Court Opinion

ID: 9552329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:08:52.898997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:07.761413
License: Public Domain

TOBRINER, J.†
I concur in the majority opinion insofar as it affirms the validity of defendant school district’s voluntary desegregation plan. I do not agree, however, with the dicta of the majority opinion (ante, p. 95) which purports to “disapprove” section 93, subdivision (b)(1) of title 5 of the California Administrative Code, a regulation of the State Board of Education relating to a local school board’s determination of segregated schools.
First, no party in this case has challenged the validity of this regulation and thus the question of the regulation’s validity is not actually before us. The local school desegregation plan at issue here, of course, did not utilize specific percentages in determining which schools in the district were segregated.
Second, contrary to the suggestion of the majority opinion, nothing in this court’s decision in Crawford v. Board of Education (1976) 17 Cal.3d 876 [130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28] purports to limit the au*102thority of a local school board voluntarily to go beyond minimum constitutional requirements and adopt specific percentage “rules of thumb” to guide its own desegregation program. As Chief Justice Burger explained for a unanimous United States Supreme Court in Swann v. Board of Education (1071) 402 U.S. 1, 16 [28 L.Ed.2d 554, 566, 91 S.Ct. 566]: “School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities; absent a finding of a constitutional violation, however, that would not be within the authority of a federal court.” (Italics added.)
Bird, C. J., concurred.

Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.