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Press Conference of David Armor, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California, James Coleman, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Nathan Glazer, School of Education, Harvard University, Charles Hamilton, Metropolitan Appliedà
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Press Conference of David Armor, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California, James Coleman, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Nathan Glazer, School of Education, Harvard University, Charles Hamilton, Metropolitan Appliedà
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Digitized from Box 27 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 12, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
DAVID ARMOR
RAND CORPORATION, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
JAMES COLEMAN
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
NATHAN GLAZER
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CHARLES HAMILTON
METROPOLITAN APPLIED RESEARCH CENTER, NEW YORK CITY
JOHN HARDY
PASADENA BOARD OF EDUCATION
PHILIP KURLAND
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL
HENRY MARCHESCHI
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION,
AND PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FREEDOM FOUNDATION
MICHAEL NOVAK
WRITER, LECTURER, WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE FOR THE WASHINGTON STAR
DIANE RAVITCH
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY,
TEACHER'S COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
THOMAS SOWELL
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS, UCLA
HENRY WILFONG
PASADENA CITY DIRECTOR
THE BRIEFING ROOM
2:20 P.M. EDT
MR. SPEAKES: As most of you know, this group has
just concluded a luncheon with the President on busing, a
discussion on busing. The meeting ran a little over two
hours. I think you have a list of participants and vou have
a statement which it is my understanding is the presentation of
the group's views to the President.
I think those that are participating in the meeting
can explain it.
Q
Can we say then this is the statement of all
the guests at the luncheon?
MR. SPEAKES: Let's let them explain that. I think
perhaps each participant should identify themselves as they
step up since the members of the press may not know you.
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- 2 -
MR. MARCHESCHI: Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen. My name is Henry Marcheschi. I am the Past
President of the Pasadena Board of Education. I and other
members of this group had the pleasure and honor of meeting
with the President today. The group consisted of myself,
Dr. David Armor of Rand Corporation, Dr. James Coleman,
University of Chicago, Dr. Nathan Glazer of Harvard, Dr. Charles
Hamilton of Columbia, John Hardy, School Board Member from
Pasadena, Philip Kurland, University of Chicago Law School,
Michael Novak, philosopher and columnist, author, Dr. Diane
Ravitch of New York City, Dr. Thomas Sowell, economist at
UCLA and Henry Wilfong, the City Director of the City of
Pasadena.
The group is an ad hoc informal group that has met
on prior occasions and has previously corresponded in a
rather unofficial way. They traded various position papers
and articles on the subject of busing.
I recognize that in this present political
climate, one of the first questions you may have is why would
the President have lunch with a group of people who, generally
speaking, express a view which can best be characterized as
being deeply concerned about busing as a viable vehicle
toward either integration or quality education.
Let me make it clear that this conference came
at our request, not the President's, and that, further, the
political makeup of the group is such that you would probably
find few Republicans among us and those few that you do find
probably voted for Governor Reagan in the California election.
Having said that, let me tell you, as best as I can,
what I do think this group tries individually rather than
collectively to represent. It tries to represent a group
which, hopefully, is knowledgeable of the issues, is bi-racial,
cuts across political lines, who has something to say regarding
the busing issue, and, generally speaking, what we have to
say is the following statement which was read to the President
at today's luncheon.
The statement is titled "Integration and Quality
Education: The Moral Case," and I believe this statement has
been passed out to you.
"The vast majority of Americans believes in
integration. The vast majority believes in quality education."
Q
Are you going to read it all?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Not if you don't care for me to.
Q
We have it.
MR. MARCHESI: I believe that each of the participants
in the conference would be more than delighted, as would I,
to answer any questions you might have at this time.
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- 3 -
Q
What was the President's reaction to your
statement?
MR. MARCHESCHI: The President said after I finished
reading the statement that he would be the first to sign such
a statement.
Q
Are you trying to solicit more support on this
particular statement?
MR. MARCHESCHI: I believe that to the extent that
other people of similar persuasion would like to identify
themselves with this statement -- it is not something we are
trying to get signed -- we would certainly welcome that
support. I know of no plans to go out and solicit such
support.
MR. GLAZER: Nathan Glazer. I think we were making
off the cuff remarks and we were not asking him to sign it
and we were not at this point deciding what we were going to
do with it. We just said, after we talked, "That is sort
of our point of view," and he was, like, saying "That sounds
pretty good to me."
Q
How long have you been in existence as a
group?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Again, I want to stress the informality
of the group. The group first met, I believe -- and the only
other time the majority of this group has been together -- was
some time back last fall, as I recall, and we met in New York.
