Busing

Although schools in a few areas of the country had been occasionally busing children to distant schools to resolve overcrowding problems on an as-needed basis, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court made segregation illegal. With their ruling in Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, the Court outlawed the practice of segregating students based on race, creed, color, or national origin in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States (Bryant, 1993). Busing was chosen as the method to desegregate schools. School bus transportation takes students from the city or neighborhood in which they live to suburbs, from the suburbs into the city, or even from their home county to another county.

Keywords Brown v. Board of Education; Busing; Civil Rights; Contained Unit Plan; De Facto Segregation; Desegregation; Magnet Schools; Plessy v. Ferguson; Public Schools; Segregation; Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Overview

Prior to 1954, public schools in the United States were almost completely segregated. Throughout the country and especially in the South, there were "black schools" and "white schools" with each school almost always comprised exclusively of students of one race. The prevailing wisdom at that time was generally based on interpretation of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision -that the races were "separate but equal." Indeed, since blacks and whites seemed to have the same types of educational facilities, adequate teachers, and a curriculum for each subject area and grade level, it was assumed both racial groups of young students were getting the same type of equal education (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954).

One reason for the separation of racial groups in the U. S. during this time was the work migration of clusters of unemployed minority people after the Second World War. Blacks who had been living in the rural south now moved west to fill jobs in the defense industry. This industry and others aggressively looked for workers and even provided transportation to California to get the men west quickly and efficiently. Shipyards were eager to get the additional employees, almost all of them black men, and the schools in those areas became segregated simply by the influx of minority families to a particular area (Green, 2006). At the same time, many school districts in cities in the North had long functioned with largely black or largely white student bodies. This pronounced segregation was not necessarily purposeful; but rather a result of economics, available housing, or other situations ("Controversy in Congress," 1974).

The Brown Decision

Although schools in a few areas of the country had been occasionally busing children to distant schools to resolve overcrowding problems on an as-needed basis, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court made segregation illegal. With their ruling in Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, the Court outlawed the practice of segregating students based on race, creed, color, or national origin in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States (Bryant, 1993). In his Brown opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren asserted that segregating school students is actually harmful to black children. Warren also implied that those classrooms that have only black students are inferior to those with a mix of races and that academics for both groups of students can improve when there is a mixture of races (cited in Richer, 1998).

Even when the actual building and other parts of a school may seem to be equal, Chief Justice Warren argued that the segregation of racial groups in the public schools of a state denies some groups the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Constitution. The "separate but equal" doctrine which came from the Plessy v. Ferguson case was deemed to not apply to the area of education (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). With this landmark case began the desegregation of American public schools, mandated by law.

The Solution

Busing was chosen as the method to desegregate schools. School bus transportation takes students from the city or neighborhood in which they live to suburbs, from the suburbs into the city, or even from their home county to another county. Physically moving the students in this way is sometimes thought of as the best solution to even out the ratio of black and white children in certain schools and areas. The Supreme Court ordered this forced desegregation practice in cases in the late 1950s until the 1970s ("Controversy in Congress," 1974).

In the early 1950s, Greensburgh, New York bused white children from then-overcrowded white schools to a black school with just half its capacity filled. This move was more practical than anything else, and wasn't strictly to desegregate the schools, although this ended up being one of its results (Ozmun, 1972).

To comply with the Supreme Court, Massachusetts passed the Racial Imbalance Act in 1965 which aimed to abolish racial inequity in schools in that state. A school is said to be racially disproportionate when over fifty percent of its students are minority students. The Racial Imbalance Act forced school committees to create a plan to balance those schools in their area for which there was not a fair balance of school students (Richer, 1998). In most cases, the solution to the desegregation of schools meant forced busing, and in 1968 the courts ruled that schools could not be "white" or "black," but simply "schools."

Some states were still formulating plans for how they would achieve desegregation in their schools. However, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan issued the decision that ordered all schools be integrated immediately. Other judges followed his lead and ordered mandatory forced busing for racial balance and equality (Richer, 1998). The word "desegregation" was often used instead of "forced busing" during this time, mainly because it tended to have more of a positive connotation (Brudnoy, 1975).

Responding to Busing

The idea of busing generated plenty of opposition from the start. Following the Brown decision, the courts were determined to create a system where all racial groups were represented in equal proportions in the country's schools and classrooms (Green, 2006). The Supreme Court's busing decision began a culture shift throughout the country. Up to this time, all racially segregated schools were not necessarily viewed in a negative light. Teachers and administrators in the inner-city schools were often seen as the leaders in their communities and the public school building itself was often the center hub of the neighborhood. Desegregation seemed likely to threaten this delicate neighborhood balance and challenge the power of the black communities (Zimmerman, 2006).

