On August 22nd my supportive fellow Julian attorney, Bruce Knowles, drove me to the courthouse. Our mood was buoyant as we listened to radio reports that Ninth Circuit had the day before denied a petition in Coalition, supra, for rehearing and rejected a suggestion for rehearing en banc. It certainly gave me a lift in my argument at our hard-earned public hearing:

MR. ENSTROM: ... Speaking to the request that this case continue until January 1 — and I can hardly visualize what it will be like then — but January 1, 2000 —

THE COURT: You'll still have a motion pending.

MR. ENSTROM: I do take issue with — I'm glad your Honor is injecting some humor because I'm about to say that this final order is the most oerwellian [phonetic for "Orwellian"] order I've ever seen. It says “final order terminating jurisdiction.” What it does is order continuing jurisdiction until January 1, 2000, and then does not provide for discharge of the writ of mandate....

We're at 20 years of jurisdiction, 30 years of litigation. Your Honor, I — this case is keeping me alive, but I would love — I'm going to ask the bar to give me credit for some pro bono work. And if your Honor wants to extend it, I'll do the best I can.

But I — on a serious note, I'm not asking the school district to do anything but discontinue these quotas in their system and to do it now and before school starts.... They'll (complainants) be able to come before the school board and the school board can then act in accordance with Proposition 209 and these federal decisional laws that I've quoted to you.

The Court, after stating carefully considered reasons, denied our request to order changes then in the existing final order, but conditionally advanced the termination of jurisdiction date from January 1, 2000 to July 1, 1998:

... THE COURT: If the Supreme Court decides that Proposition 209 in the Amendment to the Constitution that we've been discussing, if the Supreme Court decides that it is unconstitutional, this order will expire January 1, 2000. If it is found to be constitutional,