And you thought Bush was just into the "legal status" for illegal immigrants. -- The GOP would have a field day if a Dem. administration did this.

And you thought President Bush's administration was just pressing for legislation allowing a guest worker plan to give temporary legal status to millions of Mexicans illegally in the United States, despite fears that it might invite a wave of illegal immigration.

Apparently the Bush administration has other things on its mind as well.

An 11-25-04 Associated Press story:

Dublin schools dispute segregation claim

Fifty years after first being ordered to desegregate schools, the city of Dublin is facing a federal lawsuit for allowing city residents to send their children to county schools, causing what the U.S. Justice Department calls a re-segregation of schools.

Dublin school officials insist they've done nothing wrong and that if the transfer policy is rescinded, residents will simply move out of the city to get into a county school district.

After the city schools finally desegregated in 1971, the student population was 57 percent white and 43 percent black. In the past school year, the ratio at Dublin city schools was 72 percent black and 24 percent white. The Laurens County school system was 65 percent white.

The Justice Department alleges that allowing students living in the city to transfer to the county schools is contributing to an increasing racial disparity in the city schools. For years city students were allowed to transfer at will. They're now charged $300 a year to go to schools outside their home district, but the practice continues.

Dublin resident Gayle Stinson pays the fee to send her son to a county school. If she were barred from doing that, she said she might move out of Dublin.

"I know some who have already done that," she told The Macon Telegraph.

Justice Department officials would not comment on the Dublin case. School officials call the lawsuit a waste of time and baseless.

County schools Superintendent Larry Daniel said that if transfers were restricted, the result would be that black/white ratios in both systems would not change much, and a large problem would be created by students who have to switch schools.

"It would be chaos," Daniel said. "It would be a mess, and I don't think it would help either school financially, or the families involved."

Lee Parks, an Atlanta attorney representing the county in the case, has worked on similar cases throughout the country. He said the complaint amounts to the federal government attempting to micromanage a small school system without fully understanding the situation.

He predicted dire consequences should the Justice Department win the case.

"Most parents are not going to have the federal government dictate where their children go to school," he said. "Why they would pick the poor city of Dublin to come down and jump on is beyond any of us."
Not everyone is so critical of the federal intervention.

"I think what the Justice Department is doing can be positive, because it makes you look at what you are doing," said school board member Sandra Scott.

A hearing is expected sometime next year. U.S. District Court Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. of the Southern District of Georgia will decide the case.
School board chairman Bob Willis said he hopes Bowen will see that the schools have no racist intent in the transfer policy.

"We have done everything we can possibly do," he said.