Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 323 › Conversation 323-023
Nixon alone in his EOB office on Busing
Monday, March 13, 1972 · 6:34 PM–8:09 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building
AI Summary
President Nixon met to practice his upcoming televised address regarding federal policy on busing and educational equality. He outlined his plan to propose a moratorium on new federal busing orders and introduce the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972, which sought to redirect federal funding toward improving schools in disadvantaged areas. The President aimed to position his administration against busing for racial balance while emphasizing a commitment to desegregation and quality education.
- Busing
- Equal Educational Opportunities Act
- Education Policy
- Desegregation
- Federal Legislation
Audio
Download MP3 (part 1) · 111.9 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 107.8 MB
This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 01:46:49 into the tape and ends around 01:59:40.
Transcript (AI-generated)
This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
1:47:06That's the end of this tape.
1:47:08Thank you.
1:47:08Thank you.
1:47:40Tonight I want to talk to you about one of the most difficult issues of our time, the issue of busing.
1:47:45Across the nation, in the north, east, west and south, state, cities and local school districts have been torn apart in debate over this issue.
1:47:54My own position is well known.
1:47:55I am opposed to busing for the purpose of achieving racial balance in our public schools.
1:48:01I have spoken out against busing scores of times over the years.
1:48:05I believe most Americans wanting black share that view.
1:48:08But what we need now is not just speaking out against floor busting, but action to stop it.
1:48:15Above all, we need to stop it in the right way, in a way that will provide a better education for every child in America, in a desegregated school system.
1:48:25The reason action is so urgent is because of a number of recent decisions in the lower federal courts.
1:48:30Those courts have gone too far, in some cases beyond the requirements laid down by the Supreme Court, in ordering massive busing,
1:48:38to achieve racial balance.
1:48:41The decisions are left in their wake.
1:48:43Confusion and contradiction of the law.
1:48:46Anger, fear, turmoil of all communities.
1:48:48And worst of all, agonized concern among hundreds of thousands of parents for the education and safety of their children who have been forced by court order to be bused miles away from their neighborhood schools.
1:49:02What is the answer?
1:49:04There are many who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to deal with this problem.
1:49:09The constitutional amendment proposal deserves a thorough consideration by the Congress on its merits.
1:49:14But as an answer to the immediate problem we face of stopping more busing now, the constitutional amendment approach has a fatal flaw.
1:49:23It takes too long.
1:49:25A constitutional amendment would take between a year and 18 months at the very least to become effective.
1:49:31This means that hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren will be ordered to the courts to be bussed away from their neighborhood schools in the next school year with no hope for rigor.
1:49:41What we need is action now, not two or three or four years from now.
1:49:46There is only one effective way to deal with the problem now.
1:49:50That is for the Congress to enact it.
1:49:53That is why I am sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow urging immediate consideration and action on two nations.
1:50:00First, I shall propose legislation that would call an immediate halt to all new busing orders by federal Congress, a moratorium on new busing.
1:50:12Next, I shall propose a companion issue, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972.
1:50:18This act would require that every state or local county grant equal educational opportunities to every person, regardless of race, government, or national origin.
1:50:34For the first time, the cherished American ideal of equality and educational opportunity would be affirmed in the law of the land by the elected representatives of the people in Congress.
1:50:51The cherished American ideal of equality and educational opportunity would be affirmed in the law of the land by the elected representatives of the people in Congress.
1:51:01The act would further establish an educational bill of rights, an educational bill of rights for Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, and others who start their education under language handicaps, to make certain that they too will have equal opportunity.
1:51:18The act, I propose, would concentrate federal school aid funds on the areas of greatest educational need.
1:51:25That means directing over two and a half billion dollars in the next year mainly towards improving the education of children,
1:51:31from poor families.
1:51:34This proposal deals directly with the problem that has been too often overlooked.
1:51:39We all know that within the central cities of our nation there are schools so inferior that it is hypocrisy even to suggest that the poor children who go there are getting a decent education, let alone an education comparable to that of children who go to school in the suburbs.
1:51:56Even the most extreme proponents of busing admit that it would be here
1:52:01before programs could be set up and financed, which would bus the majority of these children out of these central city areas to better schools and suburbs.
1:52:11That means that putting primary emphasis on more busing, rather than on better education, inevitably will lead a lost generation of poor children in the central cities to a bigger education.
1:52:23It is time for us to make a national commitment to see that the schools in the central cities are upgraded,
1:52:31so that the children who go there will have just as good a chance to get quality education as do the children who go to the schools in the suburbs.
1:52:39What I am proposing is that at the same time we stop more bustling, we move forward to guarantee that the children currently attending the poorest schools in our cities and rural districts be provided with education equal to that of good schools in their communities.
1:52:57Taken together, the two elements of my proposal
1:53:00The moratorium on new buses and the Equal Educational Opportunity Center would focus our efforts where they really belong, on better education for all of our children, rather than on more buses for some of our children.
1:53:15In addition, I am directing all agencies and departments of the federal government at every level to carry out the spirit as well as the letter of this message in all of their actions.
1:53:26by directing the Justice Department to intervene in selected cases where the lower courts have gone beyond the Supreme Court's requirements in order to trust them.
1:53:34These are the highlights of the new approach I propose.
1:53:39Let me now go to the heart of the problem in practice.
