Much of the blame goes to the courts' increased hostility to desegregation suits.

The case, a desegregation suit filed in the names of several plaintiff children, their parents and the Kansas City school board, was assigned to him three months later.

The original desegregation suit was filed in 1977.

Then, they launched what their lawyer, Roscoe E. Thomas, recently recalled was "the first desegregation suit in Atlanta."

Now she is a leading expert for school boards and other government agencies defending themselves against desegregation suits.

But lawyers who won a desegregation suit said the plan was not enough.

Last November, a federal judge dismissed the desegregation suit, saying the district had done all it could to end racial segregation.

The action could end the legal battles in state and Federal courts over the nation's largest desegregation suit, filed in 1963.

The desegregation suit surprised hardly anyone.

But if approved, the deal would close yet another major federal desegregation suit.