A federal judge Thursday approved a settlement ending a 17-year-old desegregation order that resulted in the voluntary busing of thousands of black Benton Harbor students to white communities.
The decision means the busing program will be gradually phased out by 2001, although transfer students enrolled under the order will be allowed to remain in the program through graduation.
In a 26-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Douglas Hillman said he was satisfied that the mostly white Eau Claire and Coloma schools and the Berrien County Intermediate School District had complied with his 1981 desegregation decree and “eliminated the vestiges of past discrimination to the extent possible.”
“Very little litigation has occurred involving the implementation of the desegregation plan,” Hillman wrote. “In fact, the voluntary district plan has transported between the districts each year approximately 800 students for 17 years with relative calm and acceptance.”
The settlement, proposed this summer, was the schools’ second attempt to get the order lifted. Hillman rejected a 1996 proposal as inadequate.