Numerous members of the group have previously met at various
forums throughout the country where the busing issue has been
debated. Louisville, in particular, I think, was where we
first got together.
Q
Mr. Marcheschi, I am not all together clear,
even after I tried to read your statement, as to whether this
group favors or opposes court ordered busing.
MR. MARCHESCHI: I believe -- while I will let each
member speak to this issue for himself -- I believe it would
be less than correct to say that this group represents a
posture that is very, very much for desegregation but has
deep concerns, and in the case of some of us, feel very,
very strongly against court-ordered busing to achieve racial
balance in schools.
Q
You say the group is basically against court-
ordered busing?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Yes, sir.
Q
In that case what solution do you come up with
in view of the orders of the Supreme Court?
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- 4 -
MR. MARCHESCHI: Let me answer your question and then
I would like to have other people fill in as they individually
believe. I believe that in the case of Pasadena, we are
before the Supreme Court now, and that we will have to see
how the Supreme Court decides before we judge what Pasadena
has to do. I have the great expectation that Pasadena won't
be relieved of its racial balance decision which dictates
busing half of our children across town for, in my opinion,
very counterproductive purposes.
MR. COLEMAN: I would like to comment on
your question by asking you, solution for what? You say what
is the alternative solution. My question is, solution to
what?
Q
The question had to do with court-ordered
busing and my question was, if you don't believe in obeying
the court order, what solution do you have?
Q The courts passed judgment upon cases, as I
understand it, that have to do with illegal conduct by school
boards and other public authorities which produce segregation
in schools. Now the courts have found busing to be a remedy
for that problem.
MR. COLEMAN: My own position is this, that the
remedy is wholly inappropriate in many cases. Louisville
is one case, Boston is another case. The remedy is wholly
inappropriate to the injustice that was found.
In other words, not that there were not actions on
the part of school boards which increased segregation, but
rather that the remedy which was a system-wide remedy, was
wholly inappropriate to the actions that were found.
Q
Doesn't that leave you still with the same
problem? Since the remedy, so-called, is still the order of
the court, what do you suggest be done?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Let me answer the question this
way. I believe you have misunderstood the purpose of the
group if you have understood it to be to oppose the law.
Our personal experience is that we have lived with court-
ordered busing for six years in Pasadena and have tried to
follow the letter of the law and still avail ourselves of
the judicial process and try to seek relief from the courts.
We finally got to the Supreme Court and now we are
anxiously awaiting a decision. I think the point Dr. Coleman
made is we don't agree that court-ordered massive busing
to achieve racial balance is a viable tool -- in fact,
some of us who go so far as to say it is an intellectually and
morally bankrupt tool to achieve what we all desire to
achieve, and that is true integration and quality education
for all children.
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- 5 -
Q
Sir, could you answer a couple of questions
here a minute?
MR. WILFONG: Could I speak to that point? My name
is Hank Wilfong. I am a City Councilman in the City of
Pasadena. The way I would like to answer is -- I hate to answer
a question with a question and that is the question that
immediately came to my mind -- achieved what. No, we are not
talking about holes in the law, but what are you trying to
achieve? I would think we ought to try to achieve equality
of education, not busing, equalityof education.
A graphic example of what I believe is the problem
in Pasadena as we see it now, the instances that you talk
about where there were the violations, occurred prior to the
time of my holding office, John Hardy holding office,
or even Hank Marcheschi holding office. How long, then,
must Pasadena go through the pain for those things that
happened? And I am not saying that they didn't happen, because
I fought them at that time, but interestingly in Pasadena
we are precluded from doing a lot of the things we could do
and would do to correct those remedies because we are
controlled by an outside force, in essence an outside force
being the court.
I think John Hardy, School Board Member from Pasadena,
could speak graphically to that but one of the points that
is impressed on me, we have a school set up in Pasadena
called fundamental schools, where you have reading, writing and
arithmetic and those kinds of things where quality education
is taught. Black youngsters cannot get into the school
now because of ethnic balancing. The youngsters that we are
talking about trying to help to give the equality of
opportunity cannot get into our quality schools because getting
into that school would ethnically disbalanceit and leaving
another school would disbalance that school, so that is a
kind of ridiculous situation.
Q
Mr. Marcheschi said you all want true
integration, viable education. Did you as a group or as
individuals suggest to the President other ways of
achieving that specific way? The statement here is extremely
general, a bit, it seems to me, like coming out in favor of
motherhood, God or country. Did you suggest anything specific?
