7

1 conformity with a freedom of choice system, or requiring any 2 school board to close any school and transfer the students 3 from the closed school to any other school for the purpose of 4 altering the racial composition of the student body at any 5 public school, or precluding any school board from carrying 6 into effect any provision of any contract between it and any 7 member of the faculty of any public school it operates spec8 ifying the public school where the member of the faculty 9 is to perform his or her duties under the contract."

Senator ERVIN. Senator Gurney, do you have a statement?
Senator GURNEY. Yes.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. GURNEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Senator GURNEY. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be a part of these important hearings on legislation designed to prohibit this obnoxious practice of forced busing.

This issue is not new to any of us. As a matter of fact, looking back over Senate floor action for the past 5 years, I would venture to say that busing has consistently been a major subject of debate and rollcall votes. The problem is that we always seem to approach the busing question through amendments to other bills, rather than through the normal committee procedure.

As one who has introduced and cosponsored a number of bills and amendments to prohibit forced busing, I am particularly pleased that we are finally giving this national issue its "day in committee." I sincerely hope this subcommittee, and the full Judiciary Committee will follow through on this issue, and that we will be able to bring legislation to the floor for Senate action this year.

There is no doubt about the fact that we must provide a quality integrated education system for all of our youngsters. The well-being of our Nation, and the caliber of our future leaders requires such an investment. I firmly believe that forced busing is not the answer to this need.

Furthermore, I feel that a majority of the American people share this sentiment. In a Gallup poll taken in 1971, opposition to forced busing measured an overwhelming 77 percent on a national level. In March of 1972, a straw ballot referendum relating to forced busing, on the Presidential primary ballot in Florida reflected my own State's opposition to forced busing at a rate of nearly 3 to 1-or approximately 75 percent. Even the Civil Rights Commission admitted that a poll they conducted showed 70 percent of those interviewed opposed to forced busing. This is just a sampling of a great number of polls taken throughout the country-similar polls with similar results. And if the will of the people is not enough to convince those who represent them, there are a host of studies, such as those done by the Policy Institute of Syracuse, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and by David J. Armor at Harvard, which conclude that forced busing is not improving education and that it is increasing racial tension. These studies deal with the empirical evidence-the facts-and the facts show that forced busing is simply not working. Forced busing is as morally wrong as the problem it seeks to alleviate. It is physically and motionally detrimental to those involved. It increases racial tension. It does not improve education, and the cost to the taxpayers is staggering.

Now as if the preceding list of negatives is not enough, we must also consider the fact that forced busing is escalating our energy crisis.

Consider, for example, that in Jacksonville, Fla., the number of buses required to transport students under court order increased from 200 to 423.

If the Chairman will permit me, in Charlotte, N.C., a court order increased school transportation costs from $784,000 to $1.6 million— and that was before the real fuel crunch began.

To the motorist who sits in line for 2 hours every week waiting for gas-assuming, that is, that he can find a station that has gas-it is infuriating to know that his child's schoolbus may be traveling 30 to 40 unnecessary miles a day with no fuel problems.

This needless waste of energy may well be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and I for one will be glad to see it break.

The bills we are considering today represent the statutory approach to prohibiting forced busing. Last April, the Judiciary Committee heard testimony on several proposed constitutional amendments to accomplish this purpose. In view of past history on this issue, my own inclination is that the amendment route, although more cumbersome and time consuming, may prove to be the only sure way to accomplish our purpose. I say this because I have watched the courts time and again strike down every law we have passed to prohibit forced busing. I am always hopeful, however, that Congress will find some way to stop this dangerous practice, and I will actively support any effort, statutory or constitutional, to bring this about.

Senator ERVIN. I might add that I favor statutes to put an end to this tyranny immediately, and a constitutional amendment to put an end to it forever.

I am reminded somewhat of a story about the man who was away from home and received a telegram from his undertaker saying, "Your mother-in-law died today, shall we cremate or bury?" He wired back and said, "Take no chances: Cremate and bury."

I would cremate first by legislation and then bury by constitutional amendment.

Senator GURNEY. That is a good story, to the point, and I certainly agree with him.

Senator ERVIN. At Senator Hruska's request I would like to have printed at this point in the record a statement by Senator Hruska. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROMAN L. HRUSKA, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Mr. Chairman, it is with great interest that I note the commencement of hearings on a number of measures which would provide for certain statutory limitations on Federal courts to formulate desegregation decrees. It is my sincere hope that these hearings will provide the Congress with additional views, arguments, and insights on an issue of substantial importance to all our citizens.

Since the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this Nation has been engaged in a most complex, and at times turbulent process of carrying out the judicial decree of the High Court and the will of the Congress. The struggle over the constitutional issue of the division of powers between the Federal Government and the States has resulted in a patchwork of judicial decisions. The formulation of a wide variety of decrees to achieve desegregation in our public schools has also hindered the uniform application of the statutes and case law.

