object to their board members' implementation of forced busing under the 1976 decision, Crawford v. Board of Education, 17 Cal.3d 280, (Crawford I). This decision, I was aware, was rendered when their board and the plaintiff-class were the only parties. That board first accepted that decision without appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. It then attempted to implement busing in the trial proceedings disregarding parents' arguments against it by their organization, Bustop, Inc., formed since that decision.

Compounding the board's earlier stance, it forced Bustop to go to an appellate court to gain intervention. Bustop v. Superior Court, 69 C.A.3d 66,69 (Apr., 1977).

The Los Angeles case highlighted the conflict of interest between such boards and their constituents; also, the conflict between those promoting such busing whose children avoided it and those whose children were subject to it was similarly disturbing. The busing complainants emphasized this in proclaiming that one of the lawyers for the plaintiff-class seeking forced busing had his children in a private school.
 

The Need for Pro Bono Representation

My study of these class actions reflected that the interests of the individual children and their parents most adversely affected by the busing sanctioned in the precedential cases like Crawford I and the earlier federal decision known as Swann were not separately represented in those cases. And despite the conflict between them and their boards of education, they have rarely been separately represented in the implementation of busing sanctioned by those decisions. This is understandable due to difficulty in intervening, in obtaining counsel, and in view of the length of such cases. This creates a need for pro bono representation.
 

The Principle

Pro bono representation enables persons to effectively voice constitutional objections to governmental action adversely affecting them. Persons who feel their meritorious objections to particular governmental actions have not been fairly heard sometimes resort to illegal obstruction. So it is important that public interest lawyers see that a fair hearing is