In general, many white parents feared busing and they worried most about the type of school to which their child would be bused. Many affluent whites feared that their children would be forced to attend an inferior school with mediocre academic standards, substandard school buildings and equipment, possible racial problems, and an atmosphere less welcoming than their neighborhood school. Less-privileged white parents may not have had the same fears for their children and may have reasoned that the schools weren't that much different from their own (Kelley, 1974). Still, parents of both black and white students protested loudly, violence often ensued, and in many neighborhoods there was complete opposition to moving students from their schools as parents, teachers, administrators, and students attempted to stop the plan to bus children from their neighborhood schools and bus other children into those desks (Zimmerman, 2006).

The Contained Unit

Soon after the Brown decision, St. Louis, Missouri began the process of desegregating its schools to comply with the Supreme Court mandate. In 1955, black children in some overcrowded schools in that city were bused to white schools that actually had empty classrooms and plenty of room. True integration wasn't realized though, as black students attended classes with the black students they were bused into the school with - a process known as the contained unit plan. This accommodated method of desegregation was in effect for a few years with increasing opposition from civil rights leaders who asserted that this type of busing wasn't really desegregation at all and wasn't what the Court had in mind (Ozmun, 1972).

In Illinois, the Supreme Court was asked to rule in a similar case, McNeese v. Board of Education (1963) where racial segregation within a school was taking place. Minority students there were bused to formerly all-white schools but were required to use school entrances and exits that were separate and apart from the white students. They could only attend classes that were expressly for the black students and these were held in a particular part of the school. The Supreme Court did not issue a ruling in the McNeese case because it was decided that the petitioners had not taken the case to the appropriate state-level court first, but mention of this case serves to show what was going on in the schools during that time, as cities and school districts fought desegregation even when appearing to comply (Schwartz, 1986).

Serious Efforts

Baltimore began busing soon after the 1954 Brown decision. Even though as many as 2,000 students were transported to other schools to help relieve the overcrowding in the black-majority ones, the continuing flood of new students to Baltimore urban areas made it difficult to resolve the city's overcrowding problems. In addition, as black students were bused into white schools, many white students left for private schools. It wasn't until nine years later that the Baltimore school system was finally able to desegregate their schools. They eliminated geographical school boundaries and bought enough buses to transport about 5,000 students to racially desegregated schools. This solution worked to eliminate the all-white and all-black public schools in the Baltimore city area (Ozmun, 1972).

Other areas of the country, particularly the South, experienced their own difficulties as they attempted to abide by the Supreme Court's orders. School districts found that it was difficult to implement a way to alter decades of customs and realizing this predicament, the Supreme Court did not demand a timetable be followed. Instead, the Court permitted school systems to forge their own agenda for desegregation (Bryant, 1973). The result was that in the years after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling, scant progress was achieved to eradicate segregation in schools in those areas where there were two functioning school systems still sustained by state law (Ozmun, 1972).

Dodging the Court

North Carolina, for example, used semantics to ignore the ruling. Under North Carolina Judge John Parker's interpretation, to comply with the Supreme Court's Brown ruling, the government could not deny any child the right to attend a public school. He reasoned that since all North Carolina schools were open to all children, white or black, they were already in compliance with the law (Schwartz, 1986). Many people found Judge Parker's interpretation to be shrewd and asserted that he was actually taking advantage of some areas of the Supreme Court's Brown decision that may not have been addressed clearly. Since the Judge was aggressive in making his distinctions about what the Supreme Court actually ruled, his ideas were reluctantly accepted and adopted in school districts in that state for ten years without the state being confronted about it (Garrow, 2004). Schools there remained segregated.

At the same time in an attempt to dodge forced desegregation and busing in their area, many whites in Virginia hastily created private schools exclusively for white students. As white students exited the public schools there, they were instrumental in closing the entire public school system rather than be forced to integrate. Although most school districts reopened after a 1959 action on the part of Virginia's General Assembly, this was not true in one area of Virginia. In Prince Edward County, school district officials and the newly formed Prince Edward Foundation helped parents and white students by quickly creating private schools for whites only so they would not be educated with black children in formerly all-black public schools. The difference was that even after the 1959 judgment, Prince Edward County public schools did not reopen and the new schools, collectively called Prince Edward Academy, became a symbol of white protest to school integration. The black children of this county suffered badly. From 1959 until 1963, black students in Prince Edward County had no schools at all to attend until their own public schools could be opened again. During the five years the schools were being created and staffed anew, little or no provision was made to educate the black students. Although some churches taught groups of black children, and other children worked with relatives or by groups formed for this purpose, black students living in Prince Edward County missed years of schooling (Virginia Historical Society, 2004).

