Opinion ID: 427620
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Board's Proposal

Text: 31 When a school system has been found to be in violation of the Constitution, local school officials bear the primary responsibility to eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation. Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 290, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 2762, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977) (Milliken II ) (quoting Swann, 402 U.S. at 15, 91 S.Ct. at 1275); Brown II, 349 U.S. at 299-300, 75 S.Ct. at 756. But the continued existence of one-race schools under a plan proposed by school officials is unacceptable where reasonable alternatives exist. Lemon, 566 F.2d at 987. When school officials fail to come forward with a plan that promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now, Green, 391 U.S. at 439, 88 S.Ct. at 1694, it becomes the responsibility of the district court to develop an adequate remedy. Swann, 402 U.S. at 15, 91 S.Ct. at 1275; Valley I, 646 F.2d at 938. 32 The Board proposed to dismantle the dual system by dividing the parish into three east-west zones and designating in each zone certain schools at each educational level to provide magnet or special focus programs. These magnet programs would attract voluntary attendance by students of the race substantially unrepresented at the schools in which they were installed, and desegregation would thereby be achieved. The theory was and is entirely commendable, for it relies not on the court's mandatory power but on the voluntary choices of individual parents and students. 10 We cannot overemphasize the importance of creativity in the fashioning and implementation of a desegregation plan. Creative solutions bring local acceptance and enthusiasm--ingredients crucial to the success of any desegregation effort. 33 The district court properly rejected the Board's plan, however, because it would not have been fully implemented for three years and because in the face of reasonable alternatives it left too many one-race schools in the system. Although the plan did include a few pairs and clusters, it would have allowed at least 39 essentially one-race schools to remain in the system, with 48% of the parish's elementary students continuing to attend one-race schools. The Board's stated goal was to achieve at least a 25%-75% racial balance in its magnet schools by their third year in operation; of course, no witness at trial could guarantee even that modest success. Furthermore, many if not most of the magnet programs would have been added on to the curriculum and activities existing at their designated school, creating the danger that they would become, in the district court's phrase, a school within a school. 514 F.Supp. at 872. 34 The district court found that further desegregation than that achieved by the Board's proposal was feasible and workable. In upholding that determination, we do not mean to suggest our disapproval of other magnet school plans that may promise greater remedial success than the Board's. We encourage the parties to continue to work on creative alternatives to the mandatory tools of desegregation.