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Court order, Adams v. Richardson__.

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Excerpt from "The Civil Rights Record of the Nixon Administra-
tion," Notre Dame Lawyer, October 1973..

Footnote from 88 Supreme Court Reporter.

Footnote from 91 Supreme Court Reporter_

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Letter and statement from Lucy W. Benson, president, the League
of Women Voters of the United States_

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Preyer, Hon. Richardson, U.S. Representative from North Carolina:

H.R. 10991_

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BUSING OF SCHOOLCHILDREN

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1974

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 1318, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. (chairman), presiding.

Present: Senators Ervin, Gurney, Mathias.

Also present: William E. Pursley, Jr., chief counsel, Senate Subcommittee on Revision and Codification of Laws.

Senator ERVIN. The Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights will come to order.

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Today the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights begins a 3-day series of hearings to consider the problem of the forced busing of schoolchildren designed to achieve "racial balance" in the public schools and various legislative proposals introduced in the Senate to put an end to this unfortunate practice. We will give special consideration to four bills which have been referred to this subcommittee for study-S. 179, S. 287, S. 619, and S. 1737, which Senator James Allen of Alabama, and I introduced.

During the 19 years I have served in the U.S. Senate, I can think of no group of people who have stood in greater need of relief from Government tyranny than the thousands of innocent, little schoolchildren who are being bused to schools many miles away from their neighborhoods in order to satisfy the social theories of Federal bureaucrats and to comply with constitutionally unsound Federal court orders. Under the guise of enforcing the 14th amendment's "equal protection" clause, these bureaucrats and Federal courts have undermined any reasonable understanding of the fundamental principle of "equal protection of the law." Although there are pious assertions to the contrary, what has in fact occurred is the assignment and transportation of schoolchildren to public schools on the basis of race in order to achieve a certain, specified "racial balance." In my sincere opinion, this is absolutely contrary to "equal protection of the law."

Community after community throughout America has been threatened with the destruction of their neighborhood schools. Thousands of parents-black and white-and I might add Chinese-have worried about the safety and health of their children as they daily negotiate long, arduous bus rides, often commencing in the darkness of

early morning and ending in the dusk of late afternoon or evening. There has been a significant and dangerous exodus from the public schools by children whose parents simply will not risk the hazards attendant to these long and tiring bus rides. The cry of protest and the plea for relief are now heard from almost every quarter of America. These hearings represent an effort to examine the impact of this senseless, forced busing of schoolchildren to achieve "racial balance" and to consider legislative methods which will effectively put an end to this horrible tyranny. It is my earnest hope that the testimony taken during the course of our hearings will help us to understand more clearly the urgency of enacting legislation which will truly insure "equal protection of the law" for the schoolchildren of America.

I would like for the four bills referred to in this statement to be printed in full in the record of these hearings and to this end I make copies of these four bills available to the reporter.

[The above referred to bills follow:]

93D CONGRESS 1ST SESSION

S. 179

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JANUARY 4, 1973

Mr. GRIFFIN introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts to issue busing orders based on race, and for other purposes.

1

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa

2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 That this Act may be cited as the "Student Antibusing Act

4 of 1973".

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LIMITATIONS ON FEDERAL COURTS AND AGENCIES

SEC. 2. (a) No court of the United States shall have 7 jurisdiction to make any decision, enter any judgment, or 8 issue any order the effect of which would be to require that 9 pupils be transported to or from school on the basis of their 10 race, color, religion, or national origin.

11 (b) No department, agency, officer, or employee of the

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1 United States, empowered to extend Federal financial as2 sistance to any program or activity at any school by way of 3 grant, loan, or otherwise, shall withhold or threaten to with4 hold any such Federal financial assistance in order to coerce

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or induce the implementation or continuation of any plan

or program the effect of which would be to require that

7 pupils be transported to or from school on the basis of their

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race, color, religion, or national origin.

(c) Notwithstanding any other law or provision of law, 10 in the case of any order on the part of any United States dis11 trict court the effect of which is or would be to require that 12 pupils be transported to or from school on the basis of race, 13 color, religion, or national origin, the effectiveness of such 14 order shall be postponed until all appeals in connection with 15 such order have been exhausted or, in the event no appeals are taken, until the time for such appeals has expired.

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EXPEDITED JUDICIAL DETERMINATION

SEC. 3. (a) The district courts of the United States 19 shall have and shall exercise jurisdiction of proceedings in20 volving the validity or applicability of section 2 of this Act 21 and in any such proceeding the Attorney General may file 22 with the clerk of such court a request that a court of three 23 judges be convened to hear and determine the case. Such 24 request by the Attorney General shall be accompanied by

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