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)

Although some cities believed busing to be against the law and were dragging their feet about complying, the Supreme Court disagreed. In 1971 a Supreme Court decision in the well-known case of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education said that busing children from their own neighborhoods was one way to achieve school desegregation and it was, in fact, constitutional. In the ensuing twenty years following the Swann decision, many court-supervised school desegregation busing plans were implemented. With this decision, Chief Justice Warren Burger noted that in this and similar cases conflict continued to occur in those states with a policy of segregating students based on their race (Ozmun, 1972).

With this decision, the Supreme Court said that schools have a duty to get students ready for the world by having a ratio of white and minority students in their schools that mimicked that of the school district and the country as a whole. Those schools that were unable to achieve that racial balance on their own would be subject to mandates decided by the court (Ozmun, 1972).

The Swann decision in North Carolina was reversed in 2001. A federal appeals court ruled that since Charlotte, North Carolina does not purposefully segregate their students by race, its busing program is not necessary ("30 years later," 2001).

By 1972, almost half of Americans polled said that they believed that segregation of black and white students in our country's schools was morally wrong, while at the same time three-quarters of the group sampled said that they opposed forced busing as a way to desegregate those schools (Ozmun, 1972). By 1976 in California, approximately 40,000 students in fourth through eighth grades were being bused, some for as long as two to four hours round-trip in an attempt to make schools more racially balanced (Mawdsley, 1987).

In the meantime, in Richmond, Virginia the District Court had ruled that schools within that city were inferior to those in the surrounding areas. Richmond city schools were in serious disrepair, had violence and drug problems, and despite busing mandates, were attended by a majority of black students. Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. began an avalanche of protest when he decided that the counties of Henrico and Chesterfield (both of which had housed independent school districts since 1871) be merged with the city of Richmond to create a single united education system (Ozmun, 1972). Judge Merhige's decision, although generally well received by the black community, caused the white community to threaten the judge's life and that of his family (White, 1972). His decision meant that many black students would be bused to previously all-white schools in the now-unified school districts. Merhige's order was eventually reversed when it was determined that the judge did not have the power to order that school districts be consolidated into one (Ozmun, 1972).

Conclusions

There are many reasons busing has not worked as well as many had originally hoped. Some minority students may have still been in classes with only other minority students and without any of the white students the desegregation plan was supposed to bring together. A mix of higher-achieving students in their peer group is the favored scheme for optimum student benefit (Harris, 2006).

Many people today can still vividly recall the busing headlines of the 1970s. As it turns out, busing as a solution to school racial imbalance failed and one of its main goals, improving the academic performance of students, was not reached (Jacoby, 1999).While plenty of progress has been made in many parts of our country's education system in the decades since the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision was handed down, there are still thousands of schools within the United States that are segregated by race ("Report Explores Racial Consequences," 2007).

“While busing obviously has the ability to desegregate schools, the practice has continued to be extremely unpopular and has been largely abandoned in current times” (Harris, 2006, p. 9). Many school systems around the country have attempted other types of desegregation approaches, with magnet schools being the most popular (Harris, 2006). Many school districts have used a combination of methods to keep student populations balanced and the skew of races diverse. Aside from magnet schools, these include building new schools where needed and taking advantage of technology by studying demographic information to adjust school plans, to include teacher hiring and grade assignments (Richer, 1998).

New Re-Segregation

Through their research, the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University has found that schools in some areas are actually re-segregating now that legal barriers are no longer in place. It is feared that this practice will weaken the thriving magnet schools in many areas as additional schools which are segregated by income and/or race are created (The Civil Rights Project, 2006).

For example, in 2012 the school system in Boston, Massachusetts, still heavily relied on busing to transport 64 percent of students out of their neighborhoods to different schools; most of these students are minorities with white children accounting for 13 percent of public school students and Latino and black students accounting for 42 and 35 percent, respectively. This means that students who live on the same street often attend different schools—schools that are determined by a race-blind computerized algorithm. One of the many criticisms of the system, aside from its high cost, is that it also limits aspects of community in regards to things like public safety and citizen relations. Overall in the United States during the 2009–2010 school year 80 percent of Latino students and 74 percent of black students attended schools where more than half of the students were minorities; over 40 percent of these students went to schools where minorities made up 90–100 percent of the population.

Our country's racial imbalance has not gone away and still shows up in our classrooms; the academic achievement disparity between white and minority students is still present. An evaluation of math and reading scores from students in about half the states came to the conclusion that at each grade level and in both math and reading, students enrolled in those schools in poorer economic areas improved less than those students in more economically advantaged areas (Ogletree, 2007). Harvard sociologist David J. Armor's research on the effect of busing in the cities of Boston, Massachusetts; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Riverside, California; New Haven, Connecticut; Hartford, Connecticut; and White Plains, New York concluded that there was no measurable improvement for students in important academic or social skills among those studied (Ozmun, 1972). “Contrary to popular belief, the average black child and average white child live in school districts that spend almost exactly the same per pupil” (Jacobs, 1999, ¶ 14).

