Busing and integration in the United States

Significance: Busing as a tool for desegregating public schools has been controversial, and both Congress and the Supreme Court have dealt with the issue.

School desegregation has been the most controversial American educational issue of the twentieth century. Busing for school desegregation is one of the more feasible strategies for achieving school desegregation, and generated tremendous controversy as desegregation plans were implemented during the late 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. Consequently, school desegregation and busing have become inextricably linked in the minds of many people. Busing actually predates school desegregation by many decades, and it was originally simply a means of transporting students in rural areas to schools that were better equipped and staffed than traditional one-room country schools. In rural areas of the South, however, busing simultaneously served as a means of facilitating school segregation.

Busing to Facilitate Segregation

Many school districts in the South encompass entire rural counties, so transportation to school must be provided to students. Busing proved to be the most feasible means to transport large numbers of students. Until the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, segregated schools were legal in the South. Typically, segregation meant busing black and white children to different schools regardless of what school was closest to a child’s house. Black children could be bused many miles even if a white school was right next door. Similar circumstances would apply for the white child if the nearest school was a black one.

The 1954 the Brown decision was supposed to bring an end to de jure (by law) and de facto segregation, the practice of state-imposed segregation. A subsequent decision (Brown II) in 1955 addressed the issue of remediation and ordered that the elimination of segregated dual school systems proceed “with all deliberate speed.” Yet thirteen years passed before the Supreme Court became disillusioned with the delay tactics and obstructions employed by many southern school districts and began enforcement of its desegregation decree. During that time, an entire generation of schoolchildren, both black and white, was subjected to the continuation of busing that facilitated segregation.

Busing to Facilitate Integration

Busing became an effective strategy for transporting students reassigned under desegregation plans. In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), the Supreme Court established that busing was an acceptable strategy for desegregating school systems. In upholding the use of busing, the Supreme Court was aware that it might prove to be administratively awkward for school districts and that it might impose a degree of hardship on some districts. Although busing was sanctioned in the Swann decision, it was done so only in regard to de jure (by law) segregation. In Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1 (1973), busing was ordered for the first time outside the South. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled on the issue of de facto segregation (segregation “in fact,” generally resulting from discriminatory residential patterns) for the first time. In evaluating the Denver school system, the Court concluded that when segregative intent exists in a substantial portion of the school system, then a system wide remedy to assure nondiscrimination is acceptable. A system wide remedy necessitates the reassignment of significant numbers of students, which typically requires some degree of busing. In a number of desegregation cases, the federal courts used busing when forced to develop their own desegregation plans, especially when recalcitrant school districts refused to restructure long-standing dual systems of education.

A number of school districts in the South developed desegregation plans that were premised on voluntary integration strategies, such as freedom-of-choice plans, voluntary transfer plans, and magnet schools. The Fifth Circuit Court, in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education (1966), argued that the only desegregation plans that would be acceptable to the federal courts would be those that work—those that are practical and that actually accomplish the goal of desegregation.

In Green v. County School Board of New Kent County (1968), the Supreme Court rejected the freedom-of-choice plan implemented by the New Kent County school board. The Court concluded that freedom-of-choice plans did not demonstrate significant levels of desegregation and did not remove the racial identification attached to specific schools. Although freedom of choice was rejected as the primary strategy in a desegregation plan, however, it was not precluded from being used as a supplemental component in a more comprehensive desegregation plan.

The federal courts came to a similar conclusion regarding voluntary transfer plans. White parents saw no benefit in having their children attend a segregated black school that was perceived to be educationally inferior. On the other hand, many African American parents did not see the value in having their children attend segregated white schools where they were unwelcome. They were hesitant to expose their children to the physical threat posed by some segregated white schools.

Magnet schools have unquestionably been the most successful of the voluntary desegregation plans. Magnet schools have grown tremendously since their inception in 1972. Generally, these are racially integrated public schools that have innovative programs and activities that attract students throughout a school district.

Freedom-of-choice, voluntary transfer, and magnet programs all required some degree of busing if they were to be properly executed. In some instances, voluntary desegregation plans involved a greater degree of busing than did the mandatory pupil reassignment plans initiated by the federal courts. Yet parents had little difficulty in accepting the notion of a voluntary desegregation plan. Voluntary plans permit parents and children who do not wish to participate in the desegregation effort to remain outside the process while remaining within the public schools. Many of the voluntary desegregation plans, however, proved to be unacceptable to the courts.

