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Busing Background Book (1)
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1554448
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Busing Background Book (1)
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White House Special Files Unit Files
Issue Decision Papers for the President
subjects
Busing for school integration
Press conferences
Press interviews
Speeches, addresses, etc.
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1976-09-30
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1976
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The original documents are located in Box 4, folder "Busing Background Book (1)" of the
White House Special Files Unit Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box 4 of the White House Special Files Unit Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN
BACKGROUND ON BUSING
INDEX
Draft Legislation and Section-by-Section
Analysis
Tab A
President Ford's Statements on Busing
Tab B
Data Concerning Total Number of School
Districts in United States; Total
Number Which Have Already Desegregated
(and Method); and Total Number to Go
Tab C
List of School Districts Presently Under
Court Order of HEW Desegregation Plan
Tab D
List of School Districts Likely to Face
Court Order in 1976 or 1977
Tab E
Chronology and Summary of Major School
Desegregation Cases
Tab F
Text of Major Cases
Tab G
Background Paper on Private Schools
Tab H
A
ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL
Department of Justice
Mashington, D.C. 20530
Attached is the current draft of busing legislation
under consideration by the Department of Justice.
Title I, which is accompanied by a preliminary section-
by-section analysis, is currently being examined by a number
of prominent constitutional law scholars, and revisions may
be made to take account of doubts which any substantial num-
ber of them may express. A brief description of the princi-
pal controversial provisions of this Title is as follows:
(1) Procedural requirements are established to assure
that any remedies directed at altering student population
in the schools are limited to producing the situation which
would have existed had no unlawful discrimination occurred --
rather than to establishing a racial balance within each
school which is the same as that of the entire school dis-
trict. (Section 7)
(2) Busing as a remedy to eliminate racial imbalance
is permitted only when that imbalance is the result of dis-
criminatory action by the State or local education agency.
Imbalance attributable to other unlawful causes (e.g. inten-
tional refusal of State authorities to permit low-income
housing in white communities) would have to be remedied by
other means, such as construction of new schools. (Section 8)
(3) Busing is, generally speaking, prohibited as a
permanent remedy. If it has not succeeded in eliminating
the effects of unlawful discrimination within an initial
three-year period and a subsequent two-year extension, it
must be replaced by other remedies in the absence of "extra-
ordinary circumstances. " (Section 10 (a))
Title II of the draft has recently been added, to
include in the bill a proposal for a National Commission
to assist local communities in desegregation efforts. A
section-by-section analysis of this Title is not yet avail-
able, but the provisions are largely self-explanatory. A
central feature of the proposal is that the Commission will
operate solely as a catalyst for community action. It will
-2-
have no power to prepare desegregation plans, to serve as
a court-appointed mediator, to investigate violations of
law, or to participate or assist in administrative or
judicial proceedings. (Section 6)
June 11, 1976
A BILL
To establish procedures and standards for the framing of
relief in suits to desegregate the Nation's elementary
and secondary public schools, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen-
tatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "School
Desegregation Standards and Assistance Act of 1976."
Title I. Standards and Procedures for School Desegregation Cases.
Sec. 2. Statement of Findings.
The Congress finds --
(a) that discrimination against students, because of
their race, color, or national origin, in the operation of
the Nation's public schools violates the Constitution and
laws of the United States and is contrary to the Nation's
highest principles and goals;
(b) that the Constitution and the national interest
mandate that the courts of the United States provide ap-
propriate relief to prevent such unlawful discrimination
and to remove the continuing deprivations, including the
separation of students, because of their race, color or
national origin, within or among schools, that such
discrimination has caused;
- 2 -
(c) that the purpose of such relief is to restore
the victims of discriminatory conduct to the position they
would have occupied in the absence of such conduct, and so
to free society and our citizens from the conditions created
by unlawful acts,
(d) that, although the courts have found that, to achieve
these ends, it is necessary in some cases to require the
assignment and transportation of students, on the basis of
their race, color, or national origin, to schools distant
from their homes, such remedy can, if extended in scope and
duration, impose serious burdens on the children affected
and the resources of school systems, impair the quality of
education, and impede the development of tolerance and
cooperation in community life.
(e) That where a particular school system has inten-
tionally been used to foster unlawful segregation, it may be
appropriate, as a last resort, to require that system to
assign and transport students for the purpose of eliminating
the effects of such unlawful acts; but such a requirement,
when imposed to relieve the indirect consequences in the
schools of discriminatory action by other agencies of
government, places on the school system a burden it should
not bear and cannot effectively sustain without undue harm
to the educational process;
- 3 -
(f) that because of its detrimental effects, required
student assignment and transportation should be employed
only when necessary as an interim and transitional remedy,
and not as a permanent, judicially mandated feature of any
school system;
(g) that, because the existing case law, while evolving,
is insufficiently clear and developed on points of concern
to the Congress, there is a need for legislative standards
and procedures to ensure that the courts will, in determin-
ing the relief necessary and appropriate in school desegregation
cases, take adequate account of the foregoing considerations.
-4-
Sec. 3. Purpose: Application.
(a) The purpose of this Act is to prescribe standards
and procedures to govern the award of injunctive and other
equitable relief in school desegregation cases brought under
Federal law, in order (1) to prevent the continuation or
future commission of any acts of unlawful discrimination in
public schools, and (2) to remedy the effects of such acts
of unlawful discrimination, including, by only such means
present
as are appropriate for the purpose, the degree of concentra-
tion by race, color or national origin in the student popula-
tion of the schools attributable to such acts. This Act is
based upon the power of Congress to enforce the provisions
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States.
(b) The provisions of this Act shall govern, where
applicable, all proceedings for the award or modification
of injunctive and other equitable relief, after the date of
its enactment, seeking the desegregation of public schools
under Federal law, but shall not govern proceedings seeking
a reduction of such relief awarded prior to the date of its
enactment except as provided in Section 10.
Sec. 4. Definitions.
For purposes of this Act --
-5-
(a) "local education agency" means a public board of
education or any other agency or officer exercising adminis-
trative control over or otherwise directing the operations
of one or more of the public elementary or secondary schools
of a city, town, county or other political subdivision of
a State.
(b) "State education agency" means the State board of
education or any other agency or officer responsible for
State supervision or operation of public elementary or se-
condary schools.
(c) "desegregation" means the elimination of unlawful
discrimination on the part of a local or State education
agency, and the elimination of the effects of such discrimin-
ation in the operation of its schools.
(d) "unlawful discrimination" means action which, in
violation of Federal law, discriminates against students on
the basis of race, color or national origin.
(e) "State" means any of the States of the Union and
the District of Columbia.
Sec. 5. Liability
A local or State education agency shall be held sub-
ject
(a) to relief under Section 6 of this Act if the
court finds that such local or State education agency or
-6-
its predecessor has engaged or is engaging in an act or acts
of unlawful discrimination; and
(b) to relief under Section 7 of this Act if the court
further finds that the act or acts of unlawful discrimina-
tion have caused a greater present degree of concentration,
by race, color or national origin, in the student population
of any school within the jurisdiction of the local or State
education agency than would have existed had no such act
occurred.
Sec. 6. Relief - Orders prohibiting unlawful acts and elimin-
ating effects generally.
In all cases in which, pursuant to Section 5 (a) of this
Act, the court finds that a local or State education agency
or its predecessor has engaged or is engaging in an act or
acts of unlawful discrimination, the court shall enter an
order enjoining the continuation or future commission of any
such act or acts and providing any other relief against such
local or State education agency as may be necessary and appro-
priate to prevent such act or acts from occurring or to
eliminate the present effects of such act or acts; provided,
however, that any remedy directed to eliminating the effects
of such act or acts on the present degree of concentration,
by race, color or national origin, in the student population
-7-
of any school shall be ordered in conformity with Section 7
of this Act.
Sec. 7. Relief - Orders eliminating the present effects of
unlawful acts on concentrations of students.
(a) In all cases in which, pursuant to Section 5 (b) of
this Act, or any other provision of Federal law, the court
finds that an act or acts of unlawful discrimination by a
local or State education agency or its predecessor have caused
a greater present degree of concentration, by race, color or
national origin, than would otherwise have existed in the
student population of any schools subject to the jurisdic-
tion of such agency, the court shall order only such relief
as may be necessary and appropriate to adjust the composition
by race, color or national origin, of the particular schools
so affected or, if that is not feasible, the overall pattern
of student concentration by race, color or national origin
in the school system so affected, to what it would have been,
pursuant to findings made under this Section, had no such
act or acts occurred.
(b) Before entering an order under this Section the
court shall receive evidence, and on the basis of such evidence
shall make specific findings, concerning the degree to which
the concentration, by race, color or national origin, in the
-8-
student population of particular schools affected by unlawful
acts of discrimination on the part of the local or State
agency or its predecessor presently varies from what it
would have been had no such acts occurred. If such findings
as to particular schools are not feasible, or if for some
other reason relief cannot feasibly be fashioned to apply
only to the particular schools that were affected, the court
shall receive evidence, and on the basis of such evidence,
shall make specific findings, concerning the degree to which
the overall pattern of student concentration, by race, color
or national origin, in the school system affected by such
acts of unlawful discrimination presently varies from what
it would have been had no such acts occurred.
(c) The findings required by subsection (b) of this
Section shall be based on conclusions and reasonable infer-
ences from the evidence adduced, and shall in no way be based
on a presumption, drawn from the finding of liability made
pursuant to Subsection 5 (b) of this Act or otherwise, that
the concentration, by race, color or national origin, in
the student population of any particular school or the over-
all pattern of concentration in the school system as a whole,
is the result of acts of unlawful discrimination.
(d) In all orders entered under this Section the court
may, without regard to the other requirements of this Section,
-9-
(1) approve any plan of desegregation, otherwise lawful,
that a local or State education agency voluntarily adopts,
and (2) direct a local or State education agency to insti-
tute a program of voluntary transfers of students from
schools in which students of their race, color, or national
origin are in the majority to schools in which students of
their race, color or national origin are in the minority.
Sec. 8. Discriminatory action by other agencies affecting
schools.
If any suit is permitted or order entered against a
local or State education agency based in whole or in part
upon an act or acts of unlawful discrimination by some gov-
ernmental instrumentality other than that agency or its pre-
decessor, such suit or order shall be subject to this Act,
as though such act or acts were attributable to such agency,
and the provisions of Section 7 shall be applied separately
to the effects of such act or acts. Provided, however, that
this Section shall not be interpreted to create any new cause
of action or to require relief not otherwise available; and
provided further that no order shall be entered under any
provision of Federal law requiring the assignment of students
in order to alter the distribution of students by race, color
or national origin among schools unless such order is based
-10-
upon a finding of unlawful discrimination by a local or State
education agency which had jurisdiction over such schools,
and is limited to the effects of such discrimination.
Sec. 9. Voluntary action; local control.
All orders entered under Section 7 shall rely, to the
greatest extent practicable and consistent with effective
relief, on the voluntary action of school officials, teachers
and students, and the court shall not remove from a local
or State education agency its power and responsibility to
control the operations of the schools except to the minimum
extent necessary to prevent unlawful discrimination by such
agency or to eliminate the present effects of such discrimina-
tion by such agency or its predecessor.
Sec. 10. Review of orders.
(a) No court-imposed requirement for assignment of stu-
dents to alter the distribution of students, by race, color
or national origin, in schools, other than requirements for
voluntary transfers, shall remain in effect for a period of
more than three years from the date of entry of the order
containing such requirement or, in the case of all final
orders entered prior to enactment of this Act, for a period
of more than three years from the effective date of this
Act, except as follows:
-11-
(1) If the court finds, at the expiration of such
period, that the defendant has failed to comply with
the requirement substantially and in good faith, it may
extend the requirement until there have been three con-
secutive years of such compliance.
(2) If the court finds, at the expiration of such
period (and of any extension under (1) above) that the
requirement remains necessary to correct the effects of
unlawful discrimination determined under the provisions
of Section 7 of this Act, it may extend the requirement,
with or without modification, for a period not to exceed
two years, and thereafter may order an extension only
upon a specific finding of extraordinary circumstances
that require such extension.
(b) With respect to continuing provisions of its order
not covered by subsection (a), the court shall conduct a
review at intervals not to exceed three years to determine
whether each such provision shall be continued, modified, or
terminated. The court shall afford parties and intervenors
a hearing prior to makeing this determination.
Sec. 11. Effect of subsequent shifts in population.
Whenever any order governed by Section 7 of this Act has
been entered, and thereafter residential shifts in population
occur which result in changes in student distribution, by race,
color or national origin, in any school affected by such
-12-
order, the Court shall not require modification of student
assignment plans then in effect in order to reflect such
changes, unless it finds pursuant to Section 7 that such
changes result from an act or acts of unlawful discrimination
by the local or State education agency or its predecessor.
Sec. 12. Intervention.
(a) The court shall notify the Attorney General of any
proceeding to which the United States is not a party in
which the relief sought includes that covered by Section 7
of this Act, and shall in addition advise the Attorney Gen-
eral whenever it believes that an order requiring the assign-
ment of students may be necessary.
(b) The Attorney General may, in his discretion, inter-
vene as a party in such proceeding on behalf of the United
States, or appear in such proceeding for such special purpose
as he may deem necessary and appropriate to facilitate en-
forcement of this Act, including the submission of recommend-
ations (1) for the appointment of a mediator to assist the
court, the parties, and the affected community, and (2) for
the formation of a committee of community leaders to develop,
for the court's consideration in framing any order under
Section 7 of this Act, a five-year desegregation plan, in-
cluding such elements as relocation of schools, with specific
-13-
dates and goals, which would enable required student assign-
ment to be avoided or minimized during such five-year period
and to be terminated at the end thereof.
GERALD
Title II. National Community and Education Commission
Sec. 1. Statement of Findings:
The Congress finds:
(a) that the elementary and secondary education of
our Nation's children has been and remains a matter of
primary concern to local communities, and school systems
capable of providing quality education to all children
cannot be achieved or maintained without full community
interest and support;
(b) that the Nation's commitment, under the Constitution,
to end discrimination against students, because of their
race, color, or national origin, in the operation of the
public schools can be achieved most certainly, most consis-
tently with our Nation's best traditions, and with most
assurance that quality education will be provided for all
students, by reliance on the voluntary efforts of concerned
citizens, groups, and institutions in affected communities,
without the necessity of resort to the processes
and
remedial powers of the courts; and
(c) that the Federal Government should encourage
and assist such voluntary community efforts in furtherance
of the Nation's commitment both to quality education and
to ending discrimination and the deprivation it has caused.
Sec. 2. Establishment'of the Commission.
(a) There is hereby established a National Community
and Education Commission (hereinafter referred to as the
- 2 -
"Commission") constituted in the manner hereinafter
provided.
(b) The purpose of the Commission shall be to
encourage and assist community groups and State and
local government organizations, by means of consultation,
the provision of technical advice, and informal mediation,
in efforts to end unlawful discrimination against students
in the public schools and to eliminate the effects of
such discrimination without resort to judicial or admin-
istrative processes.
- 3 -
Sec. 3. Membership; Organization; Staff.
(a) Composition of the Commission. The Commission
shall be composed of nine members who shall be appointed
by the President from among individuals who are nationally
recognized and respected in business, education, govern-
ment and other fields and whose experience, reputation,
and qualities of leadership qualify them to
carry out
the purposes of the Commission. No
person who is otherwise employed by the United States
shall be appointed to serve on the Commission. No more
than five of the members of the Commission at any one
time shall be members of the same political party.
(b) Terms of members. The term of office of each
member of the Commission shall be three years, except that
of the members first appointed to the Commission three
shall be appointed for a term of one year and three shall
be appointed for a term of two years. Any member appointed
to fill an unexpired term on the Commission shall serve
for the remainder of the term for which his predecessor
was appointed.
(c) Chairman; quorum. The Chairman of the Commission
shall be designated by the President. Five members of the
Commission shall constituté a quorum.
(d) Compensation of members. Each member of the
Commission shall be compensated in an amount equal to
that paid at level IV of the Federal Executive Salary Schedule,
1. I. 4
pursuant to section 5313 of title 5, United States Code,
prorated on a daily basis for each day spent on the work
of the Commission, including travel time. In addition, each
member shall be allowed travel expenses, including per
diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by section 5703
of title 5, United States Code, for persons employed inter-
mittently in the Government Service.
(e) Executive Director; Staff, The Commission shall
have an Executive Director, designated by the Chairman with
the approval of a majority of the members of the Commission,
who shall assist the Chairman and the Commission in the
performance of their functions as they may direct. The
Executive Director shall be appointed without regard to
the provisions of title 5, United States Code, governing
appointments in the competitive service. The Commission
is also authorized to appoint, without regard to the pro-
visions of title 5, United States Code, governing appointments
in the competitive service, or otherwise obtain the services
of, such professional, technical, and clerical personnel,
including consultants, as may be necessary to enable the
Commission to carry out its functions. Such personnel,
including the Executive Director, shall be compensated at
rates not to exceed that specified at the time such service
is perfomed for grade GS-18 in section 5332 or that title.
Sec. 4. Functions of the Commission. The functions of
- 5 -
the Commission shall include:
(1) consulting with community leaders and groups
concerning the development, implementation and support of
voluntary school desegregation plans in such a way as to
avoid conflicts and the invocation of administrative or
juficial processes;
(2) encouraging the formation of broadly based
community organizations to develop and implement compre-
hensive programs for voluntary desegregation of schools;
(3) providing advice and technical assistance to
communities in preparing and implementing voluntary plans
to desegregate schools;
(4) consulting with the Community Relations Ser-
vice of the Department of Justice, the Office for Civil
Rights in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
the National Institute of Education, the U.S. Office of
Education General Assistance Centers, the United States
Civil Rights Commission, and State and local human relations
agencies to determine how those organizations can contri-
bute to the resolution of problems arising in the desegre-
gation of schools within a community; and
(5) providing informal mediation services among
individuals, groups, and agencies within a community in
order to help such individuals, groups, and agencies resolve
conflicts, reduce tensions, and develop means of voluntary
desegregation of schools without resort to administrative
- 6 -
and judicial processes.
Sec. 5. Limitations on activities of the Commission.
The Commission shall have no authority --
(1) to prepare desegregation plans;
(2) to provide mediation services under the order
of a court of the United States or of a State;
(3) to investigate or take any action with respect
to allegations of violations of law; or
(4) to participate in any capacity, or to assist
any party, in administrative or judicial proceedings under
Federal or State law seeking desegregation of schools.
Sec. 6. Cooperation by other departments and agencies.
All executive departments and agencies of the United States
are authorized to furnish to the Commission such information,
personnel and other assistance as may be appropriate to assist
the Commission in the performance of its functions and the
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare shall administer
all programs committed to him and designed to assist school
desegregation efforts in a manner that will facilitate the
Commission's work
Sec. 7. Confidentiality. The activities of the members
and employees of the Commission shall be conducted in con-
fidence and without publicity, and the Commission shall not
disclose nor have any legal obligation to disclose information
acquired, in the regular performance of its duties upon the
understanding that the information would be held confidential.
- 7 -
Sec. 8. Expenses of the Commission. Expenses of the
Commission shall be paid from such appropriations to the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as may be
available therefor.
Analysis of the "School Desegregation
Standards Act of 1976"
Sec. 2. Statement of Findings
This section sets forth the findings upon which the various
provisions of the bill are based. Among the key findings is
subsection 2 (c) which states that the purpose of the relief in
a school desegregation suit is "to restore the victims of dis-
criminatory conduct [in the operation of public schools] to
the position they would have occupied in the absence of such
conduct
"
Subsections (e) - (g) state that the remedy
of assigning and transporting students to distant schools can
impose serious burdens upon school children and have other
detrimental effects and that the remedy of required assignment
and transportation should be used only as a last resort and
within carefully defined limits regarding scope and duration.
Sec. 3. Purpose; Application
(a) The bill prescribes standards and procedures to gov-
ern the award of equitable reliefl/ in school desegregation
suits, that is, suits seeking the elimination of discrimina-
tion, on the basis of race, color or national origin, against
students in public schools.2/ The bill applies to any such
suit which is based upon Federal law, whether it is brought
in a Federal or a State court. Where a lawsuit seeks relief
with respect to faculty and staff, as well as students, the
bill applies to the extent that the suit relates to students.
The purpose of the bill's provisions is to assure that
such relief (1) prevents the occurrence of unlawful discrimina-
tion against students in the operation of public schools and
(2) remedies, by appropriate means, the effects of such dis-
crimination.
1/ The award of declaratory judgments, as well as injunctive
and other equitable relief, is within the bill's coverage.
2/ "Desegregation" and other pertinent terms are defined in
section 4.
The bill is based upon section 5 of the Fourteenth
Amendment which authorizes Congress "to enforce, by appro-
priate legislation," the provisions of the amendment, in-
cluding the Equal Protection Clause. The bill's coverage
of the District of Columbia is based upon Congress' power
under Article II, section 8, clause 17 of the Constitution.
(b) The bill applies to school desegregation suits
(based upon Federal law) which are filed after its enactment.
Regarding suits filed before its enactment, the bill applies
to any proceeding, occurring after enactment, for the award
of equitable relief. This includes a proceeding based upon
a motion of the plaintiff to broaden or strengthen an ex-
isting court order. However, except as provided in section
10, the bill does not apply to a proceeding in a pre-enactment
case if the proceeding is based upon a motion to reduce or
terminate the effect of a desegregation order.
