Filed by the Latino Action Network, the NAACP New Jersey State Conference, and other plaintiffs, the lawsuit argues that New Jersey has been "complicit" in creating and maintaining "one of the most segregated public school systems in the nation."

New Jersey might have an exceptionally favorable environment for such a challenge, legal experts say. The state constitution explicitly prohibits segregation in public schools

the suit names Camden, Lawnside, and Woodlynne as districts with better than 90 percent nonwhite pupil populations, with at least 64 percent living in poverty. More than three-quarters of the pupils in the state-controlled Camden district are enrolled in schools almost absent of whites,

It also contends that all pupils, "including white students," are harmed by "homogeneous learning and social environments" that "produce a two-way system of racial stereotyping, stigma, fear, and hostility that obscures individuality and denies all concerned the recognized benefits of diversity in education."

The proportion of students in New Jersey attending schools that are less than 10 percent white has risen "almost continuously" since 1990, according to a report by Tractenberg. The percentage of schools enrolling less than 10 percent white students has more than doubled since the 1989-90 school year.

New Jersey's growing diversity — 45 percent white students last year, down from 52 percent in 2010-11 —