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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 89-1290
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ROBERT R. FREEMAN, et al., PETITIONER v. WILLIE
EUGENE PITTS et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eleventh circuit
[March 31, 1992]

  Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.
  DeKalb County, Georgia, is a major suburban area of
Atlanta.  This case involves a court-ordered desegregation
decree for the DeKalb County School System (DCSS).
DCSS now serves some 73,000 students in kindergarten
through high school and is the 32nd largest elementary and
secondary school system in the Nation.
  DCSS has been subject to the supervision and jurisdiction
of the United States District Court for the Northern District
of Georgia since 1969, when it was
ordered to dismantle its dual school system.  In 1986,
petitioners filed a motion for final dismissal.  The District
Court ruled that DCSS had not achieved unitary status in
all respects but had done so in student attendance and
three other categories.  In its order the District Court
relinquished remedial control as to
those aspects of the system in which unitary status had
been achieved, and retained supervisory authority only for
those aspects of the school system in which the district was
not in full compliance.  The Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit reversed, 887 F. 2d 1439 (1989), holding
that a district court should retain full remedial authority
over a school system until it achieves unitary status in six
categories at the same time for several years.  We now
reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand,
holding that a district court is permitted to withdraw
judicial supervision with respect to discrete categories in
which the school district has achieved compliance with a
court-ordered desegregation plan.  A district court need not
retain active control over every aspect of school administra-
tion until a school district has demonstrated unitary status
in all facets of its system.
              I
              A
For decades before our decision in Brown v. Board of
Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), and our man-
date in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 301
(1955) (Brown II), which ordered school districts to desegre-
gate with -all deliberate speed,- DCSS was segregated by
law.  DCSS's initial response to the mandate of Brown II
was an all too familiar one.  Interpreting -all deliberate
speed- as giving latitude to delay steps to desegregate,
DCSS took no positive action toward desegregation until
the 1966-1967 school year, when it did nothing more than
adopt a freedom of choice transfer plan.  Some black
students chose to attend former de jure white schools, but
the plan had no significant effect on the former de jure
black schools.
In 1968 we decided Green v. New Kent County School Bd.,
391 U. S. 430 (1968).  We held that adoption of a freedom
of choice plan does not, by itself, satisfy a school district's
mandatory responsibility to eliminate all vestiges of a dual
system.  Green was a turning point in our law in a further
respect.  Concerned by more than a decade of inaction, we
stated that ```[t]he time for mere ``deliberate speed'' has run
out.'''  Id., at 438, quoting Griffin v. Prince Edward County
School Bd., 377 U. S. 218, 234 (1964).  We said that the
obligation of school districts once segregated by law was to
come forward with a plan that -promises realistically to
work, and promises realistically to work now.-  391 U. S.,
at 439 (emphasis in original).  The case before us requires
an understanding and assessment of how DCSS responded
to the directives set forth in Green.
  Within two months of our ruling in Green, respondents,
who are black school children and their parents, instituted
this class action in the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Georgia.  After the suit was filed,
DCSS voluntarily began working with the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare to devise a comprehensive
and final plan of desegregation.  The District Court in June
1969 entered a consent order approving the proposed plan,
which was to be implemented in the 1969-1970 school year.
The order abolished the freedom of choice plan and adopted
a neighborhood school attendance plan that had been
proposed by the DCSS and accepted by the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare subject to a minor modifi-
cation.  Under the plan all of the former de jure black
schools were closed and their students were reassigned
among the remaining neighborhood schools.  The District
Court retained jurisdiction.
Between 1969 and 1986 respondents sought only infre-
quent and limited judicial intervention into the affairs of
DCSS.  They did not request significant changes in student
attendance zones or student assignment policies.  In 1976
DCSS was ordered:  to expand its Minority-to-Majority (M-
to-M) student transfer program, allowing students in a
school where they are in the majority race to transfer to a
school where they are in the minority; to establish a bi-
racial committee to oversee the transfer program and future
boundary line changes; and to reassign teachers so that the
ratio of black to white teachers in each school would be, in
substance, similar to the racial balance in the school
population systemwide.  From 1977 to 1979 the District
Court approved a boundary line change for one elementary
school attendance zone and rejected DCSS proposals to
restrict the M-to-M transfer program.  In 1983 DCSS was
ordered to make further adjustments to the M-to-M transfer
program.
In 1986 petitioners filed a motion for final dismissal of
the litigation.  They sought a declaration that DCSS had
satisfied its duty to eliminate the dual education system,
that is to say a declaration that the school system had
achieved unitary status.  Green, supra, at 441.  The District
Court approached the question whether DCSS had achieved
unitary status by asking whether DCSS was unitary with
respect to each of the factors identified in Green.  The court
considered an additional factor that is not named in Green:
the quality of education being offered to the white and black
student populations.
The District Court found DCSS to be -an innovative
school system that has travelled the often long road to
unitary status almost to its end,- noting that -the court has
continually been impressed by the successes of the DCSS
and its dedication to providing a quality education for all
students within that system.-  App. to Pet. for Cert. 71a.
It found that DCSS is a unitary system with regard to
student assignments, transportation, physical facilities, and
extracurricular activities, and ruled that it would order no
further relief in those areas.  The District Court stopped
short of dismissing the case, however, because it found that
DCSS was not unitary in every respect.  The court said that
vestiges of the dual system remain in the areas of teacher
and principal assignments, resource allocation, and quality
of education.  DCSS was ordered to take measures to
address the remaining problems.

