BUSING OF SCHOOLCHILDREN WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1974 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 3302, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. (chairman), presiding. Present: Senator Ervin. Also present: William E. Pursley, Jr., chief counsel, Senate Subcommittee on Revision and Codification of Law. Senator ERVIN. The subcommittee will come to order. Since yesterday the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has referred to this subcommittee an additional bill designed to prohibit the involuntary busing of schoolchildren for integration purposes. This is Senate bill S. 2336, introduced by my colleague, Senator Helms. We will insert a copy of that bill in the record today and it will be considered along with the other bills which were placed in the record yesterday. [The above referred to bill follows:] (55) 93D CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 2336 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES AUGUST 3, 1973 Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. ALLEŃ, Mr. EASTLAND, Mr. SCOTT of Virginia, and Mr. THURMOND) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary A BILL To provide objective definitions of unitary school systems for uniform court enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, and to relieve the congestion of court calendars by providing for the orderly release of continuing Federal jurisdiction over desegregated schools, and for other purposes. 1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 That this Act may be cited as the "Public School Jurisdiction 4 Act of 1973". SEC. 2. (a) The Congress finds that (1) the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the maintenance of dual school systems in which students are assigned to schools solely on the basis of race, color, II-O (Star Print) 2 .1 2 3 4 5 6 བ 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 or national origin denies to those students the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment; (2) these and related court rulings have imposed upon public school agencies the burden of eliminating the vestiges of dual school systems and of establishing all school systems upon a unitary basis; (3) the lack of appropriate statutory definition of a unitary school system has left the courts without objective standards in enforcing the equal protection of the laws in regard to pupil assignment, with a resulting lack of uniformity in enforcement and regulatory requirements; (4) the courts have been overburdened with the complexity and length of the litigation and continuing judicial process for effective enforcement of the fourteenth amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other related statutes. (b) For the foregoing reasons, it is necessary and 20 proper that the Congress, pursuant to the powers granted to it by the Constitution of the United States, including, but 22 not limited to section 5 of the fourteenth amendment, take 23 action to enhance the enforcement of court determinations 24 under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to make court enforce25 ment uniform by setting standards and definitions relative to 3 1 a unitary school system, and to relieve the congestion of court 2 calendars by providing for the orderly release of continuing 3 Federal jurisdiction over desegregated public schools. 4 SEC. 3. Section 401 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is 5 amended by adding at the end thereof the following: 6 "(e) 'Local educational agency' means any local edu7 cational agency as defined by section 801 (f) of the Ele8 mentary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. 9 "(f) State educational agency' means a State educa10 tional agency as defined by section 801 (k) of the Elementary 11 and Secondary Education Act of 1965. 12 "(g) 'Unitary school system' means any public school 13 system in which "(1) the local educational agency has complied with an order of any court of the United States based on racial enrollment criteria for the public schools of that agency, or is in compliance with any specific plan or published guideline authorized or approved by the Commissioner of Education with respect to such enrollment criteria; or "(2) the presently used procedure for assignment of children and teachers in the elementary and secondary schools of the local educational agency has been found by any court of the United States to be in compliance with the Constitution and laws of the United States 4 against a charge that the schools of such agency were segregated; or 66 (3) the assignment of children to elementary and secondary schools of that agency is by attendance zones which are or have been found by any court of the United States (a) to have been originally established with reasonable geographical divisions without intent to discriminate between areas on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and (b) to have not thereafter been altered except to accord with and meet conditions caused by population increases or decreases in the area served, granting to such agency the right to reasonable educational discretion in the creation or elimination of neighborhood school zones in geographically contiguous areas without regard to the racial composition of the affected residential area; or "(4) not less than two-thirds of the schools of a local educational agency have a racial composition of the student body of each school which shall contain a percentage of majority students which is not less than. one-third of the percentage of majority students in the school population taken as a whole, and a percentage of minority students which is not less than one-third of: the percentage of minority students in the school population taken as a whole.". |