Sec. 4. Definitions
Subsections 4 (a), (b) and (e), which define respectively
"local education agency, "State education agency" and "State,"
are self-explanatory.
The definitions of "desegregation" (subsection 4 (c) )
and "unlawful discrimination" (subsection 4 (d) ) reflect the
purpose of the bill, i.e., regulating the award of relief to
remedy discrimination against students in the operation of
public schools. Thus, within the meaning of the bill, "unlaw-
ful discrimination" is "action which, in violation of Federal
law, discriminates against students on the basis of race,
color or national origin." This definition incorporates the
standards of the Constitution and of Federal civil rights
laws.
Under the bill, a "desegregation" suit is one seeking
the elimination of (1) "unlawful discrimination" on the part
of a local or State education agency3/ and (2) the effects
of such discrimination in the operation of the schools.
Section 8 relates to suits, seeking relief against a local
or State education agency, based wholly or partly on the con-
duct of another governmental instrumentality.
-2-
Sec. 5. Liability
Section 5 establishes the basic scheme for relief under
the Act. It provides, in subsection (a), that relief of the
type described in section 6 will be available whenever the
court finds that the defendant, a local or State education
agency, "has engaged or is engaged in unlawful discrimina-
tion." It provides in subsection (b) that the additional
relief of section 7 will be available only when the court
finds in addition that the "unlawful discrimination" resulted
in an increased present degree of concentration, by race,
color or national origin, in the student population of any
school. In other words, a finding of unlawful discrimina-
tion which consisted only of assigning students to classes,
within a school, on the basis of race and which had no effect
upon other schools, would subject the defendant to relief
under section 6; whereas a finding of unlawful discrimination
in the drawing of school boundaries, so as to establish one
white school and one black school, would subject the defendant
to relief under section 7 as well.
Sec. 6. Relief - Orders prohibiting unlawful acts and elim-
inating effects generally
This section relates to the award of relief generally
to prevent acts of unlawful discrimination by local or State
education agencies, and to eliminate the effects of such
acts. As stated in the proviso, however, section 7 is the
section applicable to the award of any remedy to eliminate
the effects of such discrimination on the present degree of
concentration, by race, color or national origin, in student
population. Thus, section 6 applies to the prevention of all
acts of school discrimination, and to the elimination of all
effects except the effect of concentration, by race, color
or national origin, in student population.
Section 6 provides that the court is (1) to enjoin the
continuation or future commission of such discriminatory
conduct and (2) to provide other relief needed to prevent the
occurrence of the discriminatory acts or to eliminate their
present effects, other than effects upon the composition, by
race or national origin, of student bodies.
-3-
Sec. 7. Relief - Orders eliminating the present effects of
unlawful acts on concentration of students
(a) This section becomes applicable when, pursuant to
subsection 5 (b) or any other provision of Federal law, the
court finds that unlawful discrimination by an education
agency has caused a greater present degree of concentration,
by race, color or national origin, than would otherwise have
existed in the student population of any of its schools. (See
the discussion of subsection 5(b).) With regard to such dis-
crimination, the court is to order such relief--but only such
relief--as is necessary to create the kind of distribution of
students, by race, color or national origin, that would have
existed had no such discrimination occurred. If feasible, the
court's order is to be based upon findings regarding, and is
to relate to, the particular schools affected by the discrimina-
tion. For example, if the discrimination consisted of artifi-
cial alteration of the boundaries between two schools, which
affected and now affects the student population of only those
two schools, the relief is to relate only to those schools
and is to seek only re-creation of the situation which would
now exist had the boundaries been established in a nondiscrim-
inatory fashion. In determining what situation would now
exist, the court would, of course, take into account shifts
in population which have occurred since the alteration of
boundaries--including, but not limited to, such shifts as were
the identifiable effect of that unlawful act.
In some cases it may be impossible to isolate the effects
of a discriminatory act upon particular schools, or to use only
those schools in re-creating the situation, insofar as con-
centration of students by race, color or national origin is
concerned, which would now exist within the district absent
the discriminatory act. For example, where an identifiable
effect of a past discriminatory act was to destroy a mixed
residential pattern which would otherwise have subsisted, it
may not be feasible, by directing relief only at the schools
originally affected, in an area which is now no longer inte-
grated, to achieve effective relief; but the maintenance of a
stable mixed neighborhood in another portion of the school
district, equivalent to that which would otherwise have existed,
may be possible. In such a case, assuming it is still able to
identify the effects of discrimination as required by subsection
(b), the court may direct its relief at patterns of concentra-
tion by race, color or national origin within the school district,
rather than at the particular schools originally affected.
-4-
(b) Subsection 7 (b) describes the type of findings
which must be made by the court before section 7 relief may
be awarded. The court is to make specific findings concern-
ing the degree to which the concentration, by race, color or
national origin, in the student population of particular
schools affected by unlawful discrimination varies from what
it would have been had no such discrimination occurred. For
example, a court might find that, but for the discrimination,
a school whose student body is presently 50 percent black
would have a student body that is 30 percent black. Under
subsection 7 (a), with regard to that school, the objective
of the court's decree would be to achieve a student popula-
tion which is 30 percent black.
If it is not feasible to make the above findings with
regard to particular schools or if it is not feasible to
fashion relief limited to the particular schools affected
by the discrimination, the court is to make specific findings
concerning the degree to which the overall pattern of student
concentration, by race, color or national origin, in the
school system varies from what it would have been had the
unlawful discrimination not occurred. For example, a court
might find that, but for the discrimination, the district
would have five schools with a student body that is more than
30 percent black; under subsection (a), the objective of the
court's decree would be to establish a situation in which
five such schools exist.
(c) Subsection 7 (c) states that the findings required
by subsection 7 (b) are to be based on conclusions and reason-
able inferences drawn from the evidence adduced. Such findings
are not to be based upon a presumption, drawn from the finding
of liability made pursuant to subsection 5 (b) or resting on
some other basis, that the concentration, by race, color or
national origin, in the student population of any school or
the overall pattern of concentration in the school system is
the result of unlawful discrimination.
(d) Subsection 7 (d) exempts from section 7's other re-
quirements certain elements of an order entered under section 7.
Without regard to such other requirements, the court may (1)
approve any (otherwise unlawful) desegregation plan voluntarily
adopted by a local or State education agency or (2) direct in-
stitution of a program of voluntary majority-to-minority trans-
fers by students.
-5-
Sec. 8. Discriminatory action by other agencies affecting
schools
This section applies when a lawsuit or an order against
a local or State education agency is based wholly or partly
upon discrimination by some other governmental instrumentality
that has increased the degree of segretation of students by
race, color or national origin in the schools. Section 8
would apply, for example, to a suit alleging such discrimina-
tion on the part of State, local or Federal housing authorities.
The bill applies to any suit or order of the above type
as though the discrimination by the other instrumentality
were attributable to the education agency. The provisions of
section 7 are to be applied separately to the effects of (1)
discrimination by the education agency and (2) discrimination
by the other government agency. For example, separate find-
ings are to be made.
The first proviso of section 8 states that the section
is not to be interpreted as creating any new cause of action
or as requiring relief not otherwise available. If Federal
law authorizes a cause of action against a school system on
the basis of discrimination by some other government agency,
then section 8 governs the award of relief in such a case.
The second proviso states in effect that no order requir-
ing the assignment of students, to alter their distribution
by race, color or national origin, may be based upon discrimina-
tion by an instrumentality other than the local or State educa-
tion agency with jurisdiction over such students. Relief re-
quiring such assignments may be issued only on the basis of a
finding, made pursuant to section 7, of discrimination by such
education agency.
Sec. 9. Voluntary action; local control
This section provides that any order entered under sec-
tion 7 is to rely, to the greatest extent practicable and
consistent with effective relief, on the voluntary action of
school officials, teachers and students. The court is not to
remove local or State control of the school system except to
the minimum extent necessary to prevent discrimination and
eliminate its present effects.
-6-
Sec. 10. Review of orders
(a) Subsection 10 (a) relates to the duration of any
court-imposed requirement for assignment of students to
alter their distribution, by race, color or national origin,
in schools, other than a requirement for voluntary transfer.
Subject to the exceptions stated below, a requirement subject
to subsection 10 (a) is not to remain in effect for more than
three years after the entry of the pertinent court order or,
if the requirement was imposed before enactment of the bill,
for more than three years after the date of enactment of the
bill.
The exceptions to the three-year limit are as follows:
(1) If the court finds, at the end of the three-year (or
shorter) period, that the defendant has failed to comply
with the requirement substantially and in good faith, the
court may extend the requirement until there have been three
consecutive years of such compliance. (2) If the court finds,
at the expiration of the period (and any extensions under (1)
above), that the requirement is still necessary to correct
the effects of unlawful discrimination determined under sec-
tion 7, the court may extend the requirement, with or without
modification, for a period not to exceed two years. After
one such two-year (or shorter) extension, there can be no
further extension unless the court makes a specific finding
of extraordinary circumstances which require such extension.
An ordinary finding of need of the type which can warrant an
initial two-year extension is not in itself sufficient to
justify a further extension; extraordinary circumstances must
be shown.
(b) Subsection 10 (b) relates to continuing court-ordered
requirements not subject to subsection 10 (a), i.e., require-
ments other than those relating to the assignment of students
to alter their distribution by race or national origin. Re-
garding such other requirements, subsection 10 (b) states that
the court is to review them at intervals not to exceed three
years. After notice and opportunity for a hearing, the court
is to determine whether the requirement is to be continued,
modified or terminated.
Sec. 11. Effect of subsequent shifts in population
This section states that, whenever an order subject to
section 7 has been entered and thereafter shifts in housing
patterns cause changes in student distribution by race, color
-7-
or national origin, ordinarily the court is not to require
modification of the student-assignment plan to compensate
for such changes. The court may require such modification
if it finds, pursuant to section 7, that the changes in
student distribution result from discrimination on the part of
the local or State education agency.
Sec. 12. Intervention
(a) Subsection 12 (a) provides that the court is to notify
the Attorney General of the United States of any proceeding,
to which the United States is not a party, in which the relief
sought includes relief covered by section 7. This applies
whenever section 7 is applicable whether in regard to a new
suit, an application for additional relief, or a proceeding
necessitated by paragraph 10 (a) (2) in a pre-enactment suit.
In addition, the court is to advise the Attorney General when-
ever it believes that an order requiring the assignment of
students in order to alter their distribution by race, color
or national origin may be necessary.