              B
Proper resolution of any desegregation case turns on a
careful assessment of its facts.  Green, supra, at 439.  Here,
as in most cases where the issue is the degree of compliance
with a school desegregation decree, a critical beginning
point is the degree of racial imbalance in the school district,
that is to say a comparison of the proportion of majority to
minority students in individual schools with the proportions
of the races in the district as a whole.  This inquiry is
fundamental, for under the former de jure regimes racial
exclusion was both the means and the end of a policy
motivated by disparagement of or hostility towards the
disfavored race.  In accord with this principle, the District
Court began its analysis with an assessment of the current
racial mix in the schools throughout DCSS and the explana-
tion for the racial imbalance it found.  The respondents did
not contend on appeal that the findings of fact were clearly
erroneous and the Court of Appeals did not find them to be
erroneous.  The Court of Appeals did disagree with the
conclusion reached by the District Court respecting the
need for further supervision of racial balance in student
assignments.
In the extensive record that comprises this case, one fact
predominates: remarkable changes in the racial composition
of the county presented DCSS and the District Court with
a student population in 1986 far different from the one they
set out to integrate in 1969.  Between 1950 and 1985,
DeKalb County grew from 70,000 to 450,000 in total
population, but most of the gross increase in student
enrollment had occurred by 1969, the relevant starting date
for our purposes.  Although the public school population
experienced only modest changes between 1969 and 1986
(remaining in the low 70,000's), a striking change occurred
in the racial proportions of the student population.  The
school system that the District Court ordered desegregated
in 1969 had 5.6% black students; by 1986 the percentage of
black students was 47%.
To compound the difficulty of working with these radical
demographic changes, the northern and southern parts of
the county experienced much different growth patterns.
The District Court found that -[a]s the result of these
demographic shifts, the population of the northern half of
DeKalb County is now predominantly white and the
southern half of DeKalb County is predominantly black.-
App. to Pet. for Cert. 38a.  In 1970, there were 7,615
nonwhites living in the northern part of DeKalb County and
11,508 nonwhites in the southern part of the county.  By
1980, there were 15,365 nonwhites living in the northern
part of the county, and 87,583 nonwhites in the southern
part.  Most of the growth in the nonwhite population in the
southern portion of the county was due to the migration of
black persons from the city of Atlanta.  Between 1975 and
1980 alone, approximately 64,000 black citizens moved into
southern DeKalb County, most of them coming from
Atlanta.  During the same period, approximately 37,000
white citizens moved out of southern DeKalb County to the
surrounding counties.
The District Court made findings with respect to the
number of nonwhite citizens in the northern and southern
parts of the county for the years 1970 and 1980 without
making parallel findings with respect to white citizens.  Yet
a clear picture does emerge.  During the relevant period,
the black population in the southern portion of the county
experienced tremendous growth while the white population
did not, and the white population in the northern part of
the county experienced tremendous growth while the black
population did not.
The demographic changes that occurred during the course
of the desegregation order are an essential foundation for
the District Court's analysis of the current racial mix of
DCSS.  As the District Court observed, the demographic
shifts have had -an immense effect on the racial composi-
tions of the DeKalb County schools.-  Ibid.  From 1976 to
1986, enrollment in elementary schools declined overall by
15%, while black enrollment in elementary schools in-
creased by 86%.  During the same period, overall high
school enrollment declined by 16%, while black enrollment
in high school increased by 119%.  These effects were even
more pronounced in the southern portion of DeKalb County.
Concerned with racial imbalance in the various schools of
the district, respondents presented evidence that during the
1986-1987 school year DCSS had the following features: (1)
47% of the students attending DCSS were black; (2) 50% of
the black students attended schools that were over 90%
black; (3) 62% of all black students attended schools that
had more than 20% more blacks than the systemwide
average; (4) 27% of white students attended schools that
were more than 90% white; (5) 59% of the white students
attended schools that had more than 20% more whites than
the systemwide average; (6) of the 22 DCSS high schools,
five had student populations that were more than 90%
black, while five other schools had student populations that
were more than 80% white; and (7) of the 74 elementary
schools in DCSS, 18 are over 90% black, while 10 are over
90% white.  Id., at 31a.  (The respondents' evidence on
these points treated all nonblack students as white.  The
District Court noted that there was no evidence that
nonblack minority students comprised even one percent of
DCSS student population.)
Respondents argued in the District Court that this racial
imbalance in student assignment was a vestige of the dual
system, rather than a product of independent demographic
forces.  In addition to the statistical evidence that the ratio
of black students to white students in individual schools
varied to a significant degree from the systemwide average,
respondents contended that DCSS had not used all avail-
able desegregative tools in order to achieve racial balancing.
Respondents pointed to the following alleged shortcomings
in DCSS's desegregative efforts: (1) DCSS did not break the
county into subdistricts and racially balance each subdis-
trict; (2) DCSS failed to expend sufficient funds for minority
learning opportunities; (3) DCSS did not establish commu-
nity advisory organizations; (4) DCSS did not make full use
of the freedom of choice plan; (5) DCSS did not cluster
schools, that is, it did not create schools for separate grade
levels which could be used to establish a feeder pattern; (6)
DCSS did not institute its magnet school program as early
as it might have; and (7) DCSS did not use busing to
facilitate urban to suburban exchanges.
According to the District Court, respondents conceded
that the 1969 order assigning all students to their neighbor-
hood schools -effectively desegregated DCSS for a period of
time- with respect to student assignment.  Id., at 35a.  The
District Court noted, however, that despite this concession
the respondents contended there was an improper imbal-
ance in two schools even in 1969.  Respondents made much
of the fact that despite the small percentage of blacks in the
county in 1969, there were then two schools that contained
a majority of black students: Terry Mill Elementary School
was 76% black, and Stoneview Elementary School was 51%
black.
