In the name of equity, we. .. seek dramatic improvement in the quality of the education available to our children. Any steps to achieve desegregation must be reviewed in light of the black community's interest in improved pupil performance as the primary characteristic of educational equity. TVe define educational equity as the absence of discriminatory pupil placement and improved performance for all children who have been the objects of discrimination. We think it neither necessary, nor proper to endure the dislocations of desegregation without reasonable assurances that our children will instructionally profit. Coalition of black community groups in Boston' * This paper is a part of a larger study on the Roles of Courts in Desegregation of Education Litigation sponsored by the Institute of Judicial Administration through a grant from the Ford Foundation. The results of this research will be published in a forthcoming book on this subject. t Professor of Law, Harvard University. Pamela Federman, Susan Mentser, and Margaret Stark Roberts assisted in researching and preparing this article. 1. Freedom House Institute on Schools and Education, Critique of the Boston School Committee Plan, 1975, at 2 (emphasis added) (on file with Yale Law Journal). This 15 page document was prepared, signed, and submitted in February, 1975, directly to federal judge IV. Arthur Garrity by almost two dozen of Boston's black community leaders. The statement was a critique of a desegregation plan filed by the Boston School Committee in the Boston school case:

Bridge JN o tDavis School "pirng pan 150 tuens oud e rnsoredacos SuhSrigeeaholho DELTAVILLE by certain elements of the white community, about 100 black children were enrolled rn the Davis School under this plan. In 1972, however, the court ruled that the freedomof-choice plan was inadequate to disestablish the dual school system and ordered the board to pair the two schools so that Davis would serve all students in grades one through six while Bledsoe would serve all students in grades seven through twelve. Under this pai frng" plan, 1,500 students would be transported across South Bridge each school day. There was tremendous opposition in the white community to this plan, and the board exhausted all available judicial appeals. In September 1974, on the night before the plan was to go into effect, South Bridge-the only crossing over Barrier River in the proximity of the two schools-was mysteriously blown up. Despite continued requests from the black community, neither state nor federal officials have been able to finance reconstruction of the bridge. Both have concluded that the cost, estimated at ten million dollars, cannot be appropriated before late 1976. Even when funding is obtained, engineers expect that because of construction difficulties, the new bridge will not be completed until 1979. Destruction of South Bridge did not seriously disrupt business, most of which flows to neighboring counties. But the loss of the bridge has greatly affected the county's school integration plans: a. When South Bridge was destroyed, the school board petitioned the district court

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