In March 1972, the NAACP, the Harvard Center for Law and Education, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and Foley, Hoag Law Firm, representing 14 adults and 43 children, filed the Tallulah Morgan vs. James Hennigan case, addressing school segregation and inequities. On June 21, 1974, Judge Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee had "knowingly carried out a systematic program of segregation affecting all of the city's students, teachers, and school facilities," identifying it as de jure segregation resulting from intentional acts rather than de facto segregation due to housing patterns.

The State Supreme Court mandated desegregation of the Boston Public Schools, and the busing plan devised by the State Department of Education commenced as Phase 1 of desegregation and busing in September 1974.

In Boston, the demands for housing from the Latino and Asian communities were of utmost importance. By 1970, Puerto Rican residents of what is now Villa Victoria had been organizing around housing conditions and had been awarded development rights to Parcel 19, an unprecedented event in Boston's history. Following this, other community development corporations were established, initiating the CDC movement in Boston. Together with Chuck Turner and the Third World Jobs Clearing House, Latinos and Asians allied with the black community to demand jobs in the booming downtown redevelopment and the projects that led to the creation of Madison Park, Tent City, and others. Although the desegregation case focused on black and white racial equality, community efforts recognized that the struggle for equality included Blacks, Latinos, and Asians.

A couple of themes stand out:

1. How did El Comite become certified as a plaintiff intervenor class?

The Hispanic Office of Planning and Education (HOPE) submitted an amicus brief in support of the NAACP lawsuit. In 1974, when the first student assignment plan was to be implemented, Patricia Quintana, the mother of twin boys, told Luz Cuadrado, the head of Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion, that her lighter-skinned twin was sent to a school needing more whites, while her darker-skinned twin was sent to a school needing more blacks. Betty Rivera was working with Luz Cuadrado at the time as a community organizer of the newly created Villa Victoria in the South End. Two bilingual education teachers, Natti and Dasie, assisted Patricia Quintana but had to do so quietly since they were school department employees. Luz Cuadrado, Rodolfo Rodriguez, Jaime Rodriguez, and others opposed the intervention when they submitted an application to be determined by Judge Garrity as plaintiff intervenor. Instead, Luz, Betty, and others organized El Comite. Judge Garrity held a hearing to determine who would represent Latinos in the desegregation case and found that El Comite had made a credible argument for intervention. During the trial, El Comite invited testimony from linguist Maria Brisk, a professor at BU, and cultural experts from universities around the city and from New York to speak to the language, cultural, and color issues among Latinos.

In June 1974, Judge Garrity found the BPS and School Committee in violation of the Racial Imbalance Act and in December 1974 granted El Comite's petition to act as Plaintiff Intervenors in the desegregation case to argue the issues of ethnic and language minorities.

1. El Comite represented both injustices against ethnic minorities and language minorities during the desegregation case.

Whereas the NAACP suit was along racial lines, black and white, Latinos spanned the human color palette.

In 1971, the state's Transitional Bilingual Education Act was passed; in 1970, the Racial Imbalance Act was passed by the legislature; and in 1972, the NAACP filed suit. This created a legislative conflict. On the one hand, the Bilingual Act supported the grouping of languages to provide transitional bilingual education, while the Racial Imbalance Act opposed this if it impacted racial imbalance. Since the Transitional Bilingual Act covered Asians, Cape Verdeans, Latinos, and others who were brown or non-white Americans, it also included whites such as Italians and Greeks. The Bilingual Act was color neutral and concentrated on language rights regardless of its impact on racial balance.

El Comite also fought for non-bilingual education issues. Given the growing number of Latinos in Boston, they advocated for the application of desegregation remedies to Latinos. Their legal representation was paid by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which had been filing suits to fight for courts to recognize equity issues for Puerto Ricans specifically and Latinos generally. Caroline Playter succeeded in her arguments that equity issues for hiring and other matters should also be applied to Latinos.

Thus, El Comite was simultaneously arguing for the separation of languages to implement the Transitional Bilingual Education Act and fighting for racial/ethnic equity issues for Latinos and Asians in the BPS.ase brought by the plaintiffs, the trial presided over by Judge Garrity, his ruling, and his decision to initiate remedies with busing to desegregate schools in September 1974. The choice not to extend it to a metropolitan-wide busing plan, instead focusing solely on Boston, was influenced by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in July 1974 in Milliken vs. Bradley.

The court orders aimed at dismantling the deliberate segregation of the school system encompassed several remedies, such as desegregating both the teaching and administrative staff and implementing cross-district busing of students.