The District Court found the racial imbalance in these
schools was not a vestige of the prior de jure system.  It
observed that both the Terry Mill and Stoneview schools
were de jure white schools before the freedom of choice plan
was put in place.  It cited expert witness testimony that
Terry Mill had become a majority black school as a result
of demographic shifts unrelated to the actions of petitioners
or their predecessors.  In 1966, the overwhelming majority
of students at Terry Mill were white.  By 1967, due to
migration of black citizens from Atlanta into DeKalb
County - and into the neighborhood surrounding the Terry
Mill school in particular - 23% of the students at Terry
Mill were black.  By 1968, black students comprised 50% of
the school population at Terry Mill.  By 1969, when the
plan was put in effect, the percentage of black students had
grown to 76%.  In accordance with the evidence of demo-
graphic shifts, and in the absence of any evidence to
suggest that the former dual system contributed in any way
to the rapid racial transformation of the Terry Mill student
population, the District Court found that the pre-1969
unconstitutional acts of petitioners were not responsible for
the high percentage of black students at the Terry Mill
school in 1969.  Its findings in this respect are illustrative
of the problems DCSS and the District Court faced in
integrating the whole district.
Although the District Court found that DCSS was
desegregated for at least a short period under the court-
ordered plan of 1969, it did not base its finding that DCSS
had achieved unitary status with respect to student
assignment on that circumstance alone.  Recognizing that
-[t]he achievement of unitary status in the area of student
assignment cannot be hedged on the attainment of such
status for a brief moment,- id., at 37a, the District Court
examined the interaction between DCSS policy and demo-
graphic shifts in DeKalb County.
The District Court noted that DCSS had taken specific
steps to combat the effects of demographics on the racial
mix of the schools.  Under the 1969 order, a biracial
committee had reviewed all proposed changes in the
boundary lines of school attendance zones.  Since the
original desegregation order, there had been about 170 such
changes.  It was found that only three had a partial
segregative effect.  An expert testified, and the District
Court found, that even those changes had no significant
effect on the racial mix of the school population, given the
tremendous demographic shifts that were taking place at
the same time.
The District Court also noted that DCSS, on its own
initiative, started an M-to-M program in the 1972 school
year.  The program was a marked success.  Participation
increased with each passing year, so that in the 1986-1987
school year, 4,500 of the 72,000 students enrolled in DCSS
participated.  An expert testified that the impact of an M-
to-M program goes beyond the number of students trans-
ferred because students at the receiving school also obtain
integrated learning experiences.  The District Court found
that about 19% of the students attending DCSS had an
integrated learning experience as a result of the M-to-M
program.  Id., at 40a.
  In addition, in the 1980's, DCSS instituted a magnet
school program in schools located in the middle of the
county.  The magnet school programs included a performing
arts program, two science programs, and a foreign language
program.  There was testimony in the District Court that
DCSS also had plans to operate additional magnet pro-
grams in occupational education and gifted and talented
education, as well as a preschool program and an open
campus.  By locating these programs in the middle of the
county, DCSS sought to attract black students from the
southern part of the county and white students from the
northern part.
Further, the District Court found that DCSS operates a
number of experience programs integrated by race, includ-
ing a writing center for fifth and seventh graders, a driving
range, summer school programs, and a dialectical speech
program.  DCSS employs measures to control the racial mix
in each of these special areas.
In determining whether DCSS has achieved unitary
status with respect to student assignment, the District
Court saw its task as one of deciding if petitioners -have
accomplished maximum practical desegregation of the
DCSS or if the DCSS must still do more to fulfill their
affirmative constitutional duty.-  Id., at 41a.  Petitioners
and respondents presented conflicting expert testimony
about the potential effects that desegregative techniques
not deployed might have had upon the racial mix of the
schools.  The District Court found that petitioners' experts
were more reliable, citing their greater familiarity with
DCSS, their experience and their standing within the
expert community.  The District Court made these findings:
``[The actions of DCSS] achieved maximum practical
desegregation from 1969 to 1986.  The rapid population
shifts in DeKalb County were not caused by any action
on the part of the DCSS.  These demographic shifts
were inevitable as the result of suburbanization, that
is, work opportunities arising in DeKalb County as well
as the City of Atlanta, which attracted blacks to
DeKalb; the decline in the number of children born to
white families during this period while the number of
children born to black families did not decrease;
blockbusting of formerly white neighborhoods leading
to selling and buying of real estate in the DeKalb area
on a highly dynamic basis; and the completion of
Interstate 20, which made access from DeKalb County
into the City of Atlanta much easier. . . .  There is no
evidence that the school system's previous unconstitu-
tional conduct may have contributed to this segrega-
tion.  This court is convinced that any further actions
taken by defendants, while the actions might have
made marginal adjustments in the population trends,
would not have offset the factors that were described
above and the same racial segregation would have
occurred at approximately the same speed.''  Id., at
44a-45a.
The District Court added:
``[A]bsent massive bussing, which is not considered as
a viable option by either the parties or this court, the
magnet school program and the M-to-M program, which
the defendants voluntarily implemented and to which
the defendants obviously are dedicated, are the most
effective ways to deal with the effects on student
attendance of the residential segregation existing in
DeKalb County at this time.''  Id., at 46a.
