[The information referred to follows:] THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF THE UNITED STATES, Hon. SAM J. ERVIN, DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: The League's opposition to so called "freedom of choice" school proposals is well known to you and the members of your subcommittee. Nevertheless, we must once again register our vigorous dissent to S. 1737 et. al. on which you are holding hearings this week. In effect, S 1737 repeals titles IV and VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by requiring courts and agencies to accept "freedom of choice" and prohibiting the courts and the Departments of HEW and Justice from applying current constitutional standards. League members are committed to providing every child equal opportunity for a quality education. To us, integration goes hand in hand with quality, and we are appalled that Congress should devote time and energy to repeated attacks on one method of achieving integration. A more important issue which should be claiming your attention is to insure that every student does indeed have access to a quality education. We therefore respectfully request that this letter registering the League's opposition to S 1737 be made part of the official hearing record. In addition, I submit for the record also a copy of my statement of March 2, 1972 before House Judiciary Subcommittee No. 5 in opposition to similar anti-busing proposals. Though the March 2 statement speaks to proposed constitutional amendments, the reasons given for League opposition apply whether a proposal is statutory or constitutional. Sincerely, Enclosure. LUCY WILSON BENSON, President. STATEMENT ON H.J. RES. 620 AND OTHER ANTI-DESEGREGATION AMENDMENTS BEFORE HOUSE JUDICIARY SUBCOMMITTEE No. 5 BY LUCY WILSON BENSON, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 2, 1972 I am Lucy Wilson Benson, President of the League of Women Voters of the United States, an organization with members in over 1,300 communities in all 50 States, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today in their behalf. I speak in opposition to all proposed constitutional amendments which either would prohibit outright the use of busing as a tool for school desegregation or would in other ways effectively limit the various means to achieve the goal we seek: integrated, quality education for all children. The League's commitment to equal educational opportunity runs deep. Our principles state explicitly: "The League of Women Voters believes that every citizen should have access to free public education which provides equal opportunity for all . . ." From these principles stems our position in favor of integrated, quality education. And we affirm that integration is an integral part of educational excellence. Furthermore, we support any reasonable method for reaching this goal. Leagues do more than examine issues and take positions. They are working hard and effectively, in all parts of the country, with every tool available to citizens, to bring this desegregated, quality education into being. For example, in the metropolitan areas of Boston, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut, local Leagues have supported METCO and PROJECT CONCERN, programs to transport children from the inner city to suburban schools, to correct racial imbalance and improve the children's educational opportunity. In California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, state Leagues have urged their states to play more constructive roles in providing solutions to school segregation and to show more leadership to local communities. Grassroots operations of our local Leagues have a tremendous impact on their respective communities. League members of Charlotte-Mecklenburg are not militants; nevertheless, they were vehement in their fight to see that their own and other children received better quality education. The League of Charlotte-Mecklenburg was not alone in its efforts. The entire League has, after intensive study and evaluation, committed itself to pursue actively those means which would guarantee quality education. With this common obligation in mind, the League of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the LWVUS, and the LWV of North Carolina joined the James E. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg case as amici in June 1970. Their decision to submit amicus curiae briefs in this case came only after the Charlotte school board's failure to draw up desegregation plans in compliance with a court order of April 1969. League members of Charlotte sent a statement to the school board in May encouraging them to formulate a workable plan for desegregation. The school board still did not formulate a plan for the Charlotte area, so the judge secured outside help to do so. Two plans were eventually drawn up. The Court approved a plan involving two-way busing to be effective April 1, 1970, and the school board immediately appealed the decision. In their efforts to curtail opposition to busing, League members talked to school board members, city and county officials, the Chamber of Commerce and the Superintendent of Schools. They also held open meetings daily during the summer of 1969 to keep citizens informed. Guided by the belief that education must be improved in the Charlotte area, the League compiled yet another report in January 1970 in which they found "that segregated schools lead to cultural deprivation of all children." Furthermore they said that "it was not enough to have a good educational opportunity for a portion of our children. . . . Charlotte-Mecklenburg County [must] make excellence in education her prime goal." League members saw themselves as an effective information