Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 50 (1992)

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516

FREEMAN v. PITTS

Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment

in two schools that were more than 50% black, despite a district-wide black student population of less than 6%. See ante, at 477-478. Within a year, another school became majority black, followed by four others within the next two years. App. 304, 314, 350, 351, 368. Despite the existence of these schools, the District Court found that DCSS effectively had desegregated for a short period of time with respect to student assignment. See ante, at 478. The District Court justified this finding by linking the school segregation exclusively to residential segregation existing prior to the court order. See ibid.

But residential segregation that existed prior to the desegregation decree cannot provide an excuse. It is not enough that DCSS adopt race-neutral policies in response to a court desegregation decree. Instead, DCSS is obligated to "counteract the continuing effects of past school segregation." Swann, 402 U. S., at 28. Accordingly, the school district did not meet its affirmative duty simply by adopting a neighborhood-school plan, when already existing residential segregation inevitably perpetuated the dual system. See Davis v. Board of School Comm'rs of Mobile County, 402 U. S. 33, 37 (1971); Swann, 402 U. S., at 25-28, 30.

Virtually all the demographic changes that DCSS claims

caused the school segregation occurred after 1975. See ante, at 475; App. 215, 260. Of particular relevance to the causation inquiry, then, are DCSS' actions prior to 1975; failures during that period to implement the 1969 decree render the school district's contentions that its noncompliance is due simply to demographic changes less plausible.

A review of the record suggests that from 1969 until 1975, DCSS failed to desegregate its schools. During that period, the number of students attending racially identifiable schools actually increased, and increased more quickly than the increase in black students. By 1975, 73% of black elementary students and 56% of black high school students were attending majority black schools, although the percentages of black

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