The evidence revealed in trial challenged the "backward and deficient" characterization of the Mexican and Mexican American children and, most pointedly, the board's location and language arguments. The landmark lawsuit resulting from the "Lemon Grove Incident" became the first successful school desegregation court decision in the history of the United States. On March 30, 1931, the presiding Judge Chambers issued his ruling in favor of Roberto Alvarez. The judge repudiated each of the school board's claims. Although allowing that the school board could "separate a few children to offer special instruction," he wrote, "to separate all the Mexicans in one group can only be done by infringing the laws of the State of California." In the decision, the judge ruled that children of Mexican origin could not be segregated under the laws of the state of California, because they were "of the Caucasian race", and laws allowing the segregation of "Oriental", "Negro", and "Indian" children therefore did not apply.The judge also ruled in favor of Alvarez during this court case since he believed that "the pedagogical and curricular segregation" that the board wanted to implement actually inhibited on how these students needed to learn and in fact needed to be exposed to other American children which in his words was "so necessary to learn the English language." The decision was not appealed, in large part due to the perceived risk of further financial burdens to the district and negative public image. For decades, the only official mention of the court case in local records came in the notes of a post-trial school board meeting, "All members of the board present. On account of having lost the court decision there was some discussion about the return of Mexican (children) pupils but only a spirit of good will prevailed, and it was decided that everything was to continue exactly as it did prior to January 5th." Not even the history of the Lemon Grove School from 1880 to 1966, prepared by a former superintendent, referenced the case. The ruling did result in the immediate re-entrance of the Mexican and Mexican American students to the grammar school; yet, the ruling did not have concrete implications for desegregation in other segregated California schools. It was not until over a decade later, with "Mendez v. Westminster", that schools desegregated statewide. Despite its initial obscurity and limited broader impact, the Lemon Grove Case has increasingly gained recognition for its place in the trajectory of school desegregation as the first successful desegregation case. Moreover, scholars agree that the case constitutes a testament to the Mexican immigrant families who, despite a hostile political climate, refused to accept separate and inferior educations for their children and who leveraged the U.S. legal system to challenge such a violation of their children's rights.