center to help dispel fears harbored by parents in opposition to busing. They actively encouraged the positive responses of other organizations such as the Jaycees, the Ministerial Association and the PTA Council. League members also sponsored a candidates' meeting on educational television, and in numerous ways involved themselves in paving the way for orderly desegregation of their schools. Prior to and after its decision to join as amicus curiae in the Swann case, the League stressed the positive aspect of bettering education for all children, with desegregation being only a part of the total program. Following the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the District Court decision for busing, the League issued a statement in support of public education saying that "the agonies of adjustment are behind us and now is the time for Charlotte-Mecklenburg to make excellence in education her goal." At bottom, it is quality education for all that is the real national issue-not busing. Excellence in public education is a widely shared American goal, and has been for a long time. What keeps growing and changing is our understanding of what it takes to provide it—for everyone. We keep learning which past customs have been depriving children of a good education-and depriving the nation of the fruits of that education. The nation has just been through an 18-year learning process to grasp a single fact: Separate can't be equal. And the League of Women Voters stands firmly with the arguments set forth by the Court in Brown v. the Board of Education. Our courts have continually reiterated the Brown decision of 1954 in which it was declared that separate school systems are inherently unequal. This decision was of historic significance in that it declared illegal a nationwide attempt to segregate black and white public school children because of race. It knocked down the notion that segregation by race in public schools was desirable or even beneficial to black or white youth. Its application meant that each child should have equal access to the education resources of the school system in which he resided, regardless of his racial or socioeconomic background. In giving life to the Fourteenth Amendment as it pertains to school desegregation, the Brown decision reinforced Thomas Wolfe's statement that the right "to become whatever [one's ability] and vision can combine to make . . . is the promise of America." But the courts have continually had to reaffirm the original principle spelled out in Brown. They have also had to deal with sophisticated and invidious artificial barriers to school desegregation-gerrymandered school attendance zones, discriminatory zoning practices in housing, tracking and ability grouping of students, and assignments of faculty and staff on a racial basis. In Brown II (1955) the Court addressed itself to the question of implementing the principles outlined in Brown I. Essentially the Court said that school systems should work out local problems created by deeply entrenched dual school systems with "all deliberate speed." Thirteen years later in Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Va. the Supreme Court ruled that the "freedom of choice" method of desegregation was no true freedom. The Court ordered the school board to devise a plan that would promise to convert promptly to a system without a "white" school and a "negro" (sic) school. Green added another important ingredient in that the Court not only sought a desegregation plan that would work, but one that would work without further delay. Another lesson in Americanism learned. In Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969) the Court ruled that it was the "obligation of every school district . . . to terminate dual school systems at once and operate now and hereafter only unitary schools." One more lesson. Recent court cases-and one decision—are now challenging the property tax as the base for public school support. Plainly, a basic injustice has surfaced to worry the public conscience: as long as schools are mainly financed by property taxes, poor neighborhoods (minority and white) will generally have worse schools than wealthy neighborhoods. For years we thought that was just the way it had to be. Now we don't. Still another lesson-though not all the homework is done. Let us return now to the historic Swann decision. Swann challenged the nation to go beyond a narrow position of self-interest in considering, once and for all, whether we really want quality education for all our children. The 1971 Swann decision went further than any other previous decision in laying out instructions for dealing with the realities of implementation. Speaking to the issue of attendance zones and the issue of residence and "neighborhood schools" the Court said: "All things being equal, with no history of discrimination, it might well be desirable to assign pupils to schools nearest their homes. But all things are not equal in a system that has been deliberately constructed and maintained to enforce racial segregation. The awkwardness of the remedy cannot be avoided in the interim period when remedial adjustments are being made to eliminate the dual school systems." The Court spoke directly to the issue which ostensibly provoked these hearings: busing. In its unanimous decision, the Court found "no basis for holding that the local school authorities may not be required to employ bus transportation as one tool of desegregation." This lesson, it appears, some would have us unlearn. Since 1954, the Court has been our chief teacher-a classic role. It has consistently maintained that dual but separate schools are inherently unequal. The principle of equal access to