Having found no constitutional violation with respect to
student assignment, the District Court next considered the
other Green factors, beginning with faculty and staff
assignments.  The District Court first found that DCSS had
fulfilled its constitutional obligation with respect to hiring
and retaining minority teachers and administrators.  DCSS
has taken active steps to recruit qualified black applicants
and has hired them in significant numbers, employing a
greater percentage of black teachers than the statewide
average.  The District Court also noted that DCSS has an
-equally exemplary record- in retention of black teachers
and administrators.  Id., at 49a.  Nevertheless, the District
Court found that DCSS had not achieved or maintained a
ratio of black to white teachers and administrators in each
school to approximate the ratio of black to white teachers
and administrators throughout the system.  See Singleton
v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 419 F. 2d 1211
(CA5 1969), cert. denied, 396 U. S. 1032 (1970).  In other
words, a racial imbalance existed in the assignment of
minority teachers and administrators.  The District Court
found that in the 1984-1985 school year, seven schools
deviated by more than 10% from the systemwide average of
26.4% minority teachers in elementary schools and 24.9%
minority teachers in high schools.  The District Court also
found that black principals and administrators were over-
represented in schools with high percentages of black
students and underrepresented in schools with low percent-
ages of black students.
The District Court found the crux of the problem to be
that DCSS has relied on the replacement process to attain
a racial balance in teachers and other staff and has avoided
using mandatory reassignment.  DCSS gave as its reason
for not using mandatory reassignment that the competition
among local school districts is stiff, and that it is difficult to
attract and keep qualified teachers if they are required to
work far from their homes.  In fact, because teachers prefer
to work close to their homes, DCSS has a voluntary transfer
program in which teachers who have taught at the same
school for a period of three years may ask for a transfer.
Because most teachers request to be transferred to schools
near their homes, this program makes compliance with the
objective of racial balance in faculty and staff more difficult.
The District Court stated that it was not -unsympathetic
to the difficulties that DCSS faces in this regard,- but held
that the law of the circuit requires DCSS to comply with
Singleton.  App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a.  The court ordered
DCSS to devise a plan to achieve compliance with Single-
ton, noting that -[i]t would appear that such compliance will
necessitate reassignment of both teachers and principals.-
App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a.  With respect to faculty, the Dis-
trict Court noted that meeting Singleton would not be
difficult, citing petitioners' own estimate that most schools'
faculty could conform by moving, at most, two or three
teachers.
Addressing the more ineffable category of quality of
education, the District Court rejected most of respondents'
contentions that there was racial disparity in the provision
of certain educational resources (e. g., teachers with ad-
vanced degrees, teachers with more experience, library
books), contentions made to show that black students were
not being given equal educational opportunity.  The District
Court went further, however, and examined the evidence
concerning achievement of black students in DCSS.  It cited
expert testimony praising the overall educational program
in the district, as well as objective evidence of black
achievement: black students at DCSS made greater gains
on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) than white stu-
dents, and black students at DCSS are more successful
than black students nationwide on the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT).  It made the following finding:
``While there will always be something more that the
DCSS can do to improve the chances for black students
to achieve academic success, the court cannot find, as
plaintiffs urge, that the DCSS has been negligent in its
duties to implement programs to assist black students.
The DCSS is a very innovative school system.  It has
implemented a number of programs to enrich the lives
and enhance the academic potential of all students,
both blacks and whites.  Many remedial programs are
targeted in the majority black schools.  Programs have
been implemented to involve the parents and offset
negative socio-economic factors.  If the DCSS has failed
in any way in this regard, it is not because the school
system has been negligent in its duties.''  App. to Pet.
for Cert. 69a-70a (footnote omitted).
Despite its finding that there was no intentional viola-
tion, the District Court found that DCSS had not achieved
unitary status with respect to quality of education because
teachers in schools with disproportionately high percentages
of white students tended to be better educated and have
more experience than their counterparts in schools with dis-
proportionately high percentages of black students, and
because per pupil expenditures in majority white schools
exceeded per pupil expenditures in majority black schools.
From these findings, the District Court ordered DCSS to
equalize spending and remedy the other problems.
The final Green factors considered by the District Court
were: (1) physical facilities, (2) transportation, and (3)
extracurricular activities.  The District Court noted that
although respondents expressed some concerns about the
use of portable classrooms in schools in the southern
portion of the county, they in effect conceded that DCSS has
achieved unitary status with respect to physical facilities.
In accordance with its factfinding, the District Court held
that it would order no further relief in the areas of student
assignment, transportation, physical facilities and extra-
curricular activities.  The District Court, however, did order
DCSS to establish a system to balance teacher and princi-
pal assignments and to equalize per pupil expenditures
throughout DCSS.  Having found that blacks were repre-
sented on the school board and throughout DCSS adminis-
tration, the District Court abolished the biracial committee
as no longer necessary.
Both parties appealed to the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.  The Court of Appeals
affirmed the District Court's ultimate conclusion that DCSS
has not yet achieved unitary status, but reversed the
District Court's ruling that DCSS has no further duties in
the area of student assignment.  887 F. 2d 1438 (1989).
The Court of Appeals held that the District Court erred by
considering the six Green factors as separate categories.
The Court of Appeals rejected the District Court's incremen-
tal approach, an approach that has also been adopted by
the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Morgan v. Nucci,
831 F. 2d 313, 318-319 (1987), and held that a school
system achieves unitary status only after it has satisfied all
six factors at the same time for several years.  887 F. 2d, at
1446.  Because, under this test, DCSS had not achieved
unitary status at any time, the Court of Appeals held that
DCSS could -not shirk its constitutional duties by pointing
to demographic shifts occurring prior to unitary status.-
Id., at 1448.  The Court of Appeals held that petitioners
bore the responsibility for the racial imbalance, and in
order to correct that imbalance would have to take actions
that -may be administratively awkward, inconvenient, and
even bizarre in some situations,- Swann v. Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Bd. of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 28 (1971), such
as pairing and clustering of schools, drastic gerrymandering
of school zones, grade reorganization, and busing.  We
granted certiorari, 498 U.S. ____ (1991).

