The three school boards are appealing this decision to the Supreme Court. Based on what has happened in other areas, we will very likely have massive busing by this fall. As a mother of three daughters, I am deeply concerned about the education of my children. Not only am I concerned about by own children, but all children, and as the Senator said, the people in Jefferson County, Ky., are very concerned, by the response of the telegrams. The citizens of Kentucky feel the forced busing issue throughout our country is most serious. As parents, one of the most important concerns of our life is our children. We believe it is our duty to care for our children to the best of our ability, whereas it is the duty of our public school system to provide the best education possible and we also feel it is the duty of our elected officials to protect the constitutional rights of our children. The majority of people are not opposed to integration, but are opposed to the method being forced upon us to achieve integration. The people in Kentucky feel the real issue is quality education for all children. This is not a racial issue and we certainly would hope not a political issue. It is true, some districts are rich in children, but poor with poverty, but because some of our children must suffer from poverty, should we insist the rest suffer along with them? Every child should be given the opportunity to obtain a quality education regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin. Too much emphasis is placed on where a child attends school. We believe this emphasis should be on the quality of education, not on school location or the ratio of black or white children. The money being spent on forced busing could and should be spent to improve the substandard schools. A quality education is determined by the quality of teachers, administrators, and curriculum. Forced busing has proven to be more discriminatory to the underprivileged child for whom it was originally intended to benefit. The children being transported many miles from home are deprived from participating in school activities. In many instances, extracurricular school activities are the only available recreation for a child on the poverty level. Forced busing has only changed the children's environment during school hours. When school hours are over, these same children are forced back into an environment more dismal than the one from which they came, because they cannot afford transportation to school sponsored functions. Their neighborhood schools are no longer the center of community activities. Forced busing has created an economic segregation. In areas where it has been instituted, parents who could afford to, have enrolled their children in private schools to avoid crosstown busing, thereby segregating the underprivileged from the more affluent. The education of every American child, whether he be black or white, is a very personal matter to his parents. We believe the freedom of choice concerning the education of our children should not be available only to the affluent. We believe that parental involvement in the public school system is very important to the school system, the community, the child, and the parent. Our better schools today are the schools in which the parents are actively involved. In areas where forced busing exists, parental involvement is practically nonexistent. This we believe has been the cause of a marked increase in emotional disturbances in children. They no longer have the security resulting from a close knit home, church, community, and school involvement. Forced busing is not in the best interest of children. The sole purpose of our educational system is to train our youth for the challenges of tomorrow. The use of educational funds for forced busing decreases the funds for educational purposes, thereby downgrading the quality of education rather than enhancing it. As God in His wisdom has only given us 24 hours in a day to utilize, whereby we find 8 hours for the service of God and a distressed worthy human being, 8 hours for our usual vocation, and 8 hours for refreshment and sleep; forcing any child to spend any part of that 24 hours wastefully and needlessly is an injustice in that that time can never be regained. We believe that forced busing is depriving 90 percent of the American people of their civil rights and is unconstitutional. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown v. Board of Education, that separate but equal facilities were unconstitutional. The Court held it was a violation of the 14th amendment for a State to require segregated schools. Our country accepts the legal doctrine that forcible segregation deprives our citizens of equal protection of the laws, but nothing in the Brown case requires forcible integration, that is, the mixing of whites and blacks or other races in the public schools to achieve a so-called racial balance. There are no Federal or State laws saying that the public schools must have a racial balance or which require the busing of pupils to achieve a racial balance. In fact, the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 clearly outlaws assigning children to any public school on the basis of color. To assign a child to a school solely by virtue of his race in this most important aspect of his young life is to execute racism, State imposed racism, not essentially different from the pre-Brown decision. We believe forced busing is