Court Opinion

ID: 8963572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 09:52:21.861835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:10:15.540663
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING EN BANC
BOWMAN, Circuit Judge, joined by WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc.
This is a case of exceptional importance. The remedies ordered go far beyond anything previously seen in a school desegregation case. The sheer immensity of the programs encompassed by the district court’s order — the large number of magnet schools and the quantity of capital renovations and new construction — are concededly *1319without parallel in any other school district in the country. Similarly, in no other case has federal judicial power been used to impose a tax increase in order to provide funding for a desegregation remedy.
In addition, the case presents the overarching question of whether these court-ordered programs and court-ordered taxes are Constitutionally required in order to rectify the vestigial effects of legally mandated segregation (dead now for over thirty years) or instead represent an unsupportable exercise of judicial power in a legislative-style attempt to solve social problems that have their origins in other causes.
In over five years on the bench, I have not seen a case more deserving than this one of thoughtful consideration by the entire Court. The decision as it stands appears to arrogate to the federally judiciary vast powers that under the Tenth Amendment are reserved to the states or to the people. I therefore regret that a majority of the Court has vetoed to deny the petitions for rehearing en banc.