Resistance to Busing

Busing to achieve integration met with considerable opposition at the local, state, and federal levels. Although busing was merely a strategy to facilitate meaningful integration, it eventually became symbolic of all that some people found distasteful about the desegregation process. Opponents of desegregation characterized it as “forced busing.” The issue of forced busing, for many, was associated with the reluctance of white parents to send their children to what had previously been inferior all-black schools. Actually, considerably more minority students (African American and Hispanic) than white students were bused for desegregation purposes. Over the decades of the 1960’s, 1970’s, and early 1980’s, white parents took to the streets in their opposition to forced busing. The problem was exacerbated when some political leaders— instead of seeking to mollify and encourage the desegregation process— took advantage of the controversy for political gain.

During the time of the Keyes decision, when the use of busing was being established as a remedy in de facto segregation cases, there was substantial political force growing in opposition to busing. According to Derrick A. Bell, Jr., in Race, Racism, and American Law (1980), Richard M. Nixon used an anti-desegregation plank in his presidential campaign in 1968 to help defeat the Democratic presidential candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey. Nixon’s opposition to forced busing assumed an even greater role in his reelection campaign for 1972.

Although the legitimacy of busing was upheld in the Keyes decision, the parameters for its use were questioned the following year in Milliken v. Bradley (1974). The Supreme Court failed to support metropolitan busing in Michigan that would have involved the city of Detroit and fifty-three surrounding suburban school districts. Detroit, at the time, was more than 63 percent African American, while the neighboring suburban districts were almost exclusively white. The Supreme Court reasoned that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate constitutional violations on the part of the suburban communities. The plaintiffs’ request to include the suburban school districts in the desegregation effort was denied.

During this same period, Congress was reevaluating busing and its proper place in school desegregation. Congress attempted to pass legislation that would have either eliminated or limited the use of busing. It failed to pass antibusing legislation designed to reduce federal jurisdiction. It succeeded, however, in passing legislation that placed restrictions on the use of busing for desegregation beyond the next-nearest school. This permitted many students to remain at their neighborhood school, and since many neighborhoods were racially segregated, the legislation actually contributed to school segregation. Congress also passed legislation that prioritized remedies in school desegregation cases and prohibited the issuance of administrative or judicial orders requiring student reassignment at any time other than the beginning of an academic year.

Despite the guidelines established in the Milliken decision regarding metropolitan busing, the restrictive busing legislation passed by Congress, and other precedent-setting decisions in the federal courts, school desegregation continued to move forward. The responsibility of proof had changed, however—from demonstrating the mere existence of segregation in a school system to the more difficult to prove standard of segregative intent on the part of school officials.

Much concern surfaced in Congress and in the federal courts about “white flight,” the movement of white families to areas outside racially mixed school districts as well as the increasing tendency of white parents to place their children in private schools. Although part of the decline in the number of white students can be attributed to desegregation and busing, white enrollment had actually begun to decline almost a decade before integration began. This decrease was a function of the declining white birthrate, departures to private schools, and departures to the suburbs. It should be noted that some suburban school districts not subject to desegregation actually lost more students proportionally than did city districts undergoing desegregation.

Although the phenomenon of white flight is generally associated with the desire to avoid school desegregation, technically the term is a misnomer. It would be more accurately characterized as middle-class flight. The African American middle class, along with other minority middle class populations, has continually sought to remove itself from the inner cities when presented with the opportunity for Black flight.

Diminished Opposition to Busing

Opposition to busing appeared to diminish in the 1980’s. The administration of Ronald Reagan tended to focus on other domestic and foreign issues. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration was firmly opposed to busing. It even threatened to reopen desegregation cases already settled through extensive busing if it believed that the remedy was too drastic. The Reagan administration argued that desegregation should occur on a voluntary basis. Consequently, it supported voluntary desegregation plans such as magnet schools, tuition tax credits, and school “choice” programs. Busing became a side issue as debates focused on the impact that tuition tax credits and choice programs would have on public schools.

Bibliography

Bell, Derrick A. Race, Racism, and American Law . Boston: Little, 1980. Print.

Heidepriem, Nikki. There is No Liberty . . .Washington, DC: Citizens' Commission, 1982. Print.

Rippa, S. Alexander. Education in a Free Society: An American History. New York: Longman, 1992. Print.

School Desegregation: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress. Washington, DC: US Gov., 1982. Print.

Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1992. New York: Hill, 1993. Print.