Massachusetts State House.
Policy Library

Comfort et al. v. Lynn School Committee et al.

January 01, 2005

The BBA’s brief in this case pertained to the legality of a desegregation plan implemented by the Lynn School Committee. By signing onto an amicus brief in support of the plan, the BBA reiterated its position that segregated schools are unacceptable, and that children learn best in a diverse environment. In Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, the U.S. District Court in 2003 upheld the legality of a plan adopted by the Lynn School Committee in 1989 to ameliorate within its public schools the racial tensions and related misconduct in a school system that reflected the pattern of residential racial segregation. That plan assigned children to their neighborhood schools, but allowed them to transfer, so long as the transfer did not exacerbate segregation in either the school the children were seeking to leave or the receiving school. In October 2004, a 3-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals found the plan to be illegal. In June 2005, the First Circuit Court of Appeals en banc upheld the Lynn desegregation plan.

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