MR. WILFONG: I did not say I was in support of
integration. I said equality of education. I think
desegregation is what I would look for. Segregation is bad and
I am for desegregation. I am not so certain yet that the
majority of black people are necessarily for integration,
particularly forced integration. What we are talking
about -- and I am speaking from my viewpoint -- is that I
would wholeheartedly support desegregation, forced desegre-
gation, if you want to call it that.
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- 6 -
I would oppose forced integration. I think the
majority of my constituents particularly want to be free to
do whatever we want to do and we want the Government to
guarantee the opportunity for us to do that.
Q
You are saying that quality education does not
necessarily depend on racial balance?
MR. WILFONG: That's right, it definitely does not.
It is facilities, curriculum and teachers, not necessarily
blacks and whites sitting together.
Q
Sir, what do you say to the argument which
Clarence Mitchell, among other people, makes that all black
schools will be ignored by public authorities and starve,
as a political fact of life, unless there is integration and
white students are involved ,about whom the public authorities
care?
MR. WILFONG: I would say to a great extent in the
past that is true and even in some sections of the country
that would be true now. It would not happen in Pasadena.
I am speaking from a purely local issue. We have now an
opportunity to impact upon the political spectrum but because
of other kinds of things we are not free to do that. I admit
that as a practical, political kind of expedient in many
instances we have to have busing -- I am reacting to the
gentleman's question -- but that is not the answer. Busing
is not the answer. Equality of education. I disagree with
that part of the Brown decision which said that separate but
equal is inherently inferior. That is not true. People
make it inherently inferior and I agree to that, that in many
instances if you don't have that kind of mixture then people
will not equally allocate.
But what I am saying is that Brown versus School
Board came in 1954, and I know a lot of us who are now in the
political spectrum were not active at that time and could not
have an opportunity to impact on the decision.
MR. MARCHESCHI: May I answer his question because
I think it is a very pertinent question and gets to the
heart of the issue. I think each of us at this conference --
although the statement does not necessarily reflect that --
each of us have various experiences and various suggestions,
some of which were made to the President, with respect to
alternatives to massive forced busing to achieve racial
balance.
Some of us from Pasadena especially cited the
success of our alternative school program, which,as we said
to the President, has proved to many of us that voluntary
integration can indeed be made to work.
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- 7 -
The alternative school program in Pasadena has
established a pluralistic approach to education. We have
schools on one end of the spectrum that are very,
very liberal schools and on the other end of the spectrum
that are very conservative, basic three Rs, et cetera, and
a lot of discipline. The interesting thing is that we are
getting some of the most allegedly conservative, allegedly --
and I stress the word allegedly -- bigoted people in town
willing to put their children on a bus for the totality of
their school experience--to attend a school that is over
40 percent black voluntarily. That tells us something.
That tells us that the magnet concept is viable. It tells
us there are educational magnets which can be created which
transcend whatever racial hangups some people can have.
Dr. Coleman here has, in the Louisville case,
recommended an alternative plan, an alternative program, which
is very, very specific and which has incidentally been turned
down by the District Court. In the Pasadena case in the
Supreme Court now one of the issues is whether we should have
been free to implement a very, very specific alternative
school plan that would have used educational inducements to
create voluntary rather than coerced education.
So we touched on all of these things with the
President. This statement did not address itself to being
specific in that area. Rather, this statement addressed
itself to say essentially this. "Hey, we are a bunch of
people who feel very deeply about this issue. We feel that the
other side undeservedly has held a moral high ground too
long, and we feel that there is a moral case to be made for
finding a workable solution to achieving true integration and
quality education for all kids."
Q
Mr. Marcheschi, to what extent did you get
into the details of the Administration's legislative proposal?
MR. MARCHESCHI: The Attorney General very, very
briefly mentioned the fact that there was such activity but
we did not get into those details.
Q
They didn't disclose to you their thinking
or ask you for your comments on specific possible portions
of the legislation?
MR. MARCHESCHI: No. The President left us free
to pretty well say what each of us wanted to say. We each
had approximately five minutes to do that. The President
asked some questions of some of US. The Attorney General made
a brief statement regarding some of the things that he was
concerned about, such as complying with the law.
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- 8 -
Q
That was all?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Essentially, yes.
Q
Most of us are interested today -- rather than
in a debate over busing and its merits -- we are interested
in whether you gentlemen had any impact on President Ford's
thinking before he comes out with whatever legislation he
will.