(b) This subsection states that, in any proceeding cov-
ered by subsection 12 (a), the Attorney General may, in his
discretion, intervene as a party. Alternatively, the Attorney
General may elect to appear for such special purpose as he
deems necessary to facilitate enforcement of the bill. Such
special purposes include recommending (1) that a mediator be
appointed to assist the court, the parties and the affected
community or (2) that a committee of community leaders be
appointed to prepare, for the court's consideration, a five-
year desegregation plan, with the objective of enabling re-
quired assignment of students to be avoided or minimized dur-
ing the five-year period and terminated at the end of that
period.
- -8-
B
PRESIDENT FORD'S STATEMENTS ON BUSING
INDEX
PAGE
DATE
DESCRIPTION
1
Aug. 21, 1974
On signing H.R. 69, Omnibus
Education bill
2
Oct. 12, 1974
Statement requested by Boston
media representatives
3
Aug. 30, 1975
Interview, WJAR-TV, Newport, RI
5
Sept. 12, 1975
Interview, St. Louis, Missouri
7
Sept. 13, 1975
Remarks, Republican Women's
Convention, Dallas, Texas
8
Sept. 20, 1975
Interview, KNBC-TV, Los Angeles
10
Oct. 30, 1975
Interview, Los Angeles TV
Correspondents
12
Jan. 30, 1976
Remarks, Q & A, Radio & TV News
Directors Association
13
Feb. 20, 1976
Remarks, Q & A, Chamber of Commerce
15
Feb. 21, 1976
Interview, Boston Globe
19
Interview Q & A
21
May 19, 1976
Remarks, Q & A, South Grounds
22
May 22, 1976
Q & A, Jackson County Airport
23
May 23, 1976
Q & A, Pendleton Airport
24
May 23, 1976
Q & A, El Toro Marine Corps
Air Station
25
May 24, 1976
Q & A, San Diego Airport
26
May 25, 1976
Remarks, Los Angeles Press Club
27
May 26, 1976
Press Conference, Columbus, Ohio
-II-
PAGE
DATE
DESCRIPTION
3:4
June 1, 1976
Interview, WHIO-TV, Dayton, Ohio
36
June 1, 1976
Interview, WJW-TV, Cleveland, Ohio
38
June 1, 1976
Interview, WKRC-TV, Cincinnati,
Ohio
39
June 2, 1976
Interview, New Jersey News Media
Representatives
40
June 5, 1976
Interview, Face the Nation
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
August 21, 197
(On signing HR 69,
an omnibus education bill)
Much of the controversy over H.R. 69 has centered on its busing provisions.
In general, I am opposed to the forced busing of school children because it
does not lead to better education and it infringes upon traditional freedoms in
America.
As enacted, H.R. 59 contains an ordered and reasoned approach to dealing
with the remaining problems of segregation in our schools, but I regret that
it lacks an effective provision for automatically re-evaluating existing court
orders. This omission means that a different standard will be applied to those
districts which are already being compelled to carry out extensive busing
ns and those districts which will now work out desegregation plans under the
ore rational standards set forth in this bill. Double standards are unfair,
and this one is no exception. I believe that all school districts, North and
South, East and West, should be able to adopt reasonable and just plans for
desegregation which will not result in children being bused from their
neighborhoods.
I think it is fair to say that this legislation
A
places reasonable and equitable restrictions upon the problem
of busing, and in conjunction with the Supreme Court
decision will hopefully relieve that problem and make the
C
solution far more equitable and just.
1
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT REQUESTED
C
BY BOSTON MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES
October 12, 1974
Boston is a fine, proud City. The cradle of liberty. Where many of the
freedoms that we all so cherish today in this Country, were born, 200 years
ago. The people of Boston share a tradition for reason, fairness and respect
for the rights of others. Now, in a difficult period for all of you, it is a
time to reflect on all that your City means to you. To react in the finest
tradition of your City's people. It is up to you, every one of you, every
parent, child, to reject violence of any kind in your City. To reject hatred
and the shrill voices of the violent few.
1 know that nothing is more important to you than the safety of the children
in Boston. And only your calm and thoughtful action now can guarantee that
safety. I know that you will all work together for that goal. And have one
more thing to be proud of in the cradle of liberty.
2
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY
August 30, 1975
C
ARTHUR ALBERT, EXECUTIVE NEWS DIRECTOR,
WJAR-TV, SARAH WYE, CORRESPONDENT,
WJAR-TV AND JACK CAVENAUGH, CORRESPONDENT,
WJAR-TV, Sheraton-Islander Inn
Newport, Rhode Island
QUESTION: Mr President, schools open very soon
around the country and in New England. And in Boston and
Springfield , Massachusetts that means forced busing for de
segregation You have had a position on busing before: Can
you take a minute and clarify your position on busing? What
is your position on busing?
THE PRESIDENT: Before I say anything about what my
own personal views are, I want to say most emphatically that
I, as President and all that serve with me in the Federal
Government will enforce the law, no question about that.
We will, to the extent necessary, make sure that
any court order is enforced.
Now I add one thing that I hope is understood.
We don't want any conflict developing in Boston or any of
these other communities that have court orders forcing busing
= local school: systems. So I have sent up the the Attorney
eneral, and the community relations experts -- they have four
or five people up there that are working with the court, with
the school boards and with parents and with others. At the
same time the new Secretary of HEW, David Mathews, has sent up
his too man to work with the school system. And that
individual, Dr Goldberg, has authority to spend extra
Federal funds to try and improve the situation in Boston.
Now having said the law is going to be enforced,
that we are going to try and moderate and work with the
people in Boston, I will give you my views on what we are
trying to do.
The basic thing that everyone is trying to do is to
provide quality education. there is a difference of opinion
on how you achieve quality education. My personal view is
that forced busing by courts is not the way to achieve quality
education. I think there is a better way.
We have had court order forced busing in a number of
communities. There are studies that indicate that it has not
rovided quality education to the young people, which is of
personal concern.
3
I think there is a better way to do it. In my
judgment, if the courts would follow a law that was passed,
I think, two years ago, maybe two and a half years ago, it
said that in those areas where you have a problem in seeking
desegregation, the court should follow five or six rules.
Busing was the last option.
There were five other proposals that courts could have
followed and I think we would have avoided a lot of this
conflict. That is one way I think we could have solved this
problem. The other is the utilization of Federal funds to
upgrade school buildings, provide better teacher-pupil ratios,
to provide better equipment, that is the way, in my opinion,
we achieve what we all want, which is quality education.
I just don't think court order, forced busing, is the
way to achieve quality education. I think there is a better way.
4
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY
September 12,
C
JULIUS HUNTER, NEWS ANCHORMAN AND
1975
HOST, ROBERT HARDY, KMOX-RADIO
ANNOUNCER, RICHARD DUDMAN, ST.
LOUIS POST DISPATCH AND JOHN FLACK,
POLITICAL EDITOR, ST. LOUIS GLOBE
DEMOCRAT, Gateway Tower Building,
St. Louis, Missouri
QUESTION Mr President, busing is a subject
a practice that is distasteful to a large segment of the
American population, both black and white. If it is such
a distasteful and wasteful process, why bus? Is there
any alternative that you see?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that we have to decide,
in the first place, what we are really trying to do by
busing before your discuss whether it is good or bad. All
of us --- white, black, every American, in my opinion
wants quality education.
Now the court decided in 1954 that separate but
equal schools were constitutional and the courts have
decided that busing is one way to try and desegregate on the
one hand and perhaps improve education on the other.
Many of those decisions have raised great problems
in many, many localities -- Louisville and Boston being the
most prominent at the present time.
Discussing those two communities, let me very
strongly emphasize the court has decided something. That
is the law of the land. As far as my Administration is
concerned, the law of the land will be upheld, and we are
upholding it.
But then, I think I have the right to give what
I think is a better answer to the achievement of quality
education, which is what we all seek, and there is always
more than one answer.
I think that quality education can be enhanced
by better school facilities, lower pupil-teacher ratios,
the improvement of the neighborhood, as such. Those are
better answers, in my judgment, than busing under a court
order.
5
Quality education can be achieved by more than one
method. I was reading in the Washington Post this morning
a column by one of the outstanding black columnists,
Mr. Raspberry, and Mr. Raspberry has come to the conclusion
that court ordered, forced busing, is not the way to achieve
quality education for blacks or whites in a major metro-
politan area.
That is a very significant decision by Mr. Rasp-
berry, who I think Mr. Dudman, for example, highly
respects.
QUESTION: I certainly do.
In Boston and Louisville, where the court has
ordered busing, how well do you think the people of
those two cities have conducted themselves in bringing
about court ordered exchanges of black and white students?
THE PRESIDENT: There have been some disorders
there over the last year or more
QUESTION: I am thinking about this fall. : There
have been Federal agents there, of course, to try to main-
tain order. Are you reasonably well satisfied with the
way things have happened or not?
THE PRESIDENT: So far, there has been a minimum
of local disorder. I hope that that attitude can
prevail in the months ahead as the police involvement
and the Federal marshal involvement becomes less and less.
I am also an optimist, even though I disagree
with the method by which they are trying to achieve quality
education.
QUESTION: Are you counseling the people of those
two cities to cooperate with the courts, or are you
encouraging them to maintain their strong feelings in
some cases that this is an improper solution?
THE PRESIDENT: Last year I did a televised
tape urging the people of Boston to cooperate with the
court and to maintain law and order. I did that then,
and I have counseled everybody that I talked with in
Boston to encourage their fellow Bostonians to obey the
law and follow the court's action.
6
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE 18th BIENNIAL
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN'S
CONVENTION, Dallas, Texas, September 13, 1975
Let me add at this point, if I might, the
matter of deep concern to me -- a matter that I am
positive is of deep concern to all, those here and
214 million Americans -- we have tried hard, we have
written laws, we have appropriated money to accomplish
quality education for the young in America. In 1954
the courts of this country decided that one way in
their estimation to achieve that was court order forced
busing. Now, regardless of how we individually may
feel, the law of the land must be upheld.
But if I could give you a view that I have
expressed, not just recently but for 10 or more
years, there is a better way to achieve quality
education in America than by forced busing. We
can and we will find a better way.
We can increase pupil-teacher ratios; we
can improve facilities, have more and better
equipment, rely more heavily on the neighborhood
school concept. There is a way and we must find it.
7
C
INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT BY
BOB ABERNETHY, JESS MARLOW
September 20, 1975
AND WARREN OLNEY, KNBC-TV
Century Plaza Hotel, Los
Angeles, California
QUESTION: Mr. President, you have said that
State courts in their effort to integrate the schools have
ignored less drastic alternatives than busing.
What specifically do you mean -- which less drastic alterna-
tives?
THE PRESIDENT: The Congress in 1974 approved what
was labeled the Esch Amendment, laid out six cr seven
specific guidelines for the courts to follow. The last of the
recommendation to achieve what the courts should do was busing --
court ordered forced busing to achieve racial integration.
