Groundswell Intervenors Support
Challenge to Busing Order,
in Freeman v. Pitts, a Class Action,
to Restore Local Control of Student Assignment

Nevertheless the Eleventh Circuit Panel reversed the district court's conclusion that the DCSS fulfilled its duties in the area of student assignment and, in its reversal, stated:

... The DCSS must consider pairing and clustering of schools, drastic gerrymandering, and grade reorganization... The DCSS and the district court must consider busing — regardless of whether plaintiffs support such a proposal. The DCSS's plan is not inviolable.... Pitts by Pitts, supra, 887 F.2d at 1450.

The Circuit Panel then ordered that the district court require the DCSS to prepare and file a plan in accordance with its opinion in the shortest reasonable time. Ibid.

The Supreme Court granted a petition for certiorari by the DCSS to hear its appeal from this order, and heard the arguments of the parties on October 15, 1991. Their arguments were reported in The United States Law Week, headnoted by that report's statement of the ruling being appealed. Pertinent excerpts from that report, at 60 LW 3279, at 3280-81, follow:

The Eleventh Circuit ruled that DCSS will not receive unitary status “until it maintains at least three years of racial equality in (the six Green) categories, student assignment, faculty, staff, transportation, extra-curricular activities, and facilities.” Furthermore, the court said, “DCSS must consider pairing and clustering of schools, drastic gerrymandering of school zones, and grade reorganization.” After 20 years of court supervision, the Eleventh Circuit concluded, “DCSS continues to operate racially identifiable schools. The DCSS has never achieved unitary status and it retains the duty to eliminate all vestiges of the dual system.”

... Rex E. Lee, of Provo, Utah, argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of DCSS. According to Lee, DeKalb County grew rapidly after the issuance of the 1969 order to desegregate. Since that time, he said, the percentage of black students in the school population increased from 5 to 50 percent. And, he continued, the district court concluded it was the shift in population that caused the resegregation, not any action taken by DCSS....
 

Green 

Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430 (1968)
New Kent County, Virginia
 

Pitts II 

Pitts by Pitts v. Freeman (11th Cir. 1989), 887 F.2d 1438,1443
DeKalb County School System (DCSS),
DeKalb County, Georgia
 

Freeman 

Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 112 S.Ct. 1430 (1992)
DeKalb County School System (DCSS),
DeKalb County, Georgia
Enstrom: filed amici curiae brief
 

— Handbook: Challenge Three, pages 45 - 54 —