an insult to children; there is the underlying assumption that black children will be upgraded and motivated if they sit beside white children and that society will be improved thereby. There is nothing in the history of man or government to support this theory. The whole concept is presumptuous and self-defeating. The stated presumption of the busing issue is to achieve equality. We are all created equal, and there it ends. All children are not equal in ability, financial status, or even physical appearance. If such equality is ever achieved, we will have a nation of robots. That all people should remain equal throughout life is not the principle of a democracy. Should we no longer teach our children the meaning of the word "incentive" and teach them to abandon the American dream that by working hard you can improve your status in life? The rights of 90 percent of the American people are being denied when courts order forced busing. Civil rights are those rights belonging to the people, all people. Forced busing is not equal protection of the law, it is equal discrimination under the law. We live in a violent prone, permissive type of society in which the rights of the individual are zealously protected. Individual rights are a trademark of today's citizens and the forced implementation of any idea, by its very nature causes polarization. In essence, the courts have said you have the right to decide for yourself whom you worship or whether you worship at all, the right to vote or not to vote, the right to agree or disagree and even the right to wear your hair the length of your choice and we guard each of these rights jealously. Yet, with all these rights, suddenly the basic right to send your children to their neighborhood schools is denied simply because past injustices were done. In the past, children in the public school systems have been segregated on the basis of color. This was wrong then, but it is just as wrong today to place children in a public school solely on the basis of their color, whether the purpose be to segregate or to integrate the system. What our country needs today is a better understanding between the peoples of our country. Unfortunately, a better understanding cannot be legislated. We will be the first to agree prejudices do exist in both the black and white races, but we do not believe this to be the basis on which people are objecting to the forced busing of students to obtain a racial balance. The reasons for objecting to this are many and varied, but the principal reason being that it is depriving parents of the right to determine what is best for their children. Parents object to their children being used for social experimentation and this is an experiment which has not proved successful in other areas. Those who advocate busing may be motivated by the best of intentions to achieve quality education, social unity, or whatnot. There is no occasion to doubt that they sincerely and genuinely believe that what they seek is good. But there always have been and probably always will be, those who have a great urge to plan and prescribe what they deem to be best for everybody. In that process they are often quite willing, consciously or unconsciously, to override any individual liberties that stand in the way of what they consider beneficial and desirable. Daniel Webster said: "It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." Forced busing violates the basic concept of our American democracy as stated in the Bill of Rights because, "The people rule, and they can rule wisely only if they have an opportunity to make up their own minds." We hope that Congress will heed the will of the people and immediately pass legislation to stop this discriminatory forced busing of children. Thank you again for this opportunity to appear before this committee and convey to you the feelings of the majority of Kentuckians. Senator ERVIN. I wish to commend you on the excellence of your statement. Do you not believe that the overwhelming majority of American parents of all races-are opposed to forced busing? Mrs. RUFFRA. Yes, sir, I do. Senator ERVIN. In San Francisco where a substantial part of the population is of Chinese ancestry the court wanted to force busing and the Chinese parents said that they wanted to preserve for the benefit of their children, their own culture. Do you not believe that is true of most American parents regardless of which particular group they are a part? Mrs. RUFFRA. Yes, sir. Senator ERVIN. Do you not believe that the strength and the greatness of America arises out of diversity of people rather than out of making them think the same thoughts and agree on the same propositions? Mrs. RUFFRA. Yes, sir. Senator ERVIN. The Supreme Court of the United States declared, in one case, that parents have a particular right with respect to the question of whether their children should go to school. That was a case involving the issue of whether a State can pass a law requiring children to go to public schools as counterdistinguished from church schools. Do you not believe that the American parents love their children more than any other human beings on this earth, and for that reason, are more interested in their education than those whose main desire it is to make guinea pigs out of them? Mrs. RUFFRA. Yes, sir, I do. Senator ERVIN. Thank you very much for a most illuminating statement. Senator Cook. Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank you for having invited me here and I would like to ask the indulgence of the subcommittee since I am not a member, that Mrs. Riley, who is president of the State Parent-Teachers Association, could insert a statement. Senator ERVIN. The committee will be delighted. The committee is delighted to have you here at this time. [The material referred to follows:] KENTUCKY CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, Senator MARLOW W. Cook, Washington, D.C. FOURTEENTH DISTRICT, February 22, 1974. DEAR SENATOR COOK: Please insert the following information into the hearing record for Senate Bill 1737 : At the regular meeting of the Fourteenth District PTA, on February 6, 1974, the following resolution was adopted by the delegates: "Whereas, the Fourteenth District PTA does not oppose integration, but does oppose busing of children across the county to achieve this integration, therefore, be it "Resolved, that the Fourteenth District PTA supports the Jefferson County Board of Education in its appeal to the Supreme Court to hold the District Court ruling that school district boundaries are sacred." The Fourteenth District PTA is composed of the 95 PTA units in the Jefferson County System. We currently have over 50,000 members. It may be of further interest to you that at the 1972 National Convention, the following resolution was adopted: "Whereas, the PTA recognizes that the learning process is a continuing one, and "Whereas, the community school may be the vehicle for realizing the full potential of every individual, regardless of age, and "Whereas, the philosophic principle that the public schools belong to the people of the community may become a reality under this program, and "Whereas, the community school integrates insofar as possible the community's educational, social, physical, recreational and health programs for children, youth and adults, be it therefore "Resolved, that the National PTA and all its branches promote the development of the community school program to more fully utilize the public school facilities." I surely appreciate your efforts in regard to this matter. Sincerely yours, MRS. PAT DOLACK. President. Hon. MARLOW COOK, FIFTH DISTRICT OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, Senator, Old Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR COOK: The following position was taken by representatives of the Fifth District PTA (Lou. City School Units) at their meeting February 14, 1974. "The Fifth District PTA is opposed to involuntary busing of students". Mrs. RUFFRA. Thank you very much. Mrs. ORVILLE CASEY, President. Senator ERVIN. The next witness is Stephen Horn, who represents the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. TESTIMONY OF DR. STEPHEN HORN, VICE CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS; ACCOMPANIED BY LARRY GLICK, ACTING GENERAL COUNSEL, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS; JOHN BUGGS, STAFF DIRECTOR, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS; AND CAROLINE F. DAVIS, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION DIVISION, U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have a rather lengthy statement which, if we could insert it in the record, I would be delighted to summarize for you for your convenience. Senator ERVIN. That will be all right. The statement will be printed in full in the body of the record. [The prepared statement of Stephen Horn follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN HORN, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, ON S. 1737, THE STUDENT FREEDOM OF CHOICE Аст Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am Stephen Horn, Vice Chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. I wish to thank you for the opportunity to testify on S. 1737, the "Student Freedom of Choice Act" and related legislation which would constrain the constitutionally mandated desegregation of our Nation's schools. With me today are the Commission's Staff Director, John A. Buggs, our Acting General Counsel, Lawrence B. Glick and Caroline F. Davis, Director of the Commission's Education Division. S. 1737 is one of a number of proposals which attempt, through Congressional action to prevent or to limit further efforts to desegregate the Nation's public schools. In fact, S. 1737 is one of 50 separate House and Senate bills, Joint and Concurrent Resolutions, currently before the 93rd Congress, which addresses the question of busing for purposes of desegregation. The Commission on Civil Rights has consistently opposed such legislation and our publications on this subject have been straight-forward and exact in setting forth our views in this area. In addition to responding to individual requests from Members of the Congress, the Commission has testified or submitted a statement no less than four times during the 92nd Congress and the 93rd Congress on the so-called "busing issue." In his testimony of July 28, 1972 on "The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972" the Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, President of the Notre Dame University and long time Member and Chairman of the Commission, raised a series of critical questions on the whole issue of antibusing legislation. Father Hesburgh said, and I quote: "If this measure is designed to implement the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court requiring desegregation of racially segregated schools, it fails. If it is |