88
Opinion of the Court
Three years later, in Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267 (1977) (Milliken II), we articulated a three-part framework derived from our prior cases to guide district courts in the exercise of their remedial authority.
"In the first place, like other equitable remedies, the nature of the desegregation remedy is to be determined by the nature and scope of the constitutional violation. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S., at 16. The remedy must therefore be related to 'the condition alleged to offend the Constitution. . . .' Milliken I, 418 U. S., at 738. Second, the decree must indeed be remedial in nature, that is, it must be designed as nearly as possible 'to restore the victims of discriminatory conduct to the position they would have occupied in the absence of such conduct.' Id., at 746. Third, the federal courts in devising a remedy must take into account the interests of state and local authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution." Id., at 280-281 (footnotes omitted).
We added that the "principle that the nature and scope of the remedy are to be determined by the violation means simply that federal-court decrees must directly address and relate to the constitutional violation itself." Id., at 281-282. In applying these principles, we have identified "student assignments, . . . 'faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities and facilities' " as the most important indicia of a racially segregated school system. Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 250 (1991) (quoting Green v. School Bd. of New Kent Cty., 391 U. S. 430, 435 (1968)).
Because "federal supervision of local school systems was intended as a temporary measure to remedy past discrimination," Dowell, supra, at 247, we also have considered the showing that must be made by a school district operating under a desegregation order for complete or partial relief from that order. In Freeman, we stated that
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