attorney. In 1956, we had taken a law review course at some old school buildings at Point Loma on weekends for “blue collar” workers like us. Later we often compared that course like one for Marine recruits, conducted disciplinarily as it was by an ex-Marine, who thankfully enabled us to pass the Bar and instilled in us a “stick-to-it-ness.”

On December 8, the Los Angeles Unified School District and California Voluntary Integration Association each received permission and filed amicus curiae briefs supporting the Board.

Following this, in response to my concern that my physical condition would prevent me from completing the representation, Jim and I reviewed as best we could the massive record. He later associated to appear with me, or if necessary in my place, for Groundswell, at oral argument requested by the Board.

On December 19 the Court of Appeal made a request:

The parties are requested to explain: If superior court jurisdiction terminates as provided in the September 5, 1997, order, what statutory or other authority will cause desegregation funding to then cease for the San Diego Unified School District? The responses may be filed by letter brief on or before December 29, 1997.

This inquiry was encouraging because it gave us an opportunity to re-emphasize the lack of a legal basis for the Board’s contention that termination of judicial jurisdiction would jeopardize receipt of state integration funds. For I was able to show, not only that state statutes provided for the continuance of such funding after termination of court jurisdiction, but that the Los Angeles Unified School District had continued to receive it after such a termination in the Crawford case in 1981.

After reading the concurrent filing of the Board’s response to the Court’s inquiry, I felt by filing copies of, and emphasizing, these pertinent state statutes I had come closer than it had to “hitting the nail on the head.”