Those steps, and I was in the Congress part of that time and
C
I signed the bill that became law, those steps include a
agnet school, utilization of the neighborhood school concept,
le improvements of facilities, et cetera. I hope that in
the future, as some course in the past, recent past, will
utilize those guidelines rather than plunging into court
ordered forced busing as the only option for the settlement
of the segregation problem in the school.
QUESTION The whole option to busing tends to get
confused with racism and there are a lot of racial epithets
and what not being thrown about on the protest line. Do
you have anything to say about that? You are opposed to
busing but how do you make the distinction?
8
C
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think opposition to
busing really has any relationship to racism on the part
of most people. I think the best illustration, one- of the
rising young columnists in the country, Bill Raspberry, a
black, has been most forceful and most constructive, I
think, in opposing the court approach in many cases.
I have been opposed to busing as a means of
achieving quality education from its inception. My
record in the Congress in voting for civil rights legis-
lation is a good one, so I believe that the real- issue
is quality education. It can be achieved better for dis-
advantaged people, minorities, by other means.
I have sought, through the support of the Esch
amendment, through adequate funding, to help Boston and
other communities where this problem exists, to upgrade
their school system rather than to have this very contro-
versial approach of forced busing.
QUESTION: Do you think it will be an issue in
next year's campaign?
THE PRESIDENT: I hope it won't.
9
INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT BY LARRY
October 30, 1975
MOORE, KMBC-TV, GABE PRESSMAN, WNEW-TV,
ALAN SMITH, WTTG-TV, GILBERT AMUNDSON,
WTCH-TV, KENNETH JONES, KTTV-TV, and
HERB KLEIN, METROMEDIA, Century Plaza
Hotel, Los Angeles, California
QUESTION: Mr. President, school busing is a
problem affecting Kansas City and many other cities in the
country. You have not exactly endorsed school busing to
achieve integration in the schools, but at the same time,
you haven't exactly outlined an alternative.
What hopes can you hold out for cities like Kansas
City that run the risk of losing millions of dollars in
Federal aid in the not too distant future if they don!t use
school busing?
THE PRESIDENT: Really, I have spoken out consis-
tently and for some time on this problem. I was one of the
original Members of the House or the Senate that said that
court-ordered forced busing to adhieve racial balance was
not the way to accomplish quality education
That has been a consistent statement, view,
policy of mine for a number of years. I believe it even
more fervently today than I did before. So, we have to
start out with the assumption that education, quality
education, is what we are all seeking to accomplish.
Now, some people say we ought to spend more money,
and I think there are programs where you can spend more money
at the local level to upgrade schools in disadvantaged
areas. There are others who say the long-range and, even
to a substantial degree, short-range, is better distribution
of housing, so we achieve integration in a different way
and you can still rely on the neighborhood school system.
Dr. Coleman, who testified before the Senate
Committee on Judiciary just a few days ago, had some
thoughts on it. It is interesting that Dr. Coleman, who
was an initial proponent of busing to achieve quality
education, has now --- after studying the problem in a
number of cities -- come to the conclusion that it is not
the answer.
10
C
I don think there is any patent medicine that
can give us the answers, but I think we ought to spend what-
ever money is necessary for what we call magnet schools,
to upgrade teachers to provide better facilities, to give
greater freedom of choice. These are the things we ought
to push hard.
QUESTION: There are those who say, including
Congressman Jerry Littin from Kansas City, that a separate
Department of Education should be established, taking it
away from HEW.
Would you be in favor of establishing a separate
Department of Education to handle the complex problems of
busing?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think that, in and of
C
itself, is a solution. That sounds good. Maybe it ought
to be justified on other grounds, but I don't t think it is
necessarily the answer to this problem.
11
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AND QUESTION AND
January 30, 1976
ANSWER SESSION AT THE RECEPTION FOR
THE RADIO AND TELEVISION NEWS
DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION, The State Floor
QUESTION:* Mr. President, busing is very definitely
in some States an issue in the campaign. You said previously
that you didn't think it was the most agreeable answer to
desegregation. Do you plan to propose any other alternative?
THE PRESIDENT: I never felt that court ordered busing
was the proper answer to quality education. On the other hand,
as President, I am obligated to see that the law is enforced.
I signed a bill in 1974 or early 1975 that provided a list of
steps that should be taken by the Executive Branch and the
court has guidelines in resolving the problem of segregation
in school systems. I think that the courts ought to follow
those guidelines. I think the Executive Branch ought to
follow those guidelines, If they do, I think it is a better
way to achieve desegregation and to provide quality education.
QUESTION: Do you have any other alternative to
forced busing as we now know it in several states?
THE PRESIDENT: I think the courts themselves are
beginning to find some better answers. They have implemented,
beginning this last week, a modified plan in the City of
Detroit and to my knowledge there has been a minimum of
difficulty
Now what happened was the original order of two
or three years ago was a very harsh order, it called for
massive busing, not only in the City of Detroit but in the
County of Wayne. A new judge took jurisdiction of that
problem. He modified the court order, modified it very
substantially, and apparently it is working. So I think
some good judgment on the part of the courts following the
guidelines set forth in what is called the Esch Amendment
is the proper way to treat the problem.
12
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AND QUESTION AND
February 20, 1976
ANSWER SESSION AT THE CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE BREAKFAST, Elks Hall,
February 20, 1976
QUESTION Mr. President, I would like- you to share with
us some of your thoughts on the educational system in our
country; namely, do you feel that after two years of busing, the
City of Boston now has a better system than two years ago
and what are your thoughts on reintroducing prayer into the
educational system of this country?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me answer the last question first.
I had the wonderful experience of being the Republican Minority
Leader in the House of Representatives at the same time my very
dear friend; who has now passed away Senator Everett Dirksen,
was
the Minority Leader in the United States Senate.
We were close personal friends: He and I both agreed that the
decision. of the United States Supreme Court in precluding non-
denominational prayer in public schools was wrong. I think that
it ought to be possible to have that kind of time set aside
for a non-denominational reflection and prayer. I think it
ought to be: permitted. I strongly feel that way.
On the question of busing the Supreme Court has tried
to- da two things: It has tried to provide quality education,
it has tried to end segregation Those are worthy objectives,
I agree with that I think the emphasis should be on quality
education The emphasis should be on ending segregation, but
I think the Supreme- Court, and our courts, particularly
some courts haves used the wrong remedies and I vigorously
oppose them:
It is my feeling that there has been a developing
attitude on the part of some of the courts, however, to take a
more moderate view in exercising their Constitutional authority
and handle the problem Let me illustrate it very quickly.
Three years agorwer had a Federal judge in Detroit who was going
to mass bus children from one county to another, not just
from the suburbs to the city. He is no longer the judge
handling that case We now have a Federal judge who is handling
it and he has understood the problem and the net result of his
order which seeks to achieve quality education and desegramation
is accepted by the people of Detroit because it is responsible,
it is moderate.
So the courts have the authority, it is just that some
judges don't seem to understand that it is counter-productive
to go as far as they have gone. Therefore, I support what has
been done in some cases and I vigorously oppose what has been
done in others.
13
QUESTION: Might I add, sir, do you feel, then,
that in the case of the City of Boston that Judge Garrity
has overgone his limits?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me say that I don't
think it is appropriate for me to pick a certain Judge,
whether he is right or wrong, and comment on his particular
decision. I have an obligation. I took an oath of office
to uphold the law of the land, and at least at this point
what. he has decided is the law of the land, whether I
agree with his decision or not it is immaterial. I have
an obligation to uphold the law of the land.
I have tried to explain my own personal philosophy
and illustrate that in some parts of the country other
judges have used their Constitutional remedy to be
very effective in achieving both quality education, on the
one hand, and desegregation on the other.
14
INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT BY THE BOSTON GLOBE,
In the Oval Office, February 21, 1976
QUESTION: We will begin with the Boston busing,
specifically your request from HEW and Justice that you get
some alternatives to busing and so forth -- any progress?
THE PRESIDENT: I received a memo a day or so ago with
five or six alternatives. I have not had an opportunity to
1 analyze the suggestions yet. It is a matter that is being
currently studied right here in the Oval Office, but
proposals and various options just came to me about 24 or
43 hours ago.
QUESTION: What were the five or six, can you at least
tell us that?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think I really ought to discuss
the proposals because they cover a wide range of suggestions,
and until I have had an opportunity to sit down with the Attorney
General and Secretary of HEW and get the benefit of the views
of the Domestic Council, I think it is premature to even
discuss the various options.
15
THE PRESIDENT: I have some reservations about that.
The truth is, and I said that in a press conference or in a
C
response to a question up in, I think it was Dover yesterday
that actually what the Supreme Court has ordered is that local
trict courts have a remedy to end segregation on the one
.d and provide quality education in disadvantaged areas on
the other.
Some judges have gone very far, others have shown
a more moderate view in trying to apply that remedy. I refused,
and I think properly so, not to identify any particular judge
or any particular remedy used, but it is perfectly obvious
that in some communities where one judge is used to remedy
with moderation the problems have been resolved without
tearing up the fabric of the community. What some judges
have done is used, to a degree, the Esch Amendment, the
seven steps or criteria that the Congress recommended, which
I approved of, I feel very strongly that our principal emphasis
should be on how you best achieve quality education, and the
extreme view of some judges, I don't think, achieves that,
and the extreme views of some judges has not, in my opinion,
solved the problem of desegregation. So there is a
remedy if it is properly used.
QUESTION: Without busing, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: I think in some areas judges have used
remedy of busing without tearing up the fabric of the
community and it depends upon the wisdom and the judiciousness
of the judge who has to deal with reality.
QUESTION: One last question to wrap up on busing.
These alternatives that you have here, when do you expect that
you will unveil them?
THE PRESIDENT: I always hesitate to put a deadline, but
I would say it would take us ---
QUESTION: After the Massachusetts primary?
THE PRESIDENT: It would take us until some time next
month to come to some resolution of whether any one or any
part of these recommendations would --
QUESTION: One other thing, Mr. President. Have these
come from both the HEW and the Justice Departments?
THE PRESIDENT: I have ordered them to undertake
= review and I think they are the combination of their
int efforts.
16
QUESTION: I would like to clear up one more
matter on the busing issue, which we opened with. You
mentioned how you had these proposals and were going to
study them, but you seem to leave open the option that as
much as you favor the search for alternatives to busing
you might not get into it at all. Is that a fair assessment?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think I should pre-judge
precisely what -I am going to do. The alternatives cover a
wide range of options and they might take any one of several
courses of action but to pre-judge it now I think would be
unwise.
QUESTION: Let me just add this one thing. I read a
letter to the editor in our paper relating to the violence
in Boston last Sunday, and this person said, "This is what happens
when you have policy made by the Judiciary instead of the
Legislative Branch.'