MR. MARCHESCHI: I think we are all presumptuous and
egotistical enough to think we had.
Q
Was this basically a listening session in
which you all feel -- it sounds to me as though the views you
brought to us today very much back up and give support to
what President Ford has already told us are his views. Did
you get that impression?
MR. MARCHESCHI: I think that the President gave
at least me the distinct impression that "the views -- at
least the majority of the views he heard expressed today --
were things he deeply believed and endorsed.
Q
Could Dr. Glazer explain this sentence in more
detail? "We have come to believe that the premises on which
the case for court -ordered busing have been built are faulty."
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- 9 -
MR. GLAZER. I will say one word and then ask
Mike Novak to add something. One of the premises that we
believe is faulty and totally faulty is the assumption that
this is not a good society, or fair society, or a decent
society until equal proportions of every race and ethnic
group are assigned mandatorily to every significant
institution like a school. We believe that is a faulty
premise and we believe that is a premise that is dominating
much of the judicial thinking and much of the orders,
like the present situation.
Q
Is it your belief that the whole theory of
separate but equal if removed from a southern context maybe
into the Boston-Harvard Yard --
MR. GLAZER. No, I do not believe that. I believe
that reflects an unfortunate ignorance on the part of
a large number of people in this country. We are not
talking about separate but equal in Boston or any place else.
We are not talking about a situation of transferring State
ordered segregation and legitimating it in one part of
the country and not legitimating it in another part of
the country.
Whatever State action leads to segregation must
be undone. What we are against is what the courts in many
cases are doing which is not to undo State action leading
to segregation, but to impose their views that a statistical
balancing of the races is a proper remedy to whatever happens
or that a statistical balancing of the races regardless of
public opposition or lack of pragmatic result is in some
sense what the Constitution calls for.
Q
What would have been the proper solution for
the Boston, in your opinion?
MR. GLAZER. The proper solution in Boston as
suggested in a number of briefs which are now before the
Supreme Court, would have been to undo all those acts of
segregation that were found to say the school board cannot --
if that is what it was doing -- allow special classrooms
to accommodate blacks, not to allow them to go to other
schools.
I think there is another factor in terms of the
faulty premise and that must simply be said that a lot of
what courts claim is segregation -- court-ordered segregation
in the briefs -- is not court-ordered segregation. I mean a
lot of what courts say is government mandated segregation
is not. They are referring to actions which either have no
racial motivation or insofar as there is a racial component
are actions most of us would consider benign-such as in the
case of Boston, the request of a principal heading a mostly
black school to a central personnel office to send them
some black teachers. It is that kind of thing which we feel
is faulty premise, the assumption that -- well, that is
one kind of assumption.
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- 10 -
Q
Gentlemen, Judge Garrity found the segregation of
conduct to be so pervasive in the school system that --
MR. GLAZER. I am sorry. You have not read the
decision. He did not. He referred to about 20 schools
out of 100 plus. He referred to action which under no
possible interpretation could be considered State ordered
segregation such as he referred to the conduct of the
examination schools which were already operating under
a test which everyone agreed on the basis of a previous
court case was not discriminatory. So he merely found what
he found and then asserted that this is so pervasive that
I therefore must order this total racial balancing in the
Boston school system. That is the case.
Q
Gentlemen, are many of you disillusioned
liberals?
MR. NOVAK: Not at all. We think -- let me speak
in my own voice -- my name is Michel Novak. I will be
the Leden-Watson Professor of Philosophy and Religious
Studies at Syracuse beginning in January. Not at all. I
think I am defending an essentially liberal position and I
believe that the course of busing as a moral and as a
practical solution to an admitted wrong or difficulty in
American society has never been subject to sufficient
liberal scrutiny. We have in many places liberal practices
being used in pursuit of a liberal purpose and I at least
object to that and I object to it both on the line of whether
it fulfills the purposes that it says it fulfills, and whether
it employs proper liberal means for fulfilling those purposes.
Does busing bring about integration? Does it? Does it
really?
Q
Doesn't it?
MR. NOVAK: It doesn't seem to.
Q
Why not?
MR. NOVAK: A great deal of evidence shows it
does not.
Q
Why not?
MR. NOVAK: Chiefly because of white flight.
Secondly -- if I may continue to give a sequence --
does it bring about integration? That is an important
question. If you are talking about busing, you are talking
about a means, a remedy. Is it a remedy?
Q
What are you offering in place of it?
MR. NOVAK: We will come to that secondly. But it
is important to take -- when you have a policy that is
breaking in your hands and not working, then you go on to
the second step.
