502
Scalia, J., concurring
" '[Desegregation] decrees,' " we have said, " 'exceed appropriate limits if they are aimed at eliminating a condition that does not violate the Constitution or does not flow from such a violation,' " Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 247 (1991); Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 282 (1977). We have never sought to describe how one identifies a condition as the effluent of a violation, or how a "vestige" or a "remnant" of past discrimination is to be recognized. Indeed, we have not even betrayed an awareness that these tasks are considerably more difficult than calculating the amount of taxes unconstitution-ally paid. It is time for us to abandon our studied disregard of that obvious truth and to adjust our jurisprudence to its reality.
Since parents and school boards typically want children to attend schools in their own neighborhood, "[t]he principal cause of racial and ethnic imbalance in . . . public schools across the country—North and South—is the imbalance in residential patterns." Austin Independent School Dist. v. United States, 429 U. S. 990, 994 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring). That imbalance in residential patterns, in turn, "doubtless result[s] from a mélange of past happenings prompted by economic considerations, private discrimination, discriminatory school assignments, or a desire to reside near people of one's own race or ethnic background." Columbus Bd. of Education v. Penick, 443 U. S. 449, 512 (1979) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); see also Pasadena Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424, 435-437 (1976). Consequently, residential segregation "is a national, not a southern[,] phenomenon" which exists " 'regardless of the character of local laws and policies, and regardless of the extent of other forms of segregation or discrimination.' " Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Denver, 413 U. S. 189, 223, and n. 9 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), quoting K. Taeuber, Negroes in Cities 36 (1965).
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