People Ex Rel. Lynch v. San Diego Unified School District

The People of the State of California, acting through the Attorney General, hereinafter referred to as petitioner, appeal from an order dismissing a petition for writ of mandate, directing the San Diego Unified School District, hereinafter referred to as The District, “to exercise its discretion to take reasonably feasible steps to prevent, alleviate and eliminate racial imbalance” in its schools. The District had filed a general and special demurrer to the petition. The court sustained the general demurrer with leave to amend, but did not pass upon the special demurrer. Petitioner did not amend. The order of dismissal followed.

In ruling upon a general demurrer facts expressly alleged in a petition, and also facts supplied by inference or implication from the facts expressly alleged, are deemed true. (Daar v. Yellow Cab Co., 67 Cal.2d 695, 713 [ 63 Cal.Rptr. 724 , 433 P.2d 732 ]; Harvey v. City of Holtville, 271 Cal.App.2d 816, 819 [ 76 Cal.Rptr. 795 ].) We state the facts in the case accordingly.

The petition classifies the Negro, Oriental, Mexican-American and Indian-American pupils in The District’s schools as an ethnic group which is a minority of the total school…