dual system is dismantled.... Starr urged the court to resolve the question of when a unitary system has been achieved for the guidance of school boards and lower courts.... The primary path to achievement of unitariness is good faith compliance with a desegregation plan, Starr contended.

How does a school system eliminate the last vestiges of discrimination when residential segregation remains a reality, and segregated schools may have contributed to that pattern? O'Connor asked. Starr said that under Green residential segregation is not considered a vestige of discrimination once there has been good faith compliance with a desegregation plan over a substantial period of time. The court should instead look to factors over which the school board has realistic control, he said.

What did busing accomplish here? Kennedy asked. Starr said that it took down what in effect were signs over schoolhouse doors that labeled them by race. This was dismantlement, he asserted: doing away with the state's imprimatur on a segregated system. Now, he added, Oklahoma City elementary students are assigned by residence, not race, and the majority-to-minority option is also available.

Julius L. Chambers of New York City asserted on behalf of the black plaintiffs that the principal issue is whether Oklahoma City can resegregate 10 black elementary schools in a black residential area that the district court found became segregated by state action. Justice Scalia said the majority-to-minority option avoids segregation. However, Chambers said that option does not in fact provide free and open transportation, and there are limits upon student requests for transfers. Moreover, he said, Green condemned free transfer provisions as inadequate. They simply don't work, he insisted.

Swann... demands that where there is a segregated system as in Oklahoma City, the school board must take affirmative steps to desegregate, Chambers said. You're using "segregated" in an unusual way, Scalia