Liberate Public Schools
from Government by Lawsuit  /  Phase Nine
  
118
Lesson from Thirty-Year
Carlin v. Board of Education lawsuit:
Free Public Schools
from Government by Lawsuit
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addition individual parents and students were subject to state compulsory attendance laws.

This was the awesome judicial power to which I referred in my 1977 article and which the Groundswell to-be-intervenors faced in September, 1980. That power has since been curtailed as to some judicial actions, such as busing children in the absence of de jure segregation, by the November 6, 1979 state constitutional amendment upheld in 1982 by Crawford III. But in school districts in California and elsewhere trial judges continue to exercise power over student assignments where they find remnants of long past de jure segregation to be “remedied.”

Additionally, Crawford I was continuously cited by the Carlin Plaintiffs as supporting continued assignments to particular seats and classrooms solely on the basis of race for the “sake of the District's integration plans.” In a memorandum dated July 12, 1996, Plaintiffs dismissed Groundswell's claim that the constitutional rights of the non-class children so assigned were violated, citing Crawford I, 17 Cal.3d 280, at 297, and stating:

In making this argument, Groundswell ignores the fact that this Court's jurisdiction arises under the California Constitution and not under federal law.... [Emphasis in brief]

Witness also the Board's support for continuing racial considerations overtly at that time, and then covertly by a “socioeconomic” proposal after Intervenors secured the end of the case on July 1, 1998. This means the Board's constituents must monitor implementation of its latest proposals in furtherance of the struggle to eliminate racial discrimination of any kind in student assignments in subsequent school years.
 

History Supports
Freeing Public Schools
from Government by Lawsuit

I think Justice Jackson would have approved of my opposition to the exercise of judicial power as the source of racial considerations in this integration program, either explicitly during the pendency of the case orNext
 


Carlin Carlin v. Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District,
San Diego Superior Court No. 303800 (1967-1998)
San Diego, California
 
Crawford I Crawford v. Board of Education, 17 Cal.3d 280 (1976)
[related to BustopBoard of Ed., etc.]
Los Angeles, California
 
Crawford III Crawford v. Los Angeles Board of Education, 458 U.S. 527 (1982)
Los Angeles, California
 
Carlin Board of Education v. Superior Court, 61 Cal.App.4th 411 (Feb.1998)
[conclusion of Carlin v. Board of Education]
San Diego, California
  
  Liberate: Phase 9, pages 115 - 124 — Previous Next
  

Liberate Public Schools
from Government by Lawsuit

A Long Pro Bono Struggle
Against Racially Balancing Public School Students
in a Thirty-Year Lawsuit
by Elmer Enstrom, Jr.
  
Contents
A chronological presentation of the 30-year Carlin affirmative action lawsuit:
a legal battle to reassert the "separation of powers" concept
of a republican form of government embodied in our Constitution.
  
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