Supreme Court allows nation's longest-running urban busing program to end

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fight to continue one of the nation's longest-running school busing program ended at the Supreme Court on Monday.

The court did not comment in turning away an appeal from black parents in Charlotte, N.C., who wanted to continue the desegregation program begun in 1969. The court also rejected a related lawsuit from white parents, who won a lower court order ending the busing program. They wanted the high court to order the school system to pay their lawyers' fees.

The 105,000-student Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system was the first major urban district in the nation to use busing to achieve racial balance. The court-ordered busing plan was the result of a 1965 lawsuit by black parents, who claimed the school district had not done enough to comply with the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision desegregating public schools.

The Supreme Court signed off on the Charlotte program in 1971, the first time it had authorized forced busing to desegregate what black parents called a dual system of poor schools for blacks and better schools for whites.

The busing controversies of the 1970s have faded, and the court has stayed away from reviving them. It turned down a similar case from Florida last year.

In other action Monday, the court:

* Agreed to settle a trademark fight involving the lingerie catalog Victoria's Secret.

* Refused to hear an appeal from Vanessa Leggett, the Texas crime writer jailed for more than five months for refusing to turn over interview notes about a society murder.

* Refused to consider the legality of voting by mail in Oregon, which has eliminated most polling places. Voters have multiple days, not just one, to make their choices.

* Turned down an appeal from a California hospital that fired a woman whose sometimes hours-long primping rituals repeatedly made her late. The woman had won a lower court judgment giving her protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

* Passed up a chance to decide whether states have wide discretion to keep crude or contentious messages off personalized license plates.