             II
Two principal questions are presented.  The first is
whether a district court may relinquish its supervision and
control over those aspects of a school system in which there
has been compliance with a desegregation decree if other
aspects of the system remain in noncompliance.  As we
answer this question in the affirmative, the second question
is whether the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the
District Court's order providing for incremental withdrawal
of supervision in all the circumstances of this case.
              A
The duty and responsibility of a school district once
segregated by law is to take all steps necessary to eliminate
the vestiges of the unconstitutional de jure system.  This is
required in order to insure that the principal wrong of the
de jure system, the injuries and stigma inflicted upon the
race disfavored by the violation, is no longer present.  This
was the rationale and the objective of Brown I and Brown
II.  In Brown I we said:  -to separate [black students] from
others of similar age and qualifications solely because of
their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status
in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in
a way unlikely ever to be undone.-  347 U. S., at 494.  We
quoted a finding of the three-judge District Court in the
underlying Kansas case that bears repeating here:
```Segregation of white and colored children in public
schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored
children.  The impact is greater when it has the
sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the
races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority
of the negro group.  A sense of inferiority affects the
motivation of a child to learn.  Segregation with the
sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard]
the educational and mental development of negro
children and to deprive them of some of the benefits
they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school
system.'''  Ibid.
The objective of Brown I was made more specific by our
holding in Green that the duty of a former de jure district
is to -take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to
a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be
eliminated root and branch.-  391 U. S., at 437-438.  We
also identified various parts of the school system which, in
addition to student attendance patterns, must be free from
racial discrimination before the mandate of Brown is met:
faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities and
facilities.  391 U. S., at 435.  The Green factors are a
measure of the racial identifiability of schools in a system
that is not in compliance with Brown, and we instructed the
District Courts to fashion remedies that address all these
components of elementary and secondary school systems.
The concept of unitariness has been a helpful one in
defining the scope of the district courts' authority, for it
conveys the central idea that a school district that was once
a dual system must be examined in all of its facets, both
when a remedy is ordered and in the later phases of
desegregation when the question is whether the district
courts' remedial control ought to be modified, lessened, or
withdrawn.  But, as we explained last term in Board of
Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 498 U. S. ___, ____
(1991) (slip op., at 7), the term -unitary- is not a precise
concept:
``[I]t is a mistake to treat words such as `dual' and `uni-
tary' as if they were actually found in the Constitu-
tion. . . . Courts have used the term `dual' to denote a
school system which has engaged in intentional segre-
gation of students by race, and `unitary' to describe a
school system which has been brought into compliance
with the command of the Constitution.  We are not
sure how useful it is to define these terms more
precisely, or to create subclasses within them.''
It follows that we must be cautious not to attribute to the
term a utility it does not have.  The term -unitary- does not
confine the discretion and authority of the District Court in
a way that departs from traditional equitable principles.
That the term -unitary- does not have fixed meaning or
content is not inconsistent with the principles that control
the exercise of equitable power.  The essence of a court's
equity power lies in its inherent capacity to adjust remedies
in a feasible and practical way to eliminate the conditions
or redress the injuries caused by unlawful action.  Equita-
ble remedies must be flexible if these underlying principles
are to be enforced with fairness and precision.  In this
respect, as we observed in Swann, -a school desegregation
case does not differ fundamentally from other cases involv-
ing the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial
of a constitutional right.  The task is to correct, by a
balancing of the individual and collective interest, the
condition that offends the Constitution.-  Swann, supra, at
15-16.  The requirement of a unitary school system must be
implemented according to this prescription.
Our application of these guiding principles in Pasadena
City Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424 (1976), is
instructive.  There we held that a District Court exceeded
its remedial authority in requiring annual readjustment of
school attendance zones in the Pasadena school district
when changes in the racial makeup of the schools were
caused by demographic shifts -not attributed to any
segregative acts on the part of the [school district].-  Id., at
436.  In so holding we said:
``It may well be that petitioners have not yet totally
achieved the unitary system contemplated by . . .
Swann.  There has been, for example, dispute as to the
petitioners' compliance with those portions of the plan
specifying procedures for hiring and promoting teachers
and administrators.  See 384 F. Supp. 846 (1974),
vacated, 537 F. 2d 1031 (1976).  But that does not
undercut the force of the principle underlying the
quoted language from Swann.  In this case the District
Court approved a plan designed to obtain racial neu-
trality in the attendance of students at Pasadena's
public schools.  No one disputes that the initial imple-
mentation of this plan accomplished that objective.
That being the case, the District Court was not entitled
to require the [Pasadena Unified School District] to
rearrange its attendance zones each year so as to
ensure that the racial mix desired by the court was
maintained in perpetuity.  For having once implement-
ed a racially neutral attendance pattern in order to
remedy the perceived constitutional violations on the
part of the defendants, the District Court had fully
performed its function of providing the appropriate
remedy for previous racially discriminatory attendance
patterns.''  Ibid.
See also id., at 438, n. 5 (-Counsel for the original plaintiffs
has urged, in the courts below and before us, that the
District Court's perpetual `no majority of any minority'
requirement was valid and consistent with Swann, at least
until the school system achieved `unitary' status in all other
respects such as the hiring and promoting of teachers and
administrators.  Since we have concluded that the case is
moot with regard to these plaintiffs, these arguments are
not properly before us.  It should be clear from what we
have said that they have little substance-).
