Cite as: 503 U. S. 467 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 245-246 (1991), the term "unitary" is not a precise concept:
"[I]t is a mistake to treat words such as 'dual' and 'unitary' as if they were actually found in the Constitution. . . . Courts have used the terms 'dual' to denote a school system which has engaged in intentional segregation of students by race, and 'unitary' to describe a school system which has been brought into compliance with the command of the Constitution. We are not sure how useful it is to define these terms more precisely, or to create subclasses within them."
It follows that we must be cautious not to attribute to the term a utility it does not have. The term "unitary" does not confine the discretion and authority of the District Court in a way that departs from traditional equitable principles.
That the term "unitary" does not have fixed meaning or content is not inconsistent with the principles that control the exercise of equitable power. The essence of a court's equity power lies in its inherent capacity to adjust remedies in a feasible and practical way to eliminate the conditions or redress the injuries caused by unlawful action. Equitable remedies must be flexible if these underlying principles are to be enforced with fairness and precision. In this respect, as we observed in Swann, "a school desegregation case does not differ fundamentally from other cases involving the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial of a constitutional right. The task is to correct, by a balancing of the individual and collective interests, the condition that offends the Constitution." Swann, 402 U. S., at 15-16. The requirement of a unitary school system must be implemented according to this prescription.
Our application of these guiding principles in Pasadena Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424 (1976), is instructive. There we held that a District Court exceeded its remedial authority in requiring annual readjustment of school
487
Page: Index Previous 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007