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

insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning, but without understanding.

Two amici curiae presented the interest of black students against prejudicial racial gerrymandering of school boundaries by Pasadena school authorities in Jackson v. Pasadena City School District, supra. Although that issue was not before the California Supreme Court, it opined in that case a duty upon school boards to take reasonably feasible steps to alleviate racial imbalance in schools “regardless of cause.”

The Groundswell interest of parents and students opposing busing is as appropriately presented as was the interest of black students in the Jackson case, and as well, to counter the reason posed by the social scientists for it. Groundswell Amici argued:

In concluding that the DCSS “failed to fulfill its constitutional duties regarding student assignment,” the panel makes an order which will require extensive mandatory busing. It concedes that to comply, “the DCSS's actions may be administratively awkward, inconvenient, and even bizarre in some situations and may impose burdens on some.” Pitts by Pitts, supra, 887 F.2d at 1450...

In the mandate's present form, the trial court is bound to fashion a plan so difficult to comply with as to “condemn a school district once governed by a board which intentionally discriminated to judicial tutelage for the indefinite future.” Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 111 S.Ct. 630,638 (1991). And during that period innocent, adversely affected students are to be subjected to loss of their constitutional rights, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Annexed to the Groundswell brief is Appendix A, being copy of an exemplar, from Intervenors' Exhibit 6 for Identification in Carlin v. Board of Education, of petitions signed by 1,856 students objecting to mandatory racial school assignments. Their petitions, which in turn epitomize the position of the Groundswell Amici, each read:
 

Jackson 

Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., 59 Cal.2d 876 (1963)
Pasadena, California
 

Carlin v. Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District,
San Diego Superior Court No. 303800 (1967-1998)
San Diego, California
 

Pitts by Pitts 

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

Dowell 

Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 111 S.Ct. 630,638 (1991))
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Enstrom: filed amici curiae brief
 

— Handbook: Challenge Three, pages 45 - 54 —