Today, we make explicit the rationale that was central in
Spangler.  A federal court in a school desegregation case
has the discretion to order an incremental or partial
withdrawal of its supervision and control.  This discretion
derives both from the constitutional authority which
justified its intervention in the first instance and its
ultimate objectives in formulating the decree.  The authori-
ty of the court is invoked at the outset to remedy particular
constitutional violations.  In construing the remedial
authority of the district courts, we have been guided by the
principles that -judicial powers may be exercised only on
the basis of a constitutional violation,- and that -the nature
of the violation determines the scope of the remedy.-
Swann, 402 U. S., at 16.  A remedy is justifiable only
insofar as it advances the ultimate objective of alleviating
the initial constitutional violation.
We have said that the court's end purpose must be to
remedy the violation and in addition to restore state and
local authorities to the control of a school system that is
operating in compliance with the Constitution.  Milliken v.
Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280-281 (1977) (-[T]he 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-).  Partial
relinquishment of judicial control, where justified by the
facts of the case, can be an important and significant step
in fulfilling the district court's duty to return the operations
and control of schools to local authorities.  In Dowell, we
emphasized that federal judicial supervision of local school
systems was intended as a -temporary measure.-  498 U. S.,
at ____ (slip op., at 9).  Although this temporary measure
has lasted decades, the ultimate objective has not
changed-to return school districts to the control of local
authorities.  Just as a court has the obligation at the outset
of a desegregation decree to structure a plan so that all
available resources of the court are directed to comprehen-
sive supervision of its decree, so too must a court provide an
orderly means for withdrawing from control when it is
shown that the school district has attained the requisite
degree of compliance.  A transition phase in which control
is relinquished in a gradual way is an appropriate means to
this end.
As we have long observed, -local autonomy of school
districts is a vital national tradition.-  Dayton Board of
Education v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 410 (1977) (Dayton
I).  Returning schools to the control of local authorities at
the earliest practicable date is essential to restore their true
accountability in our governmental system.  When the
school district and all state entities participating with it in
operating the schools make decisions in the absence of
judicial supervision, they can be held accountable to the
citizenry, to the political process, and to the courts in the
ordinary course.  As we discuss below, one of the prerequi-
sites to relinquishment of control in whole or in part is that
a school district has demonstrated its commitment to a
course of action that gives full respect to the equal protec-
tion guarantees of the Constitution.  Yet it must be ac-
knowledged that the potential for discrimination and racial
hostility is still present in our country, and its manifesta-
tions may emerge in new and subtle forms after the effects
of de jure desegregation have been eliminated.  It is the
duty of the State and its subdivisions to ensure that such
forces do not shape or control the policies of its school
systems.  Where control lies, so too does responsibility.
We hold that, in the course of supervising desegregation
plans, federal courts have the authority to relinquish
supervision and control of school districts in incremental
stages, before full compliance has been achieved in every
area of school operations.  While retaining jurisdiction over
the case, the court may determine that it will not order
further remedies in areas where the school district is in
compliance with the decree.  That is to say, upon a finding
that a school system subject to a court-supervised desegre-
gation plan is in compliance in some but not all areas, the
court in appropriate cases may return control to the school
system in those areas where compliance has been achieved,
limiting further judicial supervision to operations that are
not yet in full compliance with the court decree.  In particu-
lar, the district court may determine that it will not order
further remedies in the area of student assignments where
racial imbalance is not traceable, in a proximate way, to
constitutional violations.
A court's discretion to order the incremental withdrawal
of its supervision in a school desegregation case must be
exercised in a manner consistent with the purposes and
objectives of its equitable power.  Among the factors which
must inform the sound discretion of the court in ordering
partial withdrawal are the following:  whether there has
been full and satisfactory compliance with the decree in
those aspects of the system where supervision is to be
withdrawn; whether retention of judicial control is neces-
sary or practicable to achieve compliance with the decree in
other facets of the school system; and whether the school
district has demonstrated, to the public and to the parents
and students of the once disfavored race, its good faith
commitment to the whole of the court's decree and to those
provisions of the law and the constitution that were the
predicate for judicial intervention in the first instance.
In considering these factors a court should give particular
attention to the school system's record of compliance.  A
school system is better positioned to demonstrate its good-
faith commitment to a constitutional course of action when
its policies form a consistent pattern of lawful conduct
directed to eliminating earlier violations.  And with the
passage of time the degree to which racial imbalances
continue to represent vestiges of a constitutional violation
may diminish, and the practicability and efficacy of various
remedies can be evaluated with more precision.
These are the premises that guided our formulation in
Dowell of the duties of a district court during the final
phases of a desegregation case:  -The District Court should
address itself to whether the Board had complied in good
faith with the desegregation decree since it was entered,
and whether the vestiges of past discrimination had been
eliminated to the extent practicable.-  498 U. S., at ____
(slip op., at 11).
              B
We reach now the question whether the Court of Appeals
erred in prohibiting the District Court from returning to
DCSS partial control over some of its affairs.  We decide
that the Court of Appeals did err in holding that, as a
matter of law, the District Court had no discretion to
permit DCSS to regain control over student assignment,
transportation, physical facilities, and extracurricular
activities, while retaining court supervision over the areas
of faculty and administrative assignments and the quality
of education, where full compliance had not been demon-
strated.
It was an appropriate exercise of its discretion for the
District Court to address the elements of a unitary system
discussed in Green, to inquire whether other elements ought
to be identified, and to determine whether minority stu-
dents were being disadvantaged in ways that required the
formulation of new and further remedies to insure full
compliance with the court's decree.  Both parties agreed
that quality of education was a legitimate inquiry in
determining DCSS' compliance with the desegregation
decree, and the trial court found it workable to consider the
point in connection with its findings on resource allocation.
