Our school district is going through this right now.

Like most places, we have been under court-ordered desegration for 30+ years, which has basically involved busing minority kids to white schools. Growing up, I wasn't really that aware of it, because I had a long bus ride too (40 minutes or so), because the schools weren't very close to where I lived.

Now, I understand that people would not want their kids shipped 45 minutes from home for the sole purpose of meeting a quota. Who would?

A few years ago, the NAACP sued our school board to end bussing. As the original party to the discrimination lawsuit in the 1960's, they had standing to settle that original lawsuit. The settlement was a "school choice" plan that other parts of the country have. In this plan, you basically are allowed to pick a school within an attendance zone (for high school, the whole county is the zone, which is like 15 high schools). Based upon a BCS-like formula that no one really understands, assignments are made. You are assigned to, hopefully, your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice.

So, the predictable result has been that people have picked the closest school to their house, with the following predictable result that the school system is becoming resegregated.

Now, the question the community is debating is this - is voluntary segregation OK?

This is a complicated question, which I don't have an easy answer for. The school choice plan here has been litigated, and has been found to be constitutional. Now, schools are naturally resegregating, but on a volunteer basis. Now, there is a question of whether that is acceptable, if that is what the parents choose.

The whole thing has sort of come full circle.