Is it your objective that you could convince
Congress to do something in this field so that at least
the will of the people could feel represented and not under
the thumb of the Federal Judiciary?
THE PRESIDENT: Under our system of Government when
you have three coordinate branches and there is a constitutional
issue involved and the court has made a finding, even if
I disagree, I think the President, first, has an obligation to
enforce the law despite any disagreement I have, It would
be far better if we could find a solution outside of
the court administration -- it would be far better.
Certainly the handling of the administration of a
local school system by the Federal Judiciary, I think, is
very annoying to literally thousands of people because the
public, for almost 200 years, has believed that the education
of their children is primarily the responsibility of the
community and it is such a stark contrast between that concept
which is so deeply engrained with the opposite where a single
judge is running a school system. I think that is one of the
basic problems, and if we can somehow find an answer that gets
away from that, it would be a lot more acceptable to the public.
17
QUESTION: I know you are very clear about enforcing the
law, I am not trying to trip you up on that, but if you lived
in a school jurisdiction where a court order had been laid down
for busing and your children were going to public schools, would
you send them to private schools or move out of the jurisdiction
or do something to avoid that yourself?
THE PRESIDENT: That is a very good question. All of
our children were brought up and went to school in Alexandria,
Virginia, and with the exception of our daughter who went
one year to a private school, all of our children started
in the first grade because they don't have any kindergarten.
The three boys went from first grade through high school;
Susan went from first grade to, I think, the tenth grade,
she went one year to private school and then one year there and
one year to a private school when we were here.
But Alexandria was either under a court order or under
administrative action taken by HEW and they had an imposed
restriction of their school system and had substantial busing
and our children went to those schools during that period of
time. None of our children went to private schools as a result
of that action either taken by the court or by HEW.
QUESTION: Were they bused as such or did they go on
their own?
THE PRESIDENT: The boys -- Steve had a carry thing, but
Susan was bused.
QUESTION: She was. If you had elementary school
children who would have to be bused in a particular jurisdiction,
would you stand for that?
THE PRESIDENT: I can only reiterate what we did under
the circumstances.
QUESTION: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: I think I would rather go by the way
we handled it rather than any speculation.
18
AMERICAN
BUSING
Interview Q& As
Boston, more than any other city in the nation, has seen
its people divided, its racial tensions increased, its
classrooms become centers of conflict, and its streets
become battlegrounds because of the forced busing of
thousands of its schoolchildren. There is growing agreement
among parents, politicans, sociologists and educators that
though desegregation of the schools is a desirable end,
forced busing is an imperfect and ineffective means to achieve
it. You have added your voice to the critics of busing by
saying that you oppose it and that there are better alterna-
tives to it. But you have never really spelled out, in
specific detail, what these alternatives are and what you
propose to do as President to bring them about.
Exactly what do you advocate to bring about integration in
the schools and reduce the racial tension in our city-and
what actions will you take to achieve those goals?
A. The first question we must answer is, "What are we really
trying to do by busing?" All of us--white, black, every
American, in my opinion--want quality education.
Second, let me strongly emphasize that the Supreme Court,
in 1954, decided that separate but equal schools were not
constitutional. That is the law of the land. As far as
my Administration is concerned, the law of the land will be
upheld and we are upholding it.
Subsequently, the Federal Court decided that busing is one
way to desegregate schools and perhaps improve education
at the same time. But there is always more than one answer,
19
and I have the
(
answer to the achievement of quality education, which is what
we all seek.
I believe that quality education can be enhanced by better
school facilities, lower pupil-teacher ratios, the improvement
of neighborhoods and possibly by other alternatives.
Accordingly, I directed the Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare, the Attorney General, and members of my staff to
develop better methods of achieving quality education within
an integrated envrionment for all children.
The development of these alternatives is going on now.
20
C
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AND
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
May 19, 1976
The South Grounds
QUESTION: Mr. President, are you reserving the
right to review any decision by Mr. Levi on the busing
question?
THE PRESIDENT: It is contemplated that some time
this week the Attorney General will come in and see me and
undoubtedly tell me what his decision is. I think that is
a very appropriate thing for him to do and a proper role for
me to have, but he will make the decision.
QUESTION: Mr. President, how do you respond to
some critics who read into your concern about a review of
busing as an effort to play for votes in Kentucky where
busing is a major issue?
THE PRESIDENT: I think the fact that these news
stories broke over the past weekend and no decision having
been made, and the controversy of busing in Detroit, is an
indication that we in the Administration made a major effort
to not interject busing into the primary situation. We
didn't do any talking about what the Attorney General has
been studying and what the Secretary of HEW has been working
on.
This came from other sources than ourselves and
we were disturbed that the stories did come out. We hope
that we can keep this kind of matter away from the emotional
involvement of this problem and the primary elections.
We certainly had no part of that, none whatsoever.
QUESTION: Mr. President, are you encouraged by
the progress that your Administration is making in the search
that you ordered last fall for alternative ways to achieve
desegregation without forced busing? Are you optimistic?
Are you encouraged that you will have found a solution?
THE PRESIDENT: I have had two of the outstanding
nembers of my Cabinet working with others, trying to find
any new approach or a combination of several new approaches,
and I an encouraged with their progress to date because I
think it is a matter we have to settle and settle in a
constructive way, and between the Attorney General, Mr. Levi,
and the Secretary of HEW, I believe that we may have some ways
in which we can achieve the results without the tragedies
that have occurred in some of our major metropolitan areas.
21
a & A SESSION AT THE JACKSON COUNTY-MEDFORD COUNTY
AIRPORT, May 22, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, are you moving to the
right on the racial issue with these busing remarks, and
the nuclear reactions in South Africa?
THE PRESIDENT: Not at all. I have strongly
opposed court ordered forced busing to achieve racial
balance. I have consistently all my life lived and
believed and voted for the end of segregation. But I think
the real answer that we are trying to get is quality
education, and court ordered forced busing is not the best
way to achieve quality education.
Therefore, what may transpire by the Attorney
General - and he has not yet made his final decision --
is an attempt to get a better remedy for quality education
than the remedy that has been applied in several States.
In the case of South Africa, we are trying to
since and the Soviet Union and Cuba took over Angola. The
the radicalism which has developed in South Africa
way to do that is to convince the independent States in
South Africa that there should be no outside power
controlling that part of that continent.
22
a & A Session, PENDLETON MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, May 23, 1976
QUESTION: Ronald Reagan says the attitude of the
Attorney General apparently signifies some sort of change in
attitude of the Administration toward busing. What is the
attitude now of your Administration toward busing?
THE PRESIDENT: There is no change in my attitude.
I have been totally opposed to court-ordered forced busing to
achieve racial balance, because that is not the right way to
get quality education. The Attorney General is investigating
the possibility of filing an amicus curaie proceeding, as
far as the Supreme Court is concerned. He will make the
decision, if the facts justify it, and he will report to
me when he has made that decision.
But the basic attitude of the Ford Administration
is the same as it has been in the Congress and in the White
House. Quality education is not achieved by court-ordered
forced busing.
23
Q & A SESSION AT EL TORO MARINE CORPS AIR STATION,
May 23, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, what do you propose
as an alternativeito forced busing?
THE PRESIDENT: The alternatives are well Bet
forth in what we call the Esch amendment, the Esch amend
ment which was approved when I was a Member of the House
of Representatives, and I signed it as a law in Iate 1974
provides a list of alternative steps which, if the courts
of this country would follow; they wouldn t get down to
the last one, which is forced busing to achieve racial
balance.
The courts, in my judgment, have to look at the
guidelines prescribed by the Congress. The Congress is
interested in quality education, as I am, and they
the Congress -- are also against segregation, but Wa
can find a way for quality education if we follow the Esch
amendment, and I hope and trust that the courts will in
the future.
24
Q & A SESSION AT SAN DIEGO AIRPORT, LINDBERGH FIELD,
May 24, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, when you talk about
quality education, are you speaking about desegregated
education?
THE PRESIDENT: I am talking first that quality
education is our prime responsibility. But, at the same
time. we have to maintain the constitutional rights of
individuals that we should not have segregation. I think
we can have both. If we do the right thing, both with
the courts on the one hand and the Congress and the
President on the other, we can achieve quality education
without undermining the constitutional right of
individuals to have desegregation.
25
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE LOS ANGELES PRESS
CLUB BREAKFAST, Hyatt House International, May 25, 1976
THE PRESIDENT: We can have one more after this
if somebody is ready, willing and able.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I wanted to know whether
you believe that there are some situations in which busing
could help toward the implementation of the 1954 Supreme
Court school desegregation ruling?
THE PRESIDENT: Basically, I have opposed the
kind of busing remedy that the courts have utilized for the
achievement of quality education. I think the courts have
gone much too far in most cases in trying to achieve quality
education by the imposition of court-ordered forced busing
to achieve racial balance.
I am strongly opposed to segregation. I fully
oppose the constitutional rights of those who have been
discriminated against in the past. But the Court really has
a tool in court-ordered forced busing.
I can cite one case that I am personally
familiar with where they handled that remedy in a responsible
way -- my own hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. A judge
used good judgment and the problem was solved. We took
care of segregation in a proper way constitutionally and,
at the same time, we were able to put the emphasis on quality
education.
But I can' cite some other judges -- and I won't
do that because the Attorney General admonishes me not to
do so --- where I think they have gone far too far, and the
net result is we have torn up a number of communities and
it is tragic and sad.
I hope that the Supreme Court in the proper case
can give some better guidelines, more specific guidelines
to some of these lower Federal courts so that they can use
a better judgment in trying to achieve, first, quality
education and, secondly, the ending of segregation, and
the protection of constitutional rights.
26
PRESS CONFERENCE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL BALLROOM
EAST AT THE NEIL HOUSE HOTEL, Columbus, Ohio,
May 26, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, Mr. Udall has' accused
you of playing politics with busing. Some Ohio civil
rights leaders have indicated agreement. What is your
answer to this criticism and also what is your advice to
residents of Ohio cities facing court-ordered desegregation
next fall?
THE PRESIDENT: First, let ne say that I have
vigorously opposed court-ordered forced busing to achieve
racial balance as the way to accomplish quality education.
I have opposed it from 1954 to the present time.
We all know the tragedy that has occurred in many
communities where the court has ordered forced busing on
a massive basis. I think that is the wrong way to achieve
quality education.
Last November, well, before the Presidential
primaries got going, I met with the Secretary of HEW and
with the Attorney General and asked them to come up with
some better alternatives to the achievement of quality
education and court-ordered forced busing. The two
Secretaries in my Cabinet have been working on alternative
proposals.
