had to await action by the appellate Court, which in the absence of interim directions to counsel, usually favored those prevailing below such as the Groundswell Intervenors as Real Parties in Interest. Things looked even brighter when, on November 3, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari sought in the Coalition case. I stopped working on a tentative Response to the Board's Petition and began an application for attorney fees for what I was increasingly hoping was a successful motion to terminate the Carlin case.