Nebraska lawmakers the week of April 10, 2006 approved a hotly debated bill to break up the Omaha Public Schools--largely along racial and ethnic lines--under a plan that critics say amounts to state-sanctioned segregation and that likely will face a legal challenge. Passed April 13, 2006 in the last hours of the legislative session and signed the same day, by Governor Dave Heineman, the law calls for splitting up the 45,000-student district by 2008. Using current attendance zones as boundaries, the result will be three districts with contrasting demographics: one predominantly black, another mostly white, and the other largely Latino. Backers of the law, which passed on a final vote of 31-16 in the unicameral legislature, also noted that the breakup plan was part of a larger education measure that includes new opportunities for students to transfer, space permitting between districts within the Omaha metropolitan area.