Previous congressional efforts to provide statutory limitations on the discretionary equity jurisdiction of U.S. district court judges have foundered on the issue of Federal intervention in de facto school segregation situations. In the past there has been extended debate on the question of the power of the Federal Government's involvement in this area. Today, however, these hearings focus on one specific issue, whether or not U.S. district court judges should be limited by congressional statute in the exercise of their equity power jurisdiction. I commend the chairman, and the other sponsors of the measures under consideration, for once more pursuing an examination of this most complex issue.

Each of the measures before the subcommittee offers possible statutory limitations on the equity jurisdiction of U.S. district court judges in the exercise of their judicial responsibilities. Although the means to achieving a common end may differ between these bills, their thrust and direction are consistent. That thrust and direction is to provide a sound congressional solution to assist Federal district court judges in carrying out their statutory duties within the framework of the due process guarantees of the Constitution.

The many issues raised by the metropolitan area remedies handed down by the district courts in the Richmond and Detroit cases compel a long overdue legislative response. The decisions in these cases clearly exemplify the great dangers of attempting to redress through the schools denials of opportunity whose roots lie in complex combinations of decisions and practices over many generations in the fields of housing, employment, transportation, business licensing, and law enforcement. At a time when there is growing recognition of the need for regional cooperation in metropolitan areas to resolve a wide variety of social, economic, and environmental issues, the effect of these metropolitan-wide desegregation remedies is to put adjacent political jurisdictions in conflict and to reinforce antiurban attitudes in State legislatures.

Mr. Chairman, from February 1970 until the end of 1972 I served as the ranking minority Member of the Senate Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity. This committee was charged with studying "the effectiveness of existing laws and policies in assuring equality of educational opportunity, including policies of the United States with regard to segregation on the grounds of color or national origin and to examine the extent to which policies are applied uniformly in all regions of the United States."

The Select Committee's work was crowdeed by events in 1971 and 1972. Sharp Senate and House debates over the emergency school aid program, and numerous attempts to resolve busing issues in the course of handling major education legislation, put many members of the Select Committee in the role of shapers as well as students of policy on equal educational opportunity.

Indeed, many features of the proposals before the subcommittee received their initial formulation during that turbulent period.

In minority views on the Select Committee's Report, I was joined by the senior Senator from Colorado, Mr. Dominick, and the senior Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Cook. Several points which we expressed at the end of 1972, after 2 years of labor on this vexing subject, seem especially pertinent as the subcommittee searches for criteria to guide the district courts in shaping desegregation remedies:

Experience since the 1954 Brown decision has taught us that desegregated schools are not by themselves a sufficient precondition for quality education.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the integration of low-achieving black or other minority children with low-achieving whites does not necessarily result in quality education.

It is generally accepted that incentives to truly integrated education of high quality must be provided by the Federal Government, and that standards for truly integrated schools must be applied impartially in all regions of the country. The emergency school aid program (title VII of Public Law 92-318) helps to serve these purposes and can provide valuable guidance to the Nation in resolving the complex and divisive issues which obstruct bringing us together.

Congress will have to weigh the major education decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973 in shaping a strategy and legislation for stable quality integrated education. Should the need remain, in light of these decisions, we favor acceptable legislation seeking the kinds of purposes advanced during 1972 in the administration's proposed Equal Educational Opportunities Act.

Those in the Congress seeking to improve elementary and secondary education in the United States must find ways for the Federal Government to assist financially pressed school districts so that adequate resources will be available and can be effectively used to meet the special educational needs of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the handicapped. It is these approaches which will ultimately result in quality education for all children. Such measures as the involuntary transportation of children to schools many miles from their homes will hamper rather than help progress toward these goals.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, we saw the need to proceed simultaneously on several fronts:

1. Incentives and aids to State and local school districts in the area of compensatory and remedial education. (This subject will receive considerable attention during 1974 in action on major elementary and secondary education legislation.)

2. Learning from our desegregation experiences, and

3. Shaping legislation which would, along with broad compensatory programs, address the need for legislative criteria to guide the fashioning of judicial remedies.

On the question of civil rights enforcement, and thus necessarily the question of judicial remedies, we made the following comments. I believe they suggest the spirit with which the subcommittee should approach the search for legislative criteria:

Any appraisal of the turbulent history of civil rights enforcement, since the 1954 Brown decision, will be affected by convictions concerning the proper and effective use of governmental enforcement to redress specific cases of legally defined discrimination—a use which we strongly uphold, and to moderate abhorrent prejudicial social values and attitudes.

In our judgment, the Nation now suffers in the area of school desegregation from tendencies to invoke governmental enforcement powers-well beyond the proper redressing of legally defined discrimination-for interventions in extremely complex conflicts of social values and attitudes. These conflicts, with deep roots in our national history, are reflected in our emerging pluralistic national culture, and, in the cultures carried to our shores by the many races and peoples who created this still-young Nation.

We believe that, in the troubled area of educational discrimination, clearer distinctions must be made between legal imperatives—subject to measured jus30-623 0-74—3