1:53:43I'm going to tell you why I feel that busing for the purpose of achieving racial balance in our schools is wrong, and why the great majority of Americans are running in wanting to bring it to an end.
1:53:54The purpose of such busing
1:53:56is to help to end segregation.
1:53:58But experience in case after case has shown that busing is a bad means to a good end.
1:54:06The frank recognition of that fact does not reduce our commitment to desegregation.
1:54:11It simply tells us that we have to come up with a better means to that good end.
1:54:16The great majority of Americans, black and white, feel strongly that the busing of school children away from their own neighborhoods for the purpose of achieving racial balance is wrong.
1:54:27But the great majority of black and white also are determined that the process of desegregation must go forward under the goal of genuinely equal educational opportunities achieved.
1:54:38The question then is, how can we end segregation in a way that does not result in more busing?
1:54:47One emotional undercurrent that has done much to make this issue so difficult is the feeling that some people have that to oppose busing is to be anti-black.
1:55:03This is dangerous nonsense.
1:55:05There is no...
1:55:06This is dangerous nonsense.
1:55:09There is no escaping the fact that some people oppose busing because of racial prejudice.
1:55:13But to go on from this to conclude that anti-busing
1:55:16is simply a code word for prejudice, is a vicious lie on millions of concerned parents who oppose busing, not because they are against desegregation, but because they are for better education for their children.
1:55:30They want their children educated in their own neighborhoods.
1:55:34Many have invested their life savings in a home in a neighborhood they chose because it had good schools.
1:55:39They do not want their children bused across the city to an inferior school just to meet some social planner's concerns.
1:55:46what is considered to be the correct racial balance, or what is called progressive social policy.
1:55:54There are right reasons for opposing busing, and there are wrong reasons.
1:55:58And most people, including large and increasing numbers of blacks, oppose it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with race.
1:56:06It would compound an injustice to persist in nasty busing, simply because some people oppose it for the wrong reasons.
1:56:15There is another element to consider, the most important of all.
1:56:20That is the human element, which I see reflected in thousands of letters I receive in my mail from worried parents all over the country to the north, east, west and south.
1:56:30Let me give you some examples.
1:56:32I believe it is wrong when an eight-year-old child who was once able to walk to a neighborhood school is now forced to travel two hours a day in a bus.
1:56:40I believe it is wrong when a working mother is suddenly faced with three different bus schedules for her children, and that makes it impossible for her to continue to work.
1:56:49I believe it is wrong when parents are burdened with new worries about their children's safety on the road and in neighborhoods far from home.
1:56:58I believe it is wrong when a child in a poor neighborhood is denied the extra personal attention and financial support in his school that we know can make all the difference.
1:57:10All these individual human wrongs add up to a deeply felt and growing frustration.
1:57:13These are wrongs that can and must be separated.
1:57:17That is the purpose of the legislation I am sending to Congress tomorrow.
1:57:21I submit these proposals to the Congress, and I commend them to all of you listening to me tonight, mindful of the profound importance and the special complexity of the issues they address.
1:57:32The key is action, and action now.
1:57:35The Congress has the key.
1:57:37If you agree with the goals I have described tonight, to stop more of us in doubt, and provide equality of opportunity for all of our children, I urge you to let your congressmen and senators know your views, so that the Congress will act properly to deal with this problem.
1:57:54Let me close with a personal note.
1:57:57This is a deeply emotional and divisive issue.
1:58:00I have done my best to undertake to weigh and respect the reflecting and
1:58:05To strike a balance which is thoughtful and just.
1:58:07To search for actions that will best serve all of our nation's children.
1:58:14I realize the program I recommended will not satisfy the extremists on the one side who oppose busing for the wrong reasons.
1:58:22And I realize that my program will not satisfy the extreme social planners on the other side who insist on more busing at the cost of better education.
1:58:32But while what I have said tonight will not appeal to either extreme, I believe I have expressed the views of the majority of Americans.
1:58:41I believe that the majority of Americans of all races want more busing stopped and better education stopped.
1:58:49Let us recognize that the issue of busing divides many Americans.
1:58:54But let us also recognize that the commitment to equal opportunity in education unites Americans.
1:59:02The proposals I have submitted to Congress will allow us to turn away from what divides us and to turn toward what unites us.
1:59:09The way we handle this difficult issue is a supreme test of the character, the responsibility, and the decency of the American people.
1:59:20Let us handle it in a way we can be proud of, by uniting behind a program which will make it possible for all the children in this great and good country to receive a better education
1:59:32and thereby enjoy a better life, to receive a better education, and thereby enjoy a better life.
NARA Description
On March 13, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 323-023 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 323-23 Date: March 13, 1972 Time: Unknown between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm Location: Executive Office Building The President practiced an Address to the Nation on Equal Educational Opportunities and School Busing, delivered on March 16, 1972. [A transcript of the final version of this speech appears in Public Papers of the Presidents, Richard M. Nixon, 1972, pp. 425-429]
Also recorded on March 13, 1972
- 323-015 6:34 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-016 6:34 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-017 6:34 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-018 6:34 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-019 6:34 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-020 6:34 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-021 6:34 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
- 323-022 6:34 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:34 pm and 8:09 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 323-023, March 13, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/323-023 (accessed October 3, 2026).