742
Opinion of the Court
and that only 20 miles separate Mississippi State and Mississippi University for Women. 674 F. Supp., at 1563-1564. It was evident to the District Court that "the defendants undertake to fund more institutions of higher learning than are justified by the amount of financial resources available to the state," id., at 1564, but the court concluded that such fiscal irresponsibility was a policy choice of the legislature rather than a feature of a system subject to constitutional scrutiny.
Unquestionably, a larger rather than a smaller number of institutions from which to choose in itself makes for different choices, particularly when examined in the light of other factors present in the operation of the system, such as admissions, program duplication, and institutional mission designations. Though certainly closure of one or more institutions would decrease the discriminatory effects of the present system, see, e. g., United States v. Louisiana, 718 F. Supp. 499, 514 (ED La. 1989), based on the present record we are unable to say whether such action is constitutionally required.11 Elimination of program duplication and revision of admissions criteria may make institutional closure unnecessary. However, on remand this issue should be carefully explored by inquiring and determining whether retention of all eight institutions itself affects student choice and perpetuates the segregated higher education system, whether maintenance of each of the universities is educationally justifiable, and whether one or more of them can be practicably closed or merged with other existing institutions.
Because the former de jure segregated system of public universities in Mississippi impeded the free choice of pro-11 It should be noted that in correspondence with the board of trustees in 1973, an HEW official expressed the "overall objective" of the Plan to be "that a student's choice of institution or campus, henceforth, will be based on other than racial criteria." App. 205. The letter added that closure of a formerly de jure black institution "would create a presumption that a greater burden is being placed upon the black students and faculty in Mississippi." Id., at 206.
Page: Index Previous 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007