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- 11 -
Q
I don't know where it is not working. I think
you can point to more places in the country where it is
working than not working.
MR. NOVAK: Unfortunately that does not seem to
be the case. Those who have studied the field cannot find
that evidence.
Q
Are you saying there is no place it is working?
MR. NOVAK: No, I'am not saying that, nor would
I oppose it when it works. It is an instrument. As the
Democratic platform put it in 1968 and in 1972, busing
is an instrument of racial integration. You judge instruments
by how they work. Does this one work? In some cases it
does.
Secondly, does it bring integration and does it
bring quality education?
Q
I think the premise here is will we have
a lack of discrimination in our society. I don't think the
Supreme Court really hit the theme of quality education,
which is relative. I think the question was to break down
racial barriers.
MR. NOVAK: Does it do that? That is the question.
Q
I think it has basically.
MR. NOVAK: If you are a social policy maker and
that is your belief, then that is what you do. If you are
not, then you argue against that and that is a good social
political argument. Then you want to see the evidence.
If I could call on my colleague David Armor,
who studied some of the evidence.
Q
Do you think it is worse today than in '54,
in terms of equality?
MR. NOVAK: In some places it is.
Q In the South?
MR. NOVAK: Not in the South.
MR. GLAZER. The contrast is not with '54. The
first large busing order was '71 in Charlotte.
MR. NOVAK: I have to add in the northern cities,
northern central cities, the number of blacks in many of the
cities who have moved in have multiplied -- have increased
by multiples of four or eight or, in Seattle, since 1945,
1022 percent. So there has been a tremendous migration in
a very short period of time.
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Q
Can I ask you a question about this meeting
that was set up here. You asked the President to meet
with you, is that correct?
MR. NOVAK: Yes.
Q
Did the President know that you were going to
come down here and make your statement public in the White
House, since he also met this morning with another group
who has had experience with busing operations and they
were forced to stand outside in the heat in the driveway
to talk to reporters?
MR. NOVAK: Since most of us did not know we
were going to have a statement, I would guess the President
did not know.
MR. MARCHESCHI: The first time the President saw
the statement was when I read it to him.
Q
Did you tell him you were going to deliver
it to reporters here and did he have any comment on that?
MR. MARCHESCHI: Not to the best of my recollection,
no.
Q
I am a little concerned about the fact we
are in the midst of a very, very tight political campaign,
as I am sure all you people are aware, and at this particular
time in our history it suddenly becomes apparently necessary
for the President to get involved in the busing controversy.
Are you unaware of the fact you may be being
used politically?
MR. MARCHESCHI: I would like to answer that
question because frankly, I think that question entered
the minds of all of us. I will attempt to, if not eliminate
your fears or concerns, at least ameliorate them to this
extent.
This meeting was not held at the request of the
President or any of his advisors. It was held at our
request.
Q
How long have you had the request in?
MR. MARCHESCHI: I communicated with the White House
office originally in the fall and most recently, approximately
a month ago, regarding our desire to express some of our
views to the President. But I would like to challenge you,
if I may, on the fact that we don't bring up sensitive
issues in an election.
It seems to me if we really believe in the democratic
process, I don't think there is any better time for a public
official to state his views on a question that is tearing
this country apart than when he is running for office.
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I am much more offended by the fact that in the
Administration today, and especially in the Justice
Department -- this is my personal feeling -- there are
still those who don't agree and strongly disagree, if you
will, with the President's position, and even in a post-
Watergate environment I would like to know when I go to
the polls this November that the man I vote for has a
reasonable expectation to implement the policies which he
believes and purports to represent to the American public
as those which he is going to implement. And I believe
that one of the tragedies of Watergate is that that is no
longer the case.
MR. NOVAK: Some of us in another context were
in a meeting in the fall with the President in which one of
the outcomes of the discussion was encouragement that there
should be a rather large study of this issue in the Government,
partly because many of the figures that are involved are
very difficult to release. Some agencies of the Government
appear to have rather an advocacy role, than the role of
a non-biased observer, and it is very difficult to get out
of them statements of what is happening.
Also because this is, many of us believe, one of
the greatest domestic issues for a long time to come and
this also, if I might say, happens to be an opportune time,
because the issue does rank very low in public opinion polls.
The public is not terribly agitated about it right now.
