Conversation 323-026

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So, just want to check to see how the ratings are going.

You're right.

Attract.

This speech is very clear, and it emphasizes the more positive aspects.

Rather than the damn dick picking.

Yeah.

All right, thank you.

I have spoken out against busing scores of times over the past years.

I believe most Americans, black and white, share that view.

But what we need now is not just speaking out against more of us, but action to stop it.

Above all, we need to stop it in the right way, in a way that will provide better education for every child in America in a desegregated school system.

The reason action is so urgent is because of a number of recent decisions of the lower federal courts.

These courts have gone too far, in some cases beyond their areas.

The decisions have left in their way confusion and contradiction in the law, anger, fear and turmoil in local communities, and worst of all, agonized concern among hundreds of thousands of parents for the education and safety of their children, who have been forced by a court order to be bused miles away from their neighborhood schools.

What is the answer?

There are many who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to deal with this problem.

The constitutional amendment proposal deserves a thorough consideration by the Congress on its value.

But as an answer to the immediate problem we face of stopping or bussing now, the constitutional amendment approach has a fatal flaw.

It takes too long.

A constitutional amendment would take between a year and 18 months at the very least to become effective.

This means that hundreds of thousands of school children will be poured over the courts, going to be bussed away from their neighborhood schools in the next school year with no hope for learning.

What we need is action now, not action two, three, or four years from now.

There's only one effective way to deal with the problem now.

That is for the Congress to act.

That is why I'm sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow, urging immediate consideration and action on two issues.

First, I shall propose legislation that will call an immediate halt to all new busing orders by federal courts, a moratorium on new busing.

Next, I shall propose a companion measure, the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1972.

This act would require that every state or locality would grant equal educational opportunities to every person, regardless of race, color, or national origin.

For the first time in our history,

The act would further establish 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, would have equal opportunity.

The act, like the goals, would concentrate federal funds in the areas of greatest educational need.

That means directing over two and a half billion dollars in the next year, mainly towards improving the education of children from poor families.

This proposal deals directly with the problem that has been too often overlooked.

We all know that within the central cities of our nation, there are schools so inferior that it is hypocritical 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.

Even the most extreme proponents of busing admit that it would be years before programs could be set up and financed which would bus a majority of these children out of those central city areas to better schools in the summers.

That means that putting primary emphasis on more busing rather than on better education inevitably will leave a lost generation of poor children in the central city doomed to inferior education.

It is time for us to make a national commitment to see that the schools in the central cities are upgraded so that the children who go there will have just as good a chance to get quality education as do the children who go to school in the suburbs.

What I am proposing is that at the same time we stop more busting, we move forward to guarantee that the children currently attending the poorest schools in our cities and the rural districts be provided with education equal to that of good schools in their communities.

Take it together, the two elements of my proposal, the moratorium on new busing and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, focus our efforts where they really belong, on better education for all of our children, rather than on more busing for some of our children.

I am directing all agencies and departments in the federal government at every level to carry out the spirit of

I am directing that the Justice Department intervene in selected cases where the lower courts have gone beyond the Supreme Court's requirements in order to investigate.

These are the highlights of the new approach I propose.

Let me not go to the heart of the problem.

I want to tell you why I feel that busting for the purpose of achieving racial balance is wrong, and why the great majority of Americans are right in wanting to bring it to an end.

The purpose of such busing is to help end segregation.

But experience in case after case has shown that busing is a bad means to a good end.

The frank recognition of that fact does not reduce our commitment to desegregation.

It simply tells us that we have to come up with a better means to that good end.

The great majority of Americans, black and white, feel strong that the busing of schoolchildren away from their own neighborhoods for the purpose of achieving racial balance is wrong.

But the great majority, black and white, also are determined that the process of desegregation must go forward under the goal of genuinely equal educational opportunities achieved.

The question, then, is how do we end segregation in a way that does not result in more bustling?

The proposal I am sending to the Congress provides an answer to that question.

One 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-busting.

This is dangerous nonsense.

There is no escaping the fact that some people do oppose busing because of racial prejudice.

But to go on from this to conclude that anti-busting is 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.

They want their children educated in their own way.

Many have invested their life savings in a home and a neighborhood they chose because it had good schools.

They do not want their children bussed 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, or what is called progressive social policy.

There are right reasons for opposing busses,

And there are wrong reasons.

Most people, including large increasing numbers of blacks, oppose it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with race.

It would compound an injustice to persist in massive busting, simply because some people oppose it for the wrong reasons.

There's another element to consider, most important of all.

That's the human element.

which I see reflected in thousands of letters I received in my mail from working parents all over the country.

Nor these questions, son.

Let me give you some examples.

I believe it's wrong when an 80-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.

I believe it's 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.

I believe it's wrong when parents are burdened with new worries about their children's safety on the road and in neighborhoods far along.

And I believe it's 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.

All these individual human wrongs add up to a deeply felt and growing frustration.

These are wrongs that can be and must be set right.

and it's the purpose of my dyslexia that I am sending to Congress tomorrow.

I submit these proposals to the Congress, and I commend them to all of you who are listening tonight, mindful of the profound importance and the special complexity of the issues they address.