The desegregation of the Minneapolis, Minnesota schools was initiated in 1972, although the process leading to desegregation actually began in 1967 when the board of education adopted its first human relations guidelines and announced a voluntary urban transfer program. In 1970 the state of Minnesota issued desegregation guidelines which set a 30% ceiling on minority student enrollments. In April 1971, 17 Minneapolis schools were found out of compliance with state guidelines, and the state ordered the district to develop a desegregation plan. The 1972 plan has now been virtually completed but the court continues to retain jurisdiction and to require periodic adjustments in the plan to bring the shifting student population of each school into compliance with the court ordered ceilings on minority enrollment. The plan called for the coordination of the new building program with such activities as the institution of a number of new educational alternatives in the school curriculum, school pairings, implementation of the middle school concept, busing, magnet programs to attract whites into communities with high minority populations, clustered schools, and preparatory as well as ongoing programs for dealing with the social and psychological aspects of desegregation. The plan has, in a number of instances, achieved its goal of physical redistribution of students so that no school has more than 42% minority enrollment. The plan has overlooked the possibility that all white or nearly all white schools constitute a segregated situation. (Author/AM)