The Charlotte lawsuit raises new doubts about the future of schoolintegration in the United States at a time when national studies show that schools are starting to resegregate.
School busing for integration became widespread in the 1970s after years of unsuccessful challenges to the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision, Brown v Board of Education, which ruled that separate and unequal school systems were unconstitutional.
Forty years ago, progressives were sure that court-ordered busing of school children to achieve racial integration represented a great victory over bigotry and oppression.