There are not many cases pending at this moment and that is
a very fruitful time. In the next year or the year after
that, there may well be cases. In Chicago, in Los Angeles
and in other great cities and it will be a much more
inflamatory issue, so at least from my point of view --
and I will almost certainly support a Democrat in the
election -- this is a very opportune time to bring about
a full dress criticism of this policy, as we do of every
other policy. This one should not escape criticism and it
should not escape criticism above all by liberals who have
done so much to engender it. Liberals have a responsibility
especially to this problem.
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- 14 -
MR. HAMILTON: My name is Charles Hamilton.
In line with the earlier question, I think it is very important
to point out that the probable Democratic candidate in November
is not going to be much different on this issue than the
position we have articulated here today. I think that is very
important to point out. I think that when anybody speaks on
an issue of this kind at any ,time, whether it is during
primaries, after primaries or in 1973, it is always going to be
subject to potential political use, and I speak to you, sir,
as a Democratic Precinct Captain in New York.
Q
Are you saying this is Jimmy Carter's
position?
MR. HAMILTON: I am saying Jimmy Carter's position
on this question has been very clear. He is against mandated
court-ordered busing. He is in favor of the so-called
Atlanta Compromise, and I accept that and I am going to work
diligently for Mr. Carter.
or
Then you are saying President Ford and Jimmy
Carter are not very far apart, is that correct?
MR. HAMILTON: I personally don't feel they are
very far apart on this issue.
Q
Do you feel President Ford has exploited
in any way this as a political issue?
MR. HAMILTON: No.
Q
Do any of you?
MR. NOVAK: The reason I don't think that is so is
what is to be gained by that just now? It is not an issue
high in the minds of most Americans. Most Americans, according
to the polls, seem to become concerned over this issue when
it is local and most are for integration only in the immediate
environment and it is not in any immediate environment this
year and it won't be in the fall. It is not a very heavy
political issue. It was not a big issue in the primaries.
?
Wasn't it an issue in the right wing where
Mr. Ford is in the most jeopardy right now?
MR. NOVAK: I will let Republicans speak to that issue.
0 That is what we are asking about. That is the
whole point of the discussion.
MR. GLAZER: I don't think any of us want to get
into the subject that reporters can't seem to get away from,
the notion that any issue of social policy is of no concern
of itself but only exists as a counter in politics.
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Now obviously to some extent it does but in the
case of the present situation I happen to know -- and as any-
one should know -- that the involvement of the Attorney General
in the Boston brief had nothing to do with any political
timetable -- had to do only with the fact that those briefs
of certiorari had been filed with the Supreme Court. That those
briefs raised important points, that one of them had been
written by a relatively distinguished lawyer and the
Attorney General had to decide whether they would say
something about it or not say something about it. That much
I know, and what Mr. Ford wanted to make of it I know
nothing about and I really don't care. I have been involved
in this issue much longer than this political campaign and
I see no reason to stop my interest in it because of the
political campaign.
Q
Do you think it is sheer coincidence that
you are here right now?
MR. GLAZER: I don't think it matters.
MR. SOWELL: My name is Thomas Sowell. I am a
Professor of Economics at UCLA. Various people here have
identified themselves as Democrats or Republicans. I would
like to identify myself as one of those vast number of
people who neither register or vote. I am here simply because
the merits of the issue itself interest me. I am concerned
about it. I am concerned about the faulty assumptions which
are never challenged. First of all, you have to have integration
in order for the black kids to learn.
Secondly, black kids do learn better after
integration for which the evidence is at best ambiguous
and probably against that. That black kids are psychologically
damaged by segregation and psychologically benefited by
integration, however it is achieved. The studies I have seen
done -- particularly a book by Dr. Gloria Powell called Black
Monday's Children which has exhaustive studies all across
the country. The evidence there is again at best ambiguous.
The balance of it, in my judgment, is that black kids end
up harmed by it. There have been any number of local studies
showing racial isoliation, interracial antagonism, greater
both among blacks and whites, after these forced integration
programs have been put into effect. That is the kind of thing
we are concerned about.
Q Where did you go to school? Did you go to an
integrated school?
MR. SOWELL: I went to both, both in college and
pre-college. I have taught in both.
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- 16 -
Q
Which do you think you profitted most from?
MR. SOWELL: You mean can I generalize about three
universities? I can't even count the number of other schools
I have gone to.
Q
You are making assertions here --
MR. SOWELL: No, I am reciting certain facts that
others have already gotten through serious studies any number
of places around the country. I am simply saying those facts
have become non-events in the media apparently and it is
assumed automatically that in fact there are some great
benefits accruing to blacks as a result of this and I am
saying I see no evidence of that benefit.