The Attorney General is in the process of
deciding whether or not, where and when he should appear on
behalf of the Federal Government to see if the Court,
the Supreme. Court, won't review its previous decisions in
this record. And secondly, the Secretary of HEW is
submitting to me in a week or so the alternatives that
he would propose to achieve quality education without losing
the constitutional right of individuals so that we can
do away with segregation and, at the same time, achieve
quality education.
How, the various communities in the State of Ohio
that are in various stages of action by various parties,
as far as busing is concerned, certainly ought to abide
by the law. But, we hope that at least possibly the Supreme
Court will review its previous decisions and possibly
modify or change. We can't tell.
27
But, in the meantime, local communities, of course,
have to obey the law and my obligation is to make certain
that they do. But we must come back to the fundamental
objective
one, quality education, I believe there is
a better remedy than court-ordered forced busing.
QUESTION: Mr. President, there are many civil rights
groups who believe thatthe word "quality education" is a
code word; that is, it is not in conformity with the Supreme
Court's 1954 decision that we should have desegregated
schools and that separate but equal are not equal. What
is your definition of "quality education"?
THE PRESIDENT: I respectfully disagree with
some of the civil rights leaders. I think the best way ň
to outline how we can achieve better or quality education
and still insist upon desegregation is set forth in legis-
lation under the title of Equal Educational Opportunities
Act, which was passed in 1974.
If the court will follow those guidelines that
were included in that legislation, we can protect the
constititutional rights of individuals, we can eliminate
segregation and, at the same time, we can give to
individuals, the students, a better educational opportunity
and accomplish quality education.
28
QUESTION: Mr. President, you have reiterated
tonight that you are against court ordered busing to
achieve school desegregation, a remedy that is the
law of the land. You have also said that you told your
Attorney General to get the Supreme Court to reconsider
its busing decisions.
Just this week you also indicated that you
would get your Administration to try and reverse a
court order protecting porpoises against being killed
by tuna fishing.
My question is this, sir. If the President of
the United States does not accept court decisions, doesn't
that ençourage the people of the United States to defy
court decisions and isn't there a danger the law of the
land will be eroded?
THE PRESIDENT: Not at all because whether I
agree with decisions or not, this Administration, through
the Attorney General, has insisted that the court decisions,
whether they are in Boston or Detroit or anyplace else be
upheld. I have repeatedly said that the Administration
will uphold the law.
Now, in the case of court ordered forced busing,
which I fundamentally disagree with as the proper way to
get quality education, the Attorney General is looking
himself to see whether there is a proper record in a case
that would justify the Department of Justice entering as
amicus curiae a proceeding before the Supreme Court to see
if the court would review its decision in the Brown case
and the several that followed thereafter.
I think that is a very proper responsibility for
the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to take.
They need clarification because all of those busing cases are
not identical and if the Department of Justice thinks that
they can't administer the law properly under the decisions
because of the uncertainties. I think the Department of Justice
has an obligation to go to the court and ask for clarification
and that is precisely what the Attorney General may do.
29
QUESTION: Mr. President, I was wondering if
you could give us some hints about these alternatives
that you are considering to forced busing. I just wondered
what, beyond the Esch amendment, and what is spelled out in
the law, and what the courts have already examined, what
possibly could be an alternative that would hold up in
the courts? What are the sorts of things that you are
looking at?
THE PRESIDENT: When the proper time comes, Mr.
Schieffer, we will reveal what Secretary Mathews has
revealed to me and the options I have selected. I think
there are some possibilities, but I think it is premature
until I have made the final decision to indicate what
he has thought might be an improvement over the way we have
been handling the situation in the past.
QUESTION: Is it fair to say, though, Mr.
President, that this is going to require some major legis-
lative work, some major changes in the law?
THE PRESIDENT: Not necessarily, not major
legislative changes. It can have some legislative impact,
but it is also what we can do administratively.
QUESTION: Why not just go for a constitutional
amendment against forced busing?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is too inflexible
and the facts of life are that that constitutional amend-
ment has not gotten, or it can't possibly get a two-
thirds vote in either the House or the Senate, and it
certainly can't be approved by 75 percent of the States.
So, anybody who talks about a constitutional
amendment is not being fair and square with the American
people because no Congress that I have seen -- and this one
is a very liberal one -- has done anything to get it to the
floor of the House or even to the floor of the Senate.
So, when you talk about a constitutional amendment,
you are kidding the American people and anybody who has been
in Congress knows that.
30
QUESTION: At least that is saying what you are for.
What I am wondering is, why you can't give us a few hints
about what the alternatives are that you think will solve
the problems?
THE PRESIDENT: At the proper time, Mr. Schieffer,
Secretary Mathews will have the option paper before me, and
I will be glad to review it and make it public at thattime,
QUESTION: Mr. President, since Governors Reagan,
Carter and Wallace have all conducted, to some degree, an
anti-Washington campaign, should you be the nominee and
Governor Carter be the Democratic nominee, how do you propose
to attract the votes of the Reagan supporters, particularly
the Wallace crossovers to Reagan?
THE PRESIDENT: I want to appeal to as many
Democrats as I possibly can and that is what I did in Michigan
in the recent primary. My opponent very obviously wanted
the Wallace element and only the Wallace element. I appealed
in Michigan to all Democrats and all independents who wanted
to cross over and vote for me if they believed in my
record and believed in what I was trying to do, and we got
a tremendous number of Democrats in Michigan to cross over
and I am very proud of it.
Now, after we get the nomination in Kansas City,
we will naturally want to get as many Democrats as we can
because the Republican Party, according to statistics, has
only about 19 percent of the public and the Democratic Party
has 35 to 40 percent, as I recall. The rest of the people are
independents.
So, a Republican candidate for the Presidency
has to have a lot of support from independents and a significant
support from Democrats. And the experience in Michigan,
where I got a broad spectrum of independents as well as
Democrats certainly is conclusive that I have a very good
appeal to independent voters as well as broad-minded and
I think very wise Democrats.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I think any number of
people are a little confused about the status of the so-called
alternatives to court-ordered busing. Just last week, you
told a group of Kentucky editors just before the Kentucky
primary that you had three alternatives that you were studying
and that you would be making a judgment on them within a
few weeks.
31
At that same meeting, you said the Justice
Department may choose Louisville when, in fact, the Justice
Department was not at that time considering Louisville.
Do you now have those alternatives before you or, as you
have indicated tonight, will they come from David Mathews?
Finally, as a result of all this confusion, don't you see
how the impression is left strongly that you may be doing
this for political reasons?
THE PRESIDENT: I think you have confused it
by not relating the whole sequence of events. I have
repeatedly said that last November I called in the Attorney
General and the Secretary of HEV and said I wanted a
better answer so we could achieve quality education and not
tear up society in a City such as Boston.
A month or two later they came back with a number
of options. I said they ought to winnow them down. This
was well before any Presidential primaries were on the agenda.
Ue have been seriously and constructively working
together and the Attorney General, in due time, as he finds
the right case, will go to the Supreme Court if he thinks
the record justifies it. And Secretary Mathews will come
to me with a more limited number of options at the proper
time, and I expect some time within the next several weeks
I will get those recommendations.
QUESTION: But did you not tell the Kentucky
editors, as I recall it quite vividly, that you had three
alternatives already that you were studying and that you
would make a judgment on those shortly?
THE PRESIDENT: I had three and I asked Secretary
Mathews to review them and to make sure that they might
be alternatives that would really be helpful. And he has
gone back to review those three alternatives and I expect
shortly he will come up with a more complete recommendation.
32
QUESTION: Just to follow up my original question,
sir, you said in reply to a question on busing on the
West Coast, and I think I am quoting you correctly, that "naybe
we need some new judges."
Mr. President, are you suggesting if elected, you
might try to pack the Federal courts with judges favorable
to your position on busing?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say that the one opportunity
I have had to appoint a judge to the United States Supreme
Court, he was almost unanimously approved because of his high
quality. He wasn't selected because he had any prejudgments
or conclusions concerning anything. He was a man of great
intellect, great experience and good judgment. And I would
expect in the next four years to appoint people of the
same quality and caliber and I would expect the United
States Senate to overwhelmingly approve them as they did
Justice Stevens.
33
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY DON WAYNE
WHIO-TV, Dayton, Ohio, The Oval Office, June 1, 1976
MR. WAYNE: Boston, Louisville, even in my own
community of Dayton, Ohio --
THE PRESIDENT: My hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
too.
MR. WAYNE: - school busing is an issue. We know,
I think, fairly well where you stand on the school busing,
but you keep talking about alternatives. The American voter
is not sure what alternatives you are talking about. Are
you talking about legislation, constitutional amendment?
Can you clarify it?
THE PRESIDENT: First, let me re-emphasize my total
opposition to court ordered forced busing to achieve balance
in the school system. I think court ordered forced busing
is the wrong approach to achieve quality education. The
question then is how do you achieve quality education if you
don't go along with court ordered forced busing. My answer
is that we can improve, through some additional Federal money,
school facilities.
I think we can improve the equipment that is avail-
able to make educational opportunities better available to
the students. I believe that we can inaugurate what they
call cluster schools or neighborhood schools in place of cross-
town busing. There are a number of alternatives that were
written by the Congress when I was in Congress, and subsequently
signed by me when I became President, in what we call the
Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
It lists seven alternatives, six of them ahead of
busing, and if the courts would follow those guidelines, I
think we could avoid most of the busing that would take place.
Now, in addition to that, the Attorney General has drafted
some legislation which would be an additional guideline to
the courts that they should follow in these desegregation
cases.
34
What it provides is that if there is segregation,
then the court should take cognizance of those instances
where there is segregation, but it would limit the courts
remedy to just those areas rather than taking over a whole
school system, cas the courts did in the case of the Boston
case and several others.
So, between the present law and that legislation
which I am recommending, I think we can minimize to a sub-
stantial degree busing and, at the same time, achieve better
educational opportunities.
35
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY WJW-TV, Cleveland, Ohio
C
The Map Room, June 1, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, as you know, in the City of
Cleveland there is pending a decision by a Federal District
Judge following a suit by the NAACP, the outgrowth of which when
this decision comes, perhaps this summer, might be forced
busing to achieve racial integration in the public school system
in Cleveland. At this point what would be your advice to the
City of Cleveland if this comes about?
THE PRESIDENT: My feeling is, number one, they have
to obey the law. Because whether they like it or not, in this
country the President and everybody else must obey the laws as
decided by the Congress on the one hand or the courts on the
other.
Number two, if it is a decision to have busing,
I think that leadership in the community must make a maximum
effort to try and do it in an orderly fashion. Now, I happen to
be against court ordered forced busing to achieve racial balance
ecause I think there is a better way to achieve quality
ation. But, at the same time, I fully believe in protecting
Constitutional rights of people, that there should not be
segregation in our school system. That is unconstitutional
according to the decisions of the Supreme Court. But I think
there is a way in which the courts can get quality education by
using a remedy that does not just take over a whole school
system but takes the position that where there is segregation
they ought to correct that but not destroy the whole school
system.
