514
Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment
student population is only the most obvious. The Court has noted: "[T]he use of mobile classrooms, the drafting of student transfer policies, the transportation of students, and the assignment of faculty and staff, on racially identifiable bases, have the clear effect of earmarking schools according to their racial composition." Keyes, 413 U. S., at 202. Because of the various methods for identifying schools by race, even if a school district manages to desegregate student assignments at one point, its failure to remedy the constitutional violation in its entirety may result in resegregation, as neighborhoods respond to the racially identifiable schools. See ante, at 508-509 (Souter, J., concurring). Regardless of the particular way in which the school district has encouraged residential segregation, this Court's decisions require that the school district remedy the effect that such segregation has had on the school system.
In addition to exploring the school district's influence on residential segregation, the District Court here should examine whether school-board actions might have contributed to school segregation. Actions taken by a school district can aggravate or eliminate school segregation independent of residential segregation. School-board policies concerning placement of new schools and closure of old schools and programs such as magnet classrooms and majority-to-minority (M-to-M) transfer policies affect the racial composition of the schools. See Swann, 402 U. S., at 20-21, 26-27. A school district's failure to adopt policies that effectively desegregate its schools continues the violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Columbus Board of Education, 443 U. S., at 458-459; Dayton Board of Education, 443 U. S., at 538. The Court many times has noted that a school district is not responsible for all of society's ills, but it bears full responsibility for schools that have never been desegregated. See, e. g., Swann, supra.
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