Cite as: 503 U. S. 467 (1992)
Souter, J., concurring
741-742; and that it is "desirable" to permit pupils to attend "schools nearest their homes," Swann, 402 U. S., at 28.
Justice Souter, concurring.
I join the Court's opinion holding that where there are vestiges of a dual system in some of a judicially supervised school system's aspects, or Green-type factors,* a district court will retain jurisdiction over the system, but need not maintain constant supervision or control over factors as to which compliance has been achieved. I write separately only to explain my understanding of the enquiry required by a district court applying the principle we set out today.
We recognize that although demographic changes influencing the composition of a school's student population may well have no causal link to prior de jure segregation, judicial control of student assignments may still be necessary to remedy persisting vestiges of the unconstitutional dual system, such as remaining imbalance in faculty assignments. See ante, at 497-498. This is, however, only one of several possible causal relationships between or among unconstitutional acts of school segregation and various Green-type factors. I think it is worth mentioning at least two others: the dual school system itself as a cause of the demographic shifts with which the district court is faced when considering a partial relinquishment of supervision, and a Green-type factor other than student assignments as a possible cause of imbalanced student assignment patterns in the future.
The first would occur when demographic change toward segregated residential patterns is itself caused by past school segregation and the patterns of thinking that segregation creates. Such demographic change is not an independent, supervening cause of racial imbalance in the student body, and we have said before that when demographic change is
*Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968). Green's list of specific factors, of course, need not be treated as exclusive. See ante, at 492-493.
507
Page: Index Previous 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007