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QUESTION: As you indicate, Mr. President, for approximately
.ie last 25 years segregation has been unconstitutional in this
country. What remedies are there to get around busing, if any at
all?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there are several remedies.
I strongly am opposed to segregation. It is unconstitutional
but I think other remedies can be utilized to improve education
to achieve what we call quality education. We have what we call
the Educational Equal Opportunities Act which lists six things
prior to busing that the courts can utilize, neighborhood
schools and other constructive devices, and in addition the Federal
courts don!t have to take over a whole school system in order
to eliminate segregation in a part of the school system so
either by using more judicious action by the courts on the
one hand or the courts following the guidelines on the other,
you can get the Constitutional rights protected and at the
same time improve the opportunity for quality education.
QUESTION: Yet in a city like Cleveland there is a
situation, the east side of Cuyahoga River is basically predominantly
lack and the west side is very predominantly white. What do you
in a. situation like that?
THE PRESIDENT: This is where I think the school
officials have to sit down with the court and with the leadership
in the communities to try and work out the necessary remedies
so you get a minimal amount of busing. This can be done.
It has been done in a number of communities and if it is done
properly what it achieves is the court orders being upheld without
violence and at the same time you are able to get what you want
really as quality education without violation of anybody's
Constitutional rights. It can be done.
I could cite several communities where, with the
proper leadership, sitting down with the court, with the
Board of Education and handling it, we have avoided the violence
that has taken place in several other places.
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INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY NICK CLOONEY
WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, Ohio, The Map Room, June, 1, 1976
MR. CLOONEY: Mr. President, it has been charged in
at least one political column that I read recently and else-
where that you deliberately brought busing into the primary
campaign as an issue and since Cincinnati, as other communities,
is going to be a court test, we have great interest in that.
What is your response?
THE PRESIDENT: I have been against court ordered
forced busing to achieve racial balance since the mid-1950s,
so that is almost 20 years. I don't think court ordered
forced busing is the way to achieve quality education.
So, any allegation that this is a new thought on my part is
totally without foundation. Last November I asked the
Attorney General, as well as the Secretary of HEW, to come
forth with some new approaches or new programs that might
either alleviate the problems caused by court ordered forced
busing or any other solution that they might find beneficial.
It was something done way last year, plus my long-
canding record of being against court ordered forced busing,
that I think certainly knocks in the cocked hat these alle-
gations about my comments on busing being involved in the
primaries. It is not true.
MR. CLOONEY: But Mr. President, do you support
busing as a last measure in integration?
THE PRESIDENT: Under the Equal Educational Opport-
tunities Act, which was passed in 1974, which I signed,
court ordered forced busing is the last resort in order to
protect constitutional rights, but there are six other approaches
that a court can take before it gets to busing. In addition,
the Attorney General has recommended to me some legislation
which would limit the remedy of a court when it finds segre-
gation, to correcting those areas of a community where there
is segregation instead of giving the court the authority to
come in and take over a whole school system, as some Federal
district courts have done.
So, the combination of the proposal made to me
by the Attorney General and the legislation which was passed
in 1974 would severely limit and, in some cases, eliminate
court ordered forced busing.
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INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT BY NEW JERSEY NEWS
MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES, East Room, June 2, 1976
QUESTION: Mr. President, you said you are concerned
about the busing legislation that is being drafted. What is
the theory behind this legislation?
THE PRESIDENT: The legislation seeks to achieve
a clarification of the various decisions that have been made
by the Supreme Court on the extent of the remedy that local
courts can utilize when they find a violation of constitutional
rights. There have been some cases where the local district
court has found a violation of a constitutional right, segre-
gation. The court has then gone in and taken over the whole
school district rather than trying to remedy the limited
area where there was segregation within a school district.
Now, the proposed legislation seeks to limit the
authority of the local district courts to remedy the precise
problem and not to become a school board in every case.
QUESTION: Mr. President, won't that still be
segregation in some school districts where busing is taken
away from them?
THE PRESIDENT: Not according to the information
that has been given to me by the Department of Justice.
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INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT BY HELEN THOMAS, UPI
BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS AND GEORGE HERMAN, CBS ON
C
FACE THE NATION
June 5, 1976
QUESTION: You know in a recent interview you
volunteered -- or in answer to a question, I guess --
some information about your plans for alternatives to
court ordered school busing. Could you explain them in
somewhat more detail than they were explained, as I
read them. They seemed a little indefinite to ne, or
are they still in that stage?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there are three points
we have to make before we discuss busing.
Number one, this Administration will uphold all
constitutional rights of any individual in this country,
including the rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Number two, this Administration is totally
dedicated to quality education.
C
Number three, this Administration will carry out
the decisions of the Supreme Court.
:I took an oath of office to do so, and I will
continue to do SO,
Now, we have found; or I believe, that court
ordered forced busing to achieve racial balance is not
;the best way to necessarily protect individual rights
on the one hand or to achieve quality education on the
other. Therefore, starting back in November of 1975, I
asked the Attorney General and other members of my
Cabinet to see if we couldn't put together something that
would be better than the remedy that has been used by some
district courts in trying to solve the very difficult
problem of protecting constitutional rights and, at the
same time, achieving quality education.
Within the last two weeks the Attorney General
has decided not to intervene in the Boston case for good
reasons that he, as Attorney General, decided, and I
support him: On the other hand, the Attorney General
is seeking a particular case where we can get a clarifi-
cation or a modification of some of the previous Supreme
Court decisions in this very complex area.
40
Now, in the interim, the Department of Justice
has prepared -- or is in the process of preparing --
C
legislation which I will submit to the Congress in the
very near future which would seek to limit the courts of
this country to the direction of the areas where the
local school board, by its act, has violated the
constitutional rights of individuals -- in this case
students -- and not to permit the court to go beyond
the instances where rights have been violated.
Now, in some cases the court has taken an
illegal act of a school board -- relatively small part of
a total school system -- and taken over the whole school
system, and the court, in effect, has become the school
board. I think that is wrong. The Attorney General
agrees with me.
The legislation that we will propose will seek
to limit, to minimize the corrective action or the
renedy by, the court to the actual instances where there
is a violation of a person's constitutional right. That
will minimize in many cases to a substantial degree the
amount of court ordered forced busing.
QUESTION: Mr. President, the courts have already
ruled on that point, if I understand it, in 1973 in the
Denver case.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you talking about the Keyes
case?
QUESTION: Yes, sir. Have they not, when they
said that was not a remedy? You could not just remedy
it in a specific area rather than the whole system.
THE PRESIDENT: The Attorney General and his
associates informed me that that has not been totally
clarified, and that is the purpose of actually seeking a
case where the Department of Justice can go into a
subsequent case and get a clarification.
That is why we are going to propose legislation,
so that there is a legislative direction given to the
court to make sure that we protect constitutional rights
where there has been a violation and, at the same time,
preclude the courts from becoming in effect the school
board in a local community.
41
QUESTION: Let me ask you just a somewhat
broader question, and you are the attorney and I am not,
so maybe you can explain it to me. If the courts have
already ruled that busing is a permissible way to achieve
integrated schools and they have already ruled that
integrated schools are a constitutional right --
THE PRESIDENT: A permissible remedy to correct
an injustice.
QUESTION: -- how can you pass a law to limit
that remedy if the courts have already ruled it is
constitutional? Don't you need a constitutional amendment?
THE PRESIDENT: The Constitution permits the
legislative body to give guidelines in certain court
cases--and according to the Attorney General he believes
that this proposed legislation is constitutional--it will
simply limit the remedy to the instance where there has
been a violation of a constitutional right. According
to him, that is constitutional.
QUESTION: Then it is your interpretation that
the Keyes case did not invalidate --
THE PRESIDENT: As I understand it, it was a
dictum, not a final judgment.
QUESTION: To cut through some of the legal
niceties which are a little hard on us, it seems to me --
perhaps I misunderstand it -- the final impact of this
is to leave in place all de facto school segregation
which has happened without the breaking of a law?
THE PRESIDENT: The courts already decided that.
QUESTION: So, that this is the direction which
you wish to encourage law and legislation to continue?
THE PRESIDENT: We would recommend, as the
court has said, we correct the violations but we only
correct the violations, not make a Federal district court
a local school bcard.
QUESTION: Mr. President, what chance do you
think such legislation would have of passing, and
what constitutional right is violated by being bused?
42
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Congress, I think,
would be responsive to some legislation of this kind
because I think the public ---
QUESTION: This year?
THE PRESIDENT: I would hope SO. I can't
promise it because I don't control the Congress, but I
do believe there is a great public sentiment for a
limitation or a minimization of the court in the remedies
that they have pursued.
What was the second?
QUESTION: The second is, what constitutional
right is being violated by being bused?
THE PRESIDENT: Busing is simply a remedy to
achieve a correction of an alleged act by a school
board to violate somebody else's constitutional rights.
Busing itself is not a constitutional right, nor is it
a lack of a constitutional right. It is only a remedy.
QUESTION: But isn't it the law of the land
to desegregate the schools in this land?
THE PRESIDENT: Where there has been"a specific
violation of a person's constitutional right. It is not
beyond that, and that is the real point at issue.
QUESTION: On another subject, Mr. President ---
QUESTION: Before you change the subject, before
you abandon schools altogether, just to explore one further
item, private schools, the private white academies that
have been founded in parts of the South, would you leave
those as being perfectly legal?
THE PRESIDENT: That case is now before the
Supreme Court. I think that the individual ought to have
a right to send his daughter or his son to a private
school if he is willing to pay whatever the cost might
be.
QUESTION: But a segregated private school, if
that should be his choice?
43
person ought to have an individual right.
QUESTION: What if those schools get some kind
of Federal aid?
THE PRESIDENT: If they get Federal aid, Mr.
Schieffer, that is a totally different question and I
certainly would not, under those circumstances; go along
with segregated schools, under no circumstances.
QUESTION That would include any kind of tax
break, Federal tax break?
THE PRESIDENT: That is right.
QUESTION: Would you approve of a private
school turning someone away on the basis of color?
THE PRESIDENT: Individuals have rights. I
would hope they would not, but individuals have a right,
where they are willing to make the choice themselves,
and there are no taxpayer funds involved. Now, this is a
matter before the courts at the present time, and I think
there will be a Supreme Court decision probably in this
term or the next term, certainly, but individuals have a
right where there are no Federal funds available.
I would hope they would not, and our own
children have always gone to public schools, which were
integrated, and they have gone to private schools where.
they were integrated. So, my own record is onecof our
children and my own belief in integration.
But, I think individuals do have some rights,
where they are willing to make the choice and Day the
price.
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