Retreat from Integration

FLORIDA is not the U.S., but last week's vote seems to reflect a good deal of countrywide opinion. Polls have consistently shown national opposition to forced busing in percentages similar to those turned up in Florida. By 74%, voters approved a straw-ballot resolution calling for a constitutional amendment against "forced busing." At the same time, they also voted by an even greater margin--79%--for a proposal that would guarantee "quality education" and "equal opportunity" for all children and bar a return to a dual-school system. The vote seemed contradictory; it was a kind of doublethink brought on in part by the way the questions were put.

By affirming that they believe in integration (now respectable in theory) but do not want to achieve it through busing (now a dirty word), Floridians were ignoring the fact that busing in many cases is the only quick means to bring about school integration. The only other, but much slower way--neighborhood integration--would scarcely have been popular in Florida, either, and is certainly not being pushed by the major party leaders.

President Nixon's own busing line turned out to be close to Florida's. Though the White House took pains to deny that the primary was a factor, two days later the President finally delivered his long-anticipated message. He called for a moratorium on new busing and for concentration on upgrading neighborhood schools. He did not specifically mention integration, as if it had become a lost or forgotten cause.

Some decisions in the lower federal courts have gone too far, he told his TV audience, and have thrown communities into "anger, fear and turmoil." Busing is a "bad means to a good end." People do "not want their children bused across the city to an inferior school just to meet some social planner's concept of what is considered to be the correct racial balance."

The President submitted two measures to Congress. One would establish a moratorium on new busing; the other would provide increased aid for inferior schools at the same time that it puts limits on busing. The moratorium would last until the aid bill is passed, or until July 1, 1973--whichever comes first. In the meantime, the Justice Department will be instructed to intervene in selected cases currently in the courts in order to prevent further busing.

Retroactive. The aid bill provides $2.5 billion a year. It stipulates that students must be assigned to schools closest to their homes as long as those schools provide appropriate education. To achieve integration under HEW or court orders, local communities may resort to pairing, rezoning or--last and least--busing, but only to a very limited extent. The courts may not order any further busing of pupils below seventh grade. Older students may be bused only if there is "clear and convincing evidence" that no other remedy is available. Nobody can be put on a bus if that poses a "risk to health or significantly impinges on the educational process." Nor can busing be enforced until all appeals are exhausted. In some cases, the Nixon program would function retroactively. School districts that have been ordered to bus beyond the requirements of the bill could apply for relief, thus opening the way for litigation that could undo the integration that has been so painstakingly achieved.

Nixon briefed congressional leaders, including House Speaker Carl Albert. His bills will probably receive better treatment in Congress than in the courts, where they face serious hurdles. It is questionable whether Congress can impose a moratorium that will prevent the courts from acting to stop violation of the 14th Amendment. Senator Henry Jackson, who himself campaigned against busing in Florida, worried that the bill would "establish a precedent by which Congress can nullify the Bill of Rights." Beyond that, the proposed aid bill challenges the whole thrust of U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1954, when separate-but-equal schools were declared unconstitutional. The talk about "quality education" largely ignores the fact that the Warren Court declared that there can be no quality education without integration. Would the Burger Court, which has upheld busing, sanction a retreat to segregated schools? It seems unlikely. But the White House is counting on the fact that no Supreme Court decision will be handed down before election time. After that, the issue can be handled in a cooler political atmosphere. Even if the court should rule against him, the President has left himself an out. He has made it clear that he is willing to accept a constitutional amendment against busing. His only objection is that it takes too long to be ratified.

Guinea Pigs. Significantly, that barometer of public opinion, Hubert Humphrey, supported the President. "Thank goodness," he said, "that at long last he has been able to get his finger in the air and sense what's going on and has decided to say amen to some of the things that the rest of us have been trying to do." Other Democratic candidates were more critical, but white liberal opinion is badly divided over the issue. The same is true of blacks. As much as 40% of the black vote went against busing in Florida last week, and the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Ind., passed a resolution denouncing busing (see story, page 38). Sounding much like Nixon, Roy Innis, national director of CORE, complained that "blacks have been guinea pigs for the social engineering of New York liberals." By no means all black leaders feel that way. Said Roy Wilkins, executive director of the N.A.A.C.P.: "Blacks have known trickery and betrayal, but even their experience with crude and refined deterrents has left them unprepared for this partisan action by their President." Many conservatives and Southerners, on the other hand, felt that the President had not gone far enough.

Chances are that the President's course coincides with majority opinion in the U.S. today. But he did not have to take the course he chose. For example, he could have thrown the prestige of his office behind a somewhat toughened version of the Mansfield-Scott Amendment, which among other things would prohibit the use of federal funds for school desegregation unless a local community seeks them. The danger is that what has been billed as a correction of an unpopular device to achieve integration could turn into a headlong retreat from integration itself.

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