Terms & Concepts

Brown v. Board of Education Topeka: Brown v. Board of Education Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision. In the Brown case, black parents in a Topeka, Kansas neighborhood were unable to enroll their children in a neighborhood school since it was an all-white school. Instead they were told their children needed to attend an all-black school outside the neighborhood. The Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional and the Court's decision is widely accepted at the beginning of busing and school desegregation.

Busing: Busing means transporting children to school outside their neighborhood, usually as a way of achieving racial balance.

Civil Rights: Civil rights are the legal protections of the rights of the people of a country. In the United States, these rights include the equal treatment of all citizens.

Contained Unit Plan: A contained unit plan is one in which all students arriving at a particular school on the same bus will attend classes together and without other students.

Desegregation: Desegregation means eliminating segregation -isolation by race.

Magnet School: A magnet school is a public school that offers a specialized curriculum.

Plessy v. Ferguson: Plessy v. Ferguson is a 1896 Supreme Court decision saying that separate facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were equal. This decision was overturned in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

Segregation: Segregation is the practice of isolating people by race.

Bibliography

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Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483. (1954). Retrieved September 30, 2007, from the National Center for Public Policy Research http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html

Brudnoy, D. (1975). Busing for the sake of busing. National Review, 27 , 282-299. Retrieved September 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=6055214&site=ehost-live

Bryant, S. Q. (1973). Why I do not like bussing. New York: Vantage Press.

Controversy in Congress over school busing. (1974). Congressional Digest, 53 , 99. Retrieved September 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=10578733&site=ehost-live

Danns, D. (2011). Northern desegregation: A tale of two cities. History Of Education Quarterly, 51, 77–104. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=57556873

Garrow, D. (2004). Why Brown still matters. The Nation, 278 , 45-50. Retrieved October 1, 2007, from The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040503/garrow/4

Green, M. (2006). From classroom to courtroom. American Educational History Journal, 33 , 27-33. Retrieved September 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=22926947&site=ehost-live

Harris, D. (2006). Lost learning, forgotten promises: A national analysis of school racial segregation, student achievement, and "school choice" plans. Washington, D. C.: Center for American Progress. Retrieved September 30, 2007, from American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/11/pdf/lostlearning.pdf

Hock, J. (2013). Bulldozers, busing, and boycotts: Urban renewal and the integrationist project. Journal Of Urban History, 39, 433–453. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=86693022

Jacoby, T. (1999, July 21). Beyond busing. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from the Manhattan Institute http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-beyond_busing.htm

Kelley, J. (1974). The politics of school busing. Public Opinion Quarterly, 38 , 23-39.

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Klarman, M. J. (2013). The supreme court of racial injustice. Chronicle Of Higher Education, 59, B11–B13. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=89166743

Mawdsley, R. (1987). Legal Aspects of Pupil Transportation. Topeka: National Organization on Legal Problems of Education.

Ogletree, Jr. C. (2007). The demise of Brown vs. Board of Education? Creating a blueprint to achieving racial justice in the 21st century. Crisis, 114 , 1-7. Retrieved September 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=24779507&site=ehost-live

Ozmun, H. (1972). Busing: A moral issue. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Report explores racial consequences of segregation. (2007). American School Board Journal, 194 , 7. Retrieved September 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=23639611&site=ehost-live

Richer, M. (1998). Busing's Boston massacre. Policy Review. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from the Hoover Institution http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3563642.html

Schwartz, B. (1986). Swann's Way. New York: Oxford Press.

The Civil Rights Project. (2006). Response to U. S. Supreme Court decision about voluntary school integration. Retrieved October 2, 2007, from Civil Rights Project http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/policy/court/voltint.php

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Suggested Reading

Bifulco, R., Buerger, C., & Cobb, C. (2012). Intergroup relations in integrated schools: A glimpse inside interdistrict magnet schools. Education Policy Analysis Archives,20 , 1–27. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=84358828

Dimond, P. R. (2005). Beyond busing: Reflections on urban segregation, the courts, and equal opportunity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Eaton, S. (2001). The other Boston busing story: What's won and lost across the boundary line. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Formisano, R. (2003). Boston against busing: Race, class, and ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gaillard, F. (2006). The dream long deferred: The landmark struggle for desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

Rubin, L. (1973). Busing and backlash: White against White in an urban school district. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sugrue, T. J. (2012). Northern lights: The black freedom struggle outside the south. OAH Magazine Of History, 26 , 9–15. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=70438751