Q
Do you see any benefit to segregation?
MR. SOWELL: I did not come here to ask the President
to oppose Brown versus Board of Education.
?
But isn't that basically what we face here,
how to deal with a court problem?
MR. ARMOR: A lot of us got here because we have
done research and the research does not support some of the
assumptions that school boards and the courts seem to be
making, one being that a balanced school is a better educational
institution. There are several of us who have done
research, and we are quite convinced that a black child can
do just as well in an all black school as in an integrated
school. That is a factual or evidentiary issue and not a
political one.
Secondly, the remedies that courts have imposed have
caused such massive white flight that in a sense it is un-
doing the very action the court is aiming at so at least
I, for one -- I am David Armor from Rand -- am here because
I am concerned about the educational and social consequences.
I am not concerned as much about the political issue. I think
others of us would feel the same way. We think there are
false assumptions. There is good evidence, and it almost
challenges those assumptions, and we have to work towards
alternatives that come closer to the goal that we think is
far from the mark because of the white flight and other
problems that are occurring.
Q I would like to ask you, you said Jimmy Carter
had said he was against court-ordered busing and I wonder if
you would give me a citation for that because I don't recall
any unambiguous statement of that sort on Mr. Carter's part.
MR. ARMOR: No, I can't. I just follow everything he
says and that you people write about.
Q
That was in the New York Times yesterday. It is
in all of his literature.
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MR. WILFONG: Let me address that. I am speaking
somewhat from a political thing. I am a City Councilman.
I think part of the things that we are saying I don't think
you are hearing. You are asking questions and maybe you are
not satisfied with our answers.
For instance, a while ago the question was asked --
and we tried to follow that theme -- I was interested that
someone asked about did that achieve integration, busing.
Is that the object? Was the object to achieve integration?
Wasn't the object to talk about equality in education?
Wouldn't a more accurate appropriate question be, do you
think that achieved equality in education or good education?
What difference does it make if we have an integrated bad
school? What are you saying you want us to have an qequal
opportunity --
Q
Would you apply that to going to a restaurant
in this town where you were separate --
MR. WILFONG: I don't really care about the
restaurant. The point is when I come here I got to Pitts
and eat some barbecue and maybe some chitlins. I may go
to Hogates. I may --
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MR. GAAZER: No one is talking about maintaining
segregation. We assume that is behind us. We are all
against segregation. That is behind us.
MR. WILFONG: That is not the object. I am
against that, but if I chose to do that, if I choose to
go to Pitts, then right on.
The point we are saying -- getting back to the
situation in Pasadena -- of a political nature. I am a
Republican and I am supporting the Governor of California,
so I would not allow myself to be used by the President,
President Ford, for that purpose.
I don't think, though -- and someone said this
earlier -- why should we stop doing the things we are doing
just because it is election time. Why should I oppose a
good program by a man who is the present President because
I am supporting someone else. Why shouldn't I come to a
forum like this, to talk to the President of our United States
to give my viewpoints on that issue.
The issues as we see it back in Pasadena are this:
One, will we be allowed to do our thing in Pasadena? Will
we be allowed to have freedom to make our own decisions based
upon our neighborhood rather than what a court decides based
upon its interpretation of some incident which was probably
appropriate at that time.
Q
We want you to have this forum, we assure you,
and we hope when the pro-busing people come along that they
will have the forum. We doubt they will.
MR. MARCHESCHI: Dr. Ravitch would like to say
a word and then I would like to close.
MS. RAVITCH. My name is Diane Ravitch. I am a
professor at Teacher's College. I am a historian and writer.
I have done some studies into the history of the school
integration decisions and implementation.
My own concerns are these. I am a liberal Democrat.
I expect to be supporting Jimmy Carter in the fall, assuming
he is the nominee. I obviously don't want to be politically
used by anybody, but I have my own concerns. I don't think
you stop thinking about issues because of it being an election
year and I don't think you can stop governing because it
happens to be the fourth year.
My concerns are these. I think one of the efforts
in achieving integration is not only to have an integrated
society -- and obviously like everybody else in this group
which is not any kind of a formal association -- like all of
us, we are in favor of integration, we want to see a unified
society, we believe in the Brown decision wholeheartedly and
all the changes it has brought about in American society.
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- 19 -
My concern is with the pragmatic effects of
school busing. Not that busing should not be a tool, it
should be a tool. Absolutely. But the question is what are
its effects ? How much white flight is there. If you win
a decision and lose the white population and end up with
more segregation than you had before the decision, have
you won?
