But this is Yonkers, where a desegregation battle has raged for nearly a quarter-century, and where nothing is simple.

The case is separate from the long-running desegregation battle that centers on where to build new public housing in Yonkers.

What may also have helped douse emotions is that Yonkers is a more diverse city now than it was in 1980, when the desegregation battle first exploded.

Topeka, as people on both sides seem to agree, is not one of the most likely places for such historic desegregation battles.

Sponsors say this is a result of the negative image the city acquired during the desegregation battles of the last year.

Yonkers schools, which have been undercut by perennial budgetary woes, a bitter desegregation battle, cronyism and scandal, have had little opportunity to update or modernize the system.

In the 1960's the city went through a harrowing desegregation battle with the state.

"Today the shackles were removed," said Nicholas DeSantis, who was city manager at the time of the desegregation battle.

The workshop was held at St. Joseph's Seminary, one of the proposed housing sites that had figured prominently in the desegregation battle.

Yonkers has long been maligned in the Westchester imagination, largely because of an ugly desegregation battle that started in the 1980s.