quality education for all children stems from that initial decision, refined by later decisions about mechanisms. Clearly the court decisions have not been capricious in nature; they have declared unalterably and without doubt that not only must children be afforded every means to obtain equal educational opportunities, but that blocking this effort is illegal. We find it sad to be here today recapitulating the Court history. Yet, the need to do so points up one very obvious fact. Those who want to see the law on school desegregation upheld have consistently had to go the courts, even though administrative enforcement powers exist under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and have proven to be effective when exercised. But the Administration, federal agencies and legislators have been reluctant to use these enforcement powers and to set forth positive legislation which transcends partisan politics and parochial emotionalism. As a result, the decisions made by the Supreme Court and District Courts stand as the most binding national policy this Nation has regarding school integration. And it is to the courts we have had to turn for reason and guidance. The League affirms the Swann decision in maintaining that busing is a tool that must be held available to remedy serious inequities in education. We hold, with Swann, that it is a permissible, though not a required tool, in dismantling a dual educational system. Perhaps it is not the best tool. It certainly is not the only tool-and emphatically, it is not a new tool. The proposed amendments appear to speak to the desires of many parents, both white and black, who argue that busing destroys the right to neighborhood schools and denies freedom of choice. Admittedly, there are arguments in favor of neighborhood schools. Children can easily participate in after-school activities. Parents can readily attend PTA. Inclement weather becomes less of a problem. The position of the school as an integral part of the community is established. Parents feel more comfortable, less fearful, knowing their children are in a school close to home. Yet at the same time we all know that busing has been the tool of choice for many years, to get rural children out of their neighborhoods with their oneroom schools and into consolidated schools where, presumably, they could have better facilities, a more varied program, better qualified teachers, and a less isolated school experience. Even now in suburbia, the high school where no bus pulls up to the door is a rarity. From personal experience, I might add, as a secondgrader in Dallas, Texas, I was bused clear across town and no one was disturbed about whether or not this was too much for me to endure. Furthermore, neither my parents nor I had any say whatsoever about the decision. So busing can't be all bad. Total miles traveled have not increased as a result of desegregation, even though, as is to be expected, the number of children traveling has grown both as a result of a larger school population and greater consolidation of school districts. In the 1960-61 school year 13,106,779 public school children out of a total public school population of 36,281,000 rode a total of 11⁄2 billion miles on buses. Some 186,000 vehicles were used at a total public expense of $505,754,515. Ten years later, in the 1970-71 school year, some 19,617,600 public school children out of a total public school population of 45,905,000 rode a total of 2.2 billion miles. Some 256,000 vehicles were used at a total public expense of $990,000,000.* Last year the national picture showed 40% of our public school children— 65% when you include those using public transportation-rode to school each day for reasons that have nothing to do with school desegregation. We can only conclude that the neighborhood school, though desirable as an aid to quality education, is not a precondition for it. Nor do we discover much of a history of freedom-of-choice attendance on the American public education scene. And in all this we have not yet mentioned the long years that black children, North as well as South, were bused past one public school to a more distant and often inferior one. Where were the outcries then, the constitutional amendments, the tender sensibilities about neighborhood schools and parental rights and freedom of choice? The members of the League of Women Voters are deeply concerned over the hysteria developing around the question of busing school children. Studied reason appears to have been lost to the pressure of emotional reaction sweeping the country. Both the Administration and Congress have responded to this hysteria with an equivalent emotion rather than with the responsible leadership one would hope for in view of the desperate need to heal the divisions among Americans rather than to exacerbate them. Parents' fears are real that their children will receive an inferior education or suffer violence at the end of the bus line. The level heads among us share a responsibility for calming those fears by encouraging every citizen to play a role in his community to carry out our constitutional goals. There is so much that can be done to reduce these fears, and many school districts have handled it very well. If two-way busing requires temporary use of an older building, there is no reason for the quality of the curriculum or the teaching to be inferior if the local school board insists upon uniformly high standards. The problem of confrontation and violence also can be reduced to a low minimum if there is careful preparation, good leadership, and good will in the community. And let us remind ourselves that there is virtually no problem of racial violence among young school children. The deep-seated anxieties of many Americans concerning busing and racial integration can best be reduced by a new dedication to quality education and not by setting the clock back. And setting the clock back is exactly what these constitutional amendments do. They aren't just about busing. Some require courts and agencies to accept "freedom of choice" which was rejected by the Supreme Court and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. These amendments would effectively repeal Title VI. Other amendments attempt to preserve the "neighborhood school" principle, thereby legalizing segregation (and dual school systems) which occurs as a result of residence patterns. Others prohibit requiring transportation to achieve integration or the use of public funds for this purpose. These amendments, as they apply to federal agencies, would effectively repeal Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by prohibiting the Departments of HEW and Justice from applying current constitutional standards. *Figures obtained from Vance Grant, HEW, and David Soule, Pupil Transportation, Department of Transportation. The League contends that the proposed constitutional amendments offer only a nonsolution to a very real educational problem: that we as a Nation have failed to provide quality education to all children regardless of residence, race, class, creed, sex, or national origin. Nor do the Green, Broomfield and Ashbrook amendments attached to the House-passed Higher Education and Quality Integration Act address themselves to the problems of providing quality education or equal access to it. These are called anti-busing amendments but in reality they are anti-civil-rights amendments. Not only do they not address the problem; they propose to roadblock possible attempts to solve it. A closer look at H.J. Res. 620 makes this readily apparent. This proposal, couched in pseudo-civil-rights rhetoric, provides that no public school student shall, because of his race, creed or color, be assigned to or required to attend a particular school. This proposal runs directly counter to the whole thrust of law developing since 1954. Especially it is contrary to Green in that it seeks to resurrect a false freedom of choice that perpetuates old wrongs that spring from segregated residential patterns. For it is not enough to create a unitary school system in which no person is to be effectively excluded from any school because of his race or color. Besides opposing H.J. Res. 620 for its substance and intent, we oppose it and others like it because we share the alarm of leaders like Governor Reubin Askew of Florida, who warns: "It is very dangerous under emotional circumstances to tamper with the U.S. Constitution." The members of this Committee do not have to be given a lesson in constitutional theory. We all know that a constitution is designed as a statement of broad principles omitting details, especially those born of particular controversies. The U.S. Constitution has worked well for nearly 200 years with few alterations because it does not contain provisions which become outdated. To be sure, busing as a means to correct racial imbalance is late to the scene. But in evaluating its use, it is well to remember that as more years go by without effective school desegregation, the need for shortcuts increases. What might have satisfied in 1955 cannot satisfy now. The accent has had to shift from deliberate to immediate speed, particularly in those places where an entire generation has been born and has finished high school with pretty much the same segregated and inferior schooling that was imposed on their elders. Besides which, over the years our perceptions grow keener, not dimmer, in these matters. We discern the interior and the subtly segregationist and racist where we may not have perceived it fifteen or even ten years ago. Residential integration would, of course, obviate this kind of busing. But a whole generation or more cannot wait. The six-year-old child starting first grade in a poor neighborhood, a minority neighborhood, has only that one year to be in first grade, only one childhood in which to claim his birthright to a good public education. While the struggle to open the gates of suburbia with its invisible but sturdy walls of class and race exclusivism goes on, today's poor children must go to good schools. Busing offers one immediate access to better education. Unpopular though busing may be, it is the only alternative within the means of some communities to achieve a measure of integration for this generation. The question is: Will we become mired in the busing issue or do we turn our energies toward raising the level of public education offered to every child in America? Leadership must be exercised by our elected public officials to guide the present discussion along rational lines. To act favorably on H.J. Res. 620 or similar amendments could only imply withdrawal of congressional support, under emotional pressure, for efforts undertaken already to integrate our schools. The League of Women Voters therefore urges the members of this Committee and of the entire Congress not to be party to such a disaster. Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee as I have said, I am Clarence Mitchell. I appear to voice our organization's opposition to S. 179, S. 287, S. 619, and S. 1737. I got here as Senator Helms was testifying, and I am not certain that I had seen his bill because I did not hear the number of it, but I did hear him say that under the terms of his bill the courts would be deprived of jurisdiction after the lapse of a year from the date of their decisions. If that is so, I would say certainly it would be an unfortunate development in Ameri |