Busing Battle Revives

Four days before Michigan's presidential primary, eleven days before Kentucky's, word seeped out that the Justice Department might intervene on behalf of antibusing forces in an appeal against a court-imposed plan for Boston's schools. Since both Michigan and; Kentucky have been wracked by violent busing disputes, the disclosure had every earmark of a political ploy to benefit Candidate Gerald Ford.

Not so, insisted Ford. An antibusing move had been under consideration since last November, and the final decision had been left entirely to Attorney General Edward Levi. "I did not know anything about this," Ford told an aroused Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the Senate's only black. Brooke accepted the President's word, but he marveled that a policy decision of such import could be made without specific presidential knowledge.

As the din over busing revived, Ford astonishingly told Kentucky newsmen that the Justice Department had not decided where to intervene, that it might even be in Louisville, where an appeal is pending. When a Levi aide denied that Louisville had ever been under active consideration, the President's remark seemed to suggest that he was using the issue to gain political advantage in a crucial primary. Moreover, the Justice Department, trying to live down its Watergate-acquired reputation as a political extension of the White House, once again gave the impression of dancing to a presidential tune.

Last Resort. That probably is an undeserved rap. What happened is that last fall Ford urged Levi and HEW Secretary David Mathews to explore alternatives. Under one idea that evolved, the Administration would press for legislation to: 1) mandate courts to order busing only as a last resort (they are now urged but not compelled to resort to busing only after alternatives have been tried); 2) provide federal funds to improve schools and encourage voluntary integration; and 3) set up a national council to mediate local disputes before they reach court judgment. Meanwhile, Solicitor General Robert Bork prepared an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief that at least partly upheld busing opponents in Boston.

When word of Bork's brief leaked, Levi insisted that he still had not made up his mind and that he still regards busing as "an appropriate tool" for school integration. Back in Boston, where passions have just begun to cool following a wave of racially motivated violence, Brooke wondered why the Government would involve itself at this time "and confuse the matter." Since the Supreme Court will decide the issue, with or without Justice Department intervention, it seemed an appropriate question.

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