472
Opinion of the Court
Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 301 (1955) (Brown II), which ordered school districts to desegregate with "all deliberate speed," DCSS was segregated by law. DCSS' initial response to the mandate of Brown II was an all too familiar one. Interpreting "all deliberate speed" as giving latitude to delay steps to desegregate, DCSS took no positive action toward desegregation until the 1966-1967 school year, when it did nothing more than adopt a freedom of choice transfer plan. Some black students chose to attend former de jure white schools, but the plan had no significant effect on the former de jure black schools.
In 1968, we decided Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430. We held that adoption of a freedom of choice plan does not, by itself, satisfy a school district's mandatory responsibility to eliminate all vestiges of a dual system. Green was a turning point in our law in a further respect. Concerned by more than a decade of inaction, we stated that " '[t]he time for mere "deliberate speed" has run out.' " Id., at 438, quoting Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Bd., 377 U. S. 218, 234 (1964). We said that the obligation of school districts once segregated by law was to come forward with a plan that "promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now." 391 U. S., at 439 (emphasis in original). The case before us requires an understanding and assessment of how DCSS responded to the directives set forth in Green.
Within two months of our ruling in Green, respondents, who are black schoolchildren and their parents, instituted this class action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. After the suit was filed, DCSS voluntarily began working with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to devise a comprehensive and final plan of desegregation. The District Court, in June 1969, entered a consent order approving the proposed plan, which was to be implemented in the 1969-1970 school year. The order abolished the freedom of choice plan and adopted
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