prestigious high school and that the school district is required to prove, during a trial held in the 1999–2000 school year, that segregation is remaining in the school system and that the limitation of the ethnic groups at each school is the only possible remedy. On February 16, 1999, lawyers representing the Chinese parents in Ho v. SFUSD revealed that the school district had agreed to a settlement that removed the previous race-based admission system; William Orrick, the U.S. district judge, had planned to officially announce the news of the settlement the following day. The district planned to implement a "diversity index" in which race was one factor, but in December 1999 Orrick rejected the plan as unconstitutional. Orrick ordered the district to resubmit the plan without race as a factor or to resubmit the plan under the settlement that had been reached with the Chinese parents. In January 2000 the district agreed to remove race as a factor of consideration for admission. Expiration of the Consent Decree Critics of the diversity index created by Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District point out that many schools, including Lowell, have become even less racially diverse since it was enacted. On November 15, 2005, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied a request to extend the Consent Decree, which was set to expire on December 31, 2005, after it had been extended once before to December 31, 2002. The ruling claimed "since the settlement of the Ho litigation [resulting in the institution of the "diversity index"], the consent decree has proven to be ineffective, if not counterproductive, in achieving diversity in San Francisco public schools" by making schools more racially segregated. As of 2007, SFUSD admission factors include race-neutral aspects, such as the socioeconomic status of a student's family. Lyanne Melendez of KGO-TV wrote in 2007 "but the local courts and the district have found that race-neutral factors haven't worked in San Francisco's case." Current Student Assignment System (2011-present) In 2011, SFUSD instituted a full choice assignment system, but "despite the District’s good intentions, San Francisco’s schools are more segregated now under the current policy than they were thirty years ago." then under the OER system implemented after San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unified School District from 1983 to 2000. Citing choice did not increase diversity, but encourage the opposite, as well as the problem