Cite as: 503 U. S. 467 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
moved households. U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 19 (111th ed. 1991) (Table 25). Over a third of those people moved to a different county, and over six million migrated between States. Ibid. In such a society it is inevitable that the demographic makeup of school districts, based as they are on political subdivisions such as counties and municipalities, may undergo rapid change.
The effect of changing residential patterns on the racial composition of schools, though not always fortunate, is somewhat predictable. Studies show a high correlation between residential segregation and school segregation. Wilson & Taeuber, Residential and School Segregation: Some Tests of Their Association, in Demography and Ethnic Groups 57-58 (F. Bean & W. Frisbie eds. 1978). The District Court in this case heard evidence tending to show that racially stable neighborhoods are not likely to emerge because whites prefer a racial mix of 80% white and 20% black, while blacks prefer a 50-50 mix.
Where resegregation is a product not of state action but of private choices, it does not have constitutional implications. It is beyond the authority and beyond the practical ability of the federal courts to try to counteract these kinds of continuous and massive demographic shifts. To attempt such results would require ongoing and never-ending supervision by the courts of school districts simply because they were once de jure segregated. Residential housing choices, and their attendant effects on the racial composition of schools, present an ever-changing pattern, one difficult to address through judicial remedies.
In one sense of the term, vestiges of past segregation by state decree do remain in our society and in our schools. Past wrongs to the black race, wrongs committed by the State and in its name, are a stubborn fact of history. And stubborn facts of history linger and persist. But though we cannot escape our history, neither must we overstate its con-
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