At the time of the decision in Boston, there was
a 61 percent white majority in Boston schools. There is
now a white minority in the Boston schools. That is a
concern or should be a concern. It is a concern to me as
a researcher.
If you look at the results coming in from different
places in the country -- the education results -- they are
equivocal at best -- there is no strong evidence that
busing leads to better education and my own position -- which
I would distinguish from the rest of the group -- is
I have no hard and fast conclusions except I would urge
the President and the Secretary of HEW to initiate a
thorough study, if possible, even in an election year.
What is the educational impact of busing? How
can we provide better quality education? Are there cities,
are there States, are there nations that have done a better
job of educating low-income children than we have? We
have not succeeded. That is very clear and if we want to
achieve equality we have to do a better job in educating
low-income kids in order that they can have the kind of
mobility that we assume middle class kids get through
education.
So, that is my concern and I would think it would
be wrong to say that we are exploiting the issue or that the
President -- I don't know if the President is exploiting
it -- I don't think it is exploiting. My understanding is
he has basically taken this position consistently for
many years. If he suddenly switched positions in the
middle of an election, you could say he was exploiting it,
but I don't think saying what you have always said is
necessarily exploitation.
Q
Was the value of your visit today to convince
him of what he already believed?
MS. RAVITCH: My purpose in coming was to say I
think a lot of people are making statements for which they
have no factual basis. In the course of writing about
busing and integration, I have run into many people, in and
outside the civil rights movement, who say we must have
busing because only through integration will children ever
learn.
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- 20 -
Now I don't know on what they base that. I believe
there are many ways in which children learn and we have not
begun to fathom them. I think we can do a better job than
we are doing now and we don't seem to be moving in the right
direction, so I was urging we do a better job of finding
out why we have these assumptions.
Q
May I ask a question about white flight which
a number of you have mentioned.
MS. RAVITCH: Dr. Coleman might be best to
speak to that.
Q
Why is the answer to white flight not to
expand the realm of busing instead of to contain it in
areas -- especially in the case of Boston, why is it not
better to expand busing out into the suburbs to prevent
white flight?
MR. COLEMAN: I see your point. It seems to me
the white flight that exists tells a few things. One is the
actual consequences of white flight, namely, the shift --
reduction of 30 some percent of the white population
in Boston in a short period of time -- in. a period of two
years. That is one thing.
The other is what it tells us symbolically. That
is it says that here is an issue, namely the choice of
where to send one's child to school, which is so important
to so many people that they will suffer an economic loss,
that they will suffer losses of friends, losses of a
whole variety of sorts in order to achieve their goal.
Now if that is the case, if it is so important
to so many people, then one must begin to question the basic
philosophy of the thing and it seems to me when one looks
at the philosophy of the thing then you find it is a kind
of "Emperor has no clothes" phenomenon that it is based on --
as several people have said before -- a set of faulty
premises.
MR. HARDY: I would like to comment on that white
flight.
I am John Hardy from the Pasadena Unified School
District, Board of Education. I am in support of Governor
Reagan too, so there is no political tie to President Ford.
But Pasedena is unique. I think it is one of the very
few districts under court order to bus where we have been
able to turn around the white flight. We brought back into
the district around 1,200 white families or white kids.
Basically because we have offered a volunteer --
and we have told them the awful thing we have told the
parents, "This is what we are going to do for your kids if
you bring them back into this district. We are going to
teach them the basic 3 R's. We are going to teach them
discipline. We are going to teach them pride, we are going
to teach them respect We have a waiting list to get
into those schools.
- 21 -
MR. MARCHESCHI: Some of us have airplanes to
catch. May I just make one parting comment.
I do appreciate your focusingon the issue and the
political issue involved. As the unofficial organizer of
this group, ad hoc group, let me make this confession to
you. There are quite a few of us up here who have carried
quite a few scars from this battle. Some of us have seen
districts lose 40 percent of their white children. Others
of us have put a great number of children on buses and bused
them across town. Others of us have had reputations and
positions in various universities challenged -- challenging
some of the assumptions that underlie the whole premise
of busing.
I think the most honest thing we can say is this:
There are those in this group who very, very much want
to communicate what we consider to be sincere knowledgeable
opinions to the media and to the country on this issue.
And to the extent that anyone has been used today,
I would be much more concerned about us using the President
than the President using US. I think we have had a platform
to legitimate, if you will, the anti-busing argument and
we appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
END
(AT 3:05 P.M.EDT)