School desegregation: one damper, one prod

July 1, 1982

The Supreme Court upheld a California move to limit school desegregation, but struck down a Washington State measure to ban busing for racial balancing.

The court said that California had previously surpassed constitutional requirements to prohibit racial bias in schools and that voters, in passing Proposition 1, merely ''chose to pull back.'' The justices ruled that the busing Initiative 350 in Washington violates the equal-protection clause of the Constitution.