Its order retaining supervision over this aspect of the case
has not been challenged by the parties and we need not
examine it except as it underscores the school district's
record of compliance in some areas but not others.  The
District Court's approach illustrates that the Green factors
need not be a rigid framework.  It illustrates also the uses
of equitable discretion.  By withdrawing control over areas
where judicial supervision is no longer needed, a district
court can concentrate both its own resources and those of
the school district on the areas where the effects of de jure
discrimination have not been eliminated and further action
is necessary in order to provide real and tangible relief to
minority students.
The Court of Appeals' rejection of the District Court's
order rests on related premises:  first, that given noncompli-
ance in some discrete categories, there can be no partial
withdrawal of judicial control; and second, until there is full
compliance, heroic measures must be taken to ensure racial
balance in student assignments systemwide.  Under our
analysis and our precedents, neither premise is correct.
The Court of Appeals was mistaken in ruling that our
opinion in Swann requires -awkward,- -inconvenient- and
-even bizarre- measures to achieve racial balance in student
assignments in the late phases of carrying out a decree,
when the imbalance is attributable neither to the prior de
jure system nor to a later violation by the school district but
rather to independent demographic forces.  In Swann we
undertook to discuss the objectives of a comprehensive
desegregation plan and the powers and techniques available
to a district court in designing it at the outset.  We con-
firmed that racial balance in school assignments was a
necessary part of the remedy in the circumstances there
presented.  In the case before us the District Court designed
a comprehensive plan for desegregation of DCSS in 1969,
one that included racial balance in student assignments.
The desegregation decree was designed to achieve maxi-
mum practicable desegregation.  Its central remedy was the
closing of black schools and the reassignment of pupils to
neighborhood schools, with attendance zones that achieved
racial balance.  The plan accomplished its objective in the
first year of operation, before dramatic demographic
changes altered residential patterns.  For the entire 17-year
period the respondents raised no substantial objection to
the basic student assignment system, as the parties and the
District Court concentrated on other mechanisms to
eliminate the de jure taint.
That there was racial imbalance in student attendance
zones was not tantamount to a showing that the school
district was in noncompliance with the decree or with its
duties under the law.  Racial balance is not to be achieved
for its own sake.  It is to be pursued when racial imbalance
has been caused by a constitutional violation.  Once the
racial imbalance due to the de jure violation has been
remedied, the school district is under no duty to remedy
imbalance that is caused by demographic factors.  Swann,
402 U. S., at 31-32 (-Neither school authorities nor district
courts are constitutionally required to make year-by-year
adjustments of the racial composition of student bodies once
the affirmative duty to desegregate has been accomplished
and racial discrimination through official action is eliminat-
ed from the system.  This does not mean that federal courts
are without power to deal with future problems; but in the
absence of a showing that either the school authorities or
some other agency of the State has deliberately attempted
to fix or alter demographic patterns to affect the racial
composition of the schools, further intervention by a district
court should not be necessary-).  If the unlawful de jure
policy of a school system has been the cause of the racial
imbalance in student attendance, that condition must be
remedied.  The school district bears the burden of showing
that any current imbalance is not traceable, in a proximate
way, to the prior violation.
The findings of the District Court that the population
changes which occurred in DeKalb County were not caused
by the policies of the school district, but rather by indepen-
dent factors, are consistent with the mobility that is a
distinct characteristic of our society.  In one year (from 1987
to 1988) over 40 million Americans, or 17.6 percent of the
total population, moved households.  U. S. Dept. of Com-
merce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United
States, p. 19, Table 25 (111th ed. 1991).  Over a third of
those people moved to a different county, and over six
million migrated between States.  Ibid.  In such a society it
is inevitable that the demographic makeup of school
districts, based as they are on political subdivisions such as
counties and municipalities, may undergo rapid change.
The effect of changing residential patterns on the racial
composition of schools though not always fortunate is
somewhat predictable.  Studies show a high correlation
between residential segregation and school segregation.
Wilson & Taeuber, Residential and School Segregation:
Some Tests of Their Association, in Demography and Ethnic
Groups 57-58 (F. Bean & W. Frisbie eds. 1978).  The
District Court in this case heard evidence tending to show
that racially stable neighborhoods are not likely to emerge
because whites prefer a racial mix of 80% white and 20%
black, while blacks prefer a 50%-50% mix.
Where resegregation is a product not of state action but
of private choices, it does not have constitutional implica-
tions.  It is beyond the authority and beyond the practical
ability of the federal courts to try to counteract these kinds
of continuous and massive demographic shifts.  To attempt
such results would require ongoing and never-ending super-
vision by the courts of school districts simply because they
were once de jure segregated.  Residential housing choices,
and their attendant effects on the racial composition of
schools, present an ever-changing pattern, one difficult to
address through judicial remedies.
In one sense of the term, vestiges of past segregation by
state decree do remain in our society and in our schools.
Past wrongs to the black race, wrongs committed by the
State and in its name, are a stubborn fact of history.  And
stubborn facts of history linger and persist.  But though we
cannot escape our history, neither must we overstate its
consequences in fixing legal responsibilities.  The vestiges
of segregation that are the concern of the law in a school
case may be subtle and intangible but nonetheless they
must be so real that they have a causal link to the de jure
violation being remedied.  It is simply not always the case
that demographic forces causing population change bear
any real and substantial relation to a de jure violation.  And
the law need not proceed on that premise.
As the de jure violation becomes more remote in time and
these demographic changes intervene, it becomes less likely
that a current racial imbalance in a school district is a
vestige of the prior de jure system.  The causal link between
current conditions and the prior violation is even more
attenuated if the school district has demonstrated its good
faith.  In light of its finding that the demographic changes
in DeKalb County are unrelated to the prior violation, the
District Court was correct to entertain the suggestion that
DCSS had no duty to achieve systemwide racial balance in
the student population.  It was appropriate for the District
Court to examine the reasons for the racial imbalance
before ordering an impractical, and no doubt massive,
expenditure of funds to achieve racial balance after 17 years
of efforts to implement the comprehensive plan in a district
where there were fundamental changes in demographics,
changes not attributable to the former de jure regime or any
later actions by school officials.  The District Court's deter-
mination to order instead the expenditure of scarce resourc-
es in areas such as the quality of education, where full
compliance had not yet been achieved, underscores the uses
of discretion in framing equitable remedies.
To say, as did the Court of Appeals, that a school district
must meet all six Green factors before the trial court can
declare the system unitary and relinquish its control over
school attendance zones, and to hold further that racial
balancing by all necessary means is required in the interim,
is simply to vindicate a legal phrase.  The law is not so
formalistic.  A proper rule must be based on the necessity
to find a feasible remedy that insures systemwide compli-
ance with the court decree and that is directed to curing the
effects of the specific violation.
 We next consider whether retention of judicial control
over student attendance is necessary or practicable to
achieve compliance in other facets of the school system.
Racial balancing in elementary and secondary school
student assignments may be a legitimate remedial device to
correct other fundamental inequities that were themselves
caused by the constitutional violation.  We have long
recognized that the Green factors may be related or interde-
pendent.  Two or more Green factors may be intertwined or
synergistic in their relation, so that a constitutional viola-
tion in one area cannot be eliminated unless the judicial
remedy addresses other matters as well.  We have observed,
for example, that student segregation and faculty segrega-
tion are often related problems.  See Dayton Board of
Education v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526, 536 (1979) (Dayton
II) (```[P]urposeful segregation of faculty by race was inextri-
cably tied to racially motivated student assignment practic-
es'''); Rogers v. Paul, 382 U. S. 198, 200 (1965) (Students
have standing to challenge racial allocation of faculty
because -racial allocation of faculty denies them equality of
educational opportunity without regard to segregation of
pupils-).  As a consequence, a continuing violation in one
area may need to be addressed by remedies in another.
See, for example, Bradley v. Richmond School Bd., 382
U. S. 103, 105 (1965) (per curiam) (-There is no merit to the
suggestion that the relation between faculty allocation on
an alleged racial basis and the adequacy of the desegrega-
tion plans is entirely speculative-); Vaughns v. Board of
Education of Prince George's County, 742 F. Supp. 1275,
1291 (Md. 1990) (-[T]he components of a school desegrega-
tion plan are interdependent upon, and interact with, one
another, so that changes with respect to one component
may impinge upon the success or failure of another-).
There was no showing that racial balancing was an
appropriate mechanism to cure other deficiencies in this
case.  It is true that the school district was not in compli-
ance with respect to faculty assignments, but the record
does not show that student reassignments would be a
feasible or practicable way to remedy this defect.  To the
contrary, the District Court suggests that DCSS could solve
the faculty assignment problem by reassigning a few
teachers per school.  The District Court, not having our
analysis before it, did not have the opportunity to make
specific findings and conclusions on this aspect of the case,
however.  Further proceedings are appropriate for this
purpose.
The requirement that the school district show its good
faith commitment to the entirety of a desegregation plan so
that parents, students and the public have assurance
against further injuries or stigma also should be a subject
for more specific findings.  We stated in Dowell that the
good faith compliance of the district with the court order
over a reasonable period of time is a factor to be considered
in deciding whether or not jurisdiction could be relin-
quished.  Dowell, 498 U. S., at ____ (slip op., at 11) (-The
District Court should address itself to whether the Board
had complied in good faith with the desegregation decree
since it was entered, and whether the vestiges of past dis-
crimination had been eliminated to the extent practicable-).
A history of good-faith compliance is evidence that any
current racial imbalance is not the product of a new de jure
violation, and enables the district court to accept the school
board's representation that it has accepted the principle of
racial equality and will not suffer intentional discrimination
in the future.  See Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F. 2d, at 321 (-A
finding of good faith . . . reduces the possibility that a
school system's compliance with court orders is but a
temporary constitutional ritual-).
When a school district has not demonstrated good faith
under a comprehensive plan to remedy ongoing violations,
we have without hesitation approved comprehensive and
continued district court supervision.  See Columbus Bd. of
Education v. Penick, 443 U. S. 449, 461 (1979) (predicating
liability in part on the finding that the school board ```never
actively set out to dismantle [the] dual system,''' Penick v.
Columbus Bd. of Education, 429 F. Supp. 229, 260 (SD Ohio
1977)); Dayton II, supra, at 534 (adopting Court of Appeals
holding that the -intentionally segregative impact of various
practices since 1954 . . . were of systemwide import and an
appropriate basis for a systemwide remedy-).
In contrast to the circumstances in Penick and Brinkman,
the District Court in this case stated that throughout the
period of judicial supervision it has been impressed by the
successes DCSS has achieved and its dedication to provid-
ing a quality education for all students, and that DCSS -has
travelled the often long road to unitary status almost to its
end.-  With respect to those areas where compliance had
not been achieved, the District Court did not find that
DCSS had acted in bad faith or engaged in further acts of
discrimination since the desegregation plan went into effect.
This, though, may not be the equivalent of a finding that
the school district has an affirmative commitment to comply
in good faith with the entirety of a desegregation plan, and
further proceedings are appropriate for this purpose as well.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the
Court of Appeals.  It should determine what issues are open
for its further consideration in light of the previous briefs
and arguments of the parties and in light of the principles
set forth in this opinion.  Thereupon it should order further
proceedings as necessary or order an appropriate remand to
the District Court.
Each party is to bear its own costs.
                  It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.