50

Cite as: 515 U.S. 70 (1995) [page 109]

O'CONNOR J., concurring

districts] were constitutional violators but also whether
there were significant interdistrict segregative effects. . . .
When it did so, it made specific findings that negate current
significant interdistrict effects, and concluded that the
requirements of Milliken had not been met." Jenkins v.
Missouri, 807 F. 2d, at 672. This holding is unambiguous.
Neither the legal responsibility for nor the causal effects
of KCMSD's racial segregation transgressed its boundaries,
and absent such interdistrict violation or segregative effects,
Milliken and Gautreaux do not permit a regional remedial
plan.
JUSTICE SOUTER, however, would introduce a different
level of ambiguity, arguing that the District Court took at
limited view of what effects are segregative: "[W]ile white
flight would hae produced significant effects in other school
districts, in the form of greatly increased numbers of white
students, those effects would not have been degregative
beyond the KCMSD, as the departing students were absorbed
into wholly unitary systems." Post, at 164. Even if accurate,
this characterization of the District Court's findings
would be of little significance as to its authority to order
interdistrict relief. Such remedy is appropriate only "to
eliminate the interdistrict segregation directly caused by the
constitutional violation," Milliken I, supra, at 745. Whatever
effects KCMSD's constitutional violation may be ventured
to have had on the surrounding districts, those effects
would justify interdistrict relief only if they were
"segregative beyond the KCMSD."
School desegregation remedies are intended, "as all remedies
are, to restore the victims of discriminatory conduct to
the position they would have occupied in the absense of such
conduct." Milliken I, 418 U.S., at 746. In the paradigmatic
case of an interdistrict violation, where district boundaries
are drawn on the basis of race, a regional remedy is
appropriate to ensure integration across district lines. So,
too, wher surrounding districts contribute to the