Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 323 › Conversation 323-026
Nixon alone in his EOB office on School Busing
Thursday, March 16, 1972 · 9:17 PM–9:40 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building
AI Summary
President Nixon met with his staff to finalize and rehearse an Address to the Nation regarding his stance on school busing and educational policy. During the session, he reviewed the speech's tone, ensuring it emphasized positive educational reforms rather than divisive rhetoric. The President decided to propose a legislative moratorium on new federal court-ordered busing and the introduction of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972 to focus federal funding on improving schools in underserved areas.
- School Busing
- Equal Educational Opportunities Act
- Education Policy
- Desegregation
- Legislative Strategy
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 02:03:33 into the tape and ends around 02:15:31.
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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.
2:03:14So, just want to check to see how the ratings are going.
2:03:27You're right.
2:03:36Attract.
2:03:39Attract.
2:03:48This speech is very clear, and it emphasizes the more positive aspects.
2:04:14Rather than the damn dick picking.
2:04:20Yeah.
2:04:23Yeah.
2:04:27Yeah.
2:04:27Yeah.
2:04:33Yeah.
2:04:35Yeah.
2:04:35Yeah.
2:04:35Yeah.
2:04:36Yeah.
2:04:36Yeah.
2:04:38Yeah.
2:04:38Yeah.
2:04:39Yeah.
2:04:41Yeah.
2:04:42Yeah.
2:05:13All right, thank you.
2:06:06I have spoken out against busing scores of times over the past years.
2:06:15I believe most Americans, black and white, share that view.
2:06:35But what we need now is not just speaking out against more of us, but action to stop it.
2:06:42Above 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.
2:06:49The reason action is so urgent is because of a number of recent decisions of the lower federal courts.
2:06:57These courts have gone too far, in some cases beyond their areas.
2:07:08The 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.
2:07:39What is the answer?
2:07:41There are many who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to deal with this problem.
2:07:45The constitutional amendment proposal deserves a thorough consideration by the Congress on its value.
2:07:52But as an answer to the immediate problem we face of stopping or bussing now, the constitutional amendment approach has a fatal flaw.
2:08:01It takes too long.
2:08:03A constitutional amendment would take between a year and 18 months at the very least to become effective.
2:08:09This 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.
2:08:18What we need is action now, not action two, three, or four years from now.
2:08:24There's only one effective way to deal with the problem now.
2:08:27That is for the Congress to act.
2:08:29That is why I'm sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow, urging immediate consideration and action on two issues.
2:08:38First, I shall propose legislation that will call an immediate halt to all new busing orders by federal courts, a moratorium on new busing.
2:08:49Next, I shall propose a companion measure, the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1972.
2:08:55This act would require that every state or locality would grant equal educational opportunities to every person, regardless of race, color, or national origin.
2:09:03For the first time in our history,
2:09:06The 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.
2:09:26The act, like the goals, would concentrate federal funds in the areas of greatest educational need.
2:09:36That means directing over two and a half billion dollars in the next year, mainly towards improving the education of children from poor families.
2:09:44This proposal deals directly with the problem that has been too often overlooked.
2:09:49We 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.
2:10:06Even 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.
2:10:21That 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.
2:10:34It 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.
2:10:48What 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.
2:11:05Take 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.
2:11:28I am directing all agencies and departments in the federal government at every level to carry out the spirit of
2:11:33I 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.
2:11:44These are the highlights of the new approach I propose.
2:11:47Let me not go to the heart of the problem.
2:11:50I 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.
2:12:03The purpose of such busing is to help end segregation.
2:12:07But experience in case after case has shown that busing is a bad means to a good end.
2:12:13The frank recognition of that fact does not reduce our commitment to desegregation.
2:12:18It simply tells us that we have to come up with a better means to that good end.
2:12:21The 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.
2:12:33But 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.
2:12:45The question, then, is how do we end segregation in a way that does not result in more bustling?
2:12:49The proposal I am sending to the Congress provides an answer to that question.
2:12:53One emotional undercurrent that has done much to make this issue so difficult is the feeling that some people have
2:13:03that to oppose busing is to be anti-busting.
2:13:07This is dangerous nonsense.
2:13:10There is no escaping the fact that some people do oppose busing because of racial prejudice.
2:13:15But 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,
2:13:30but because they are for better education for their children.
2:13:34They want their children educated in their own way.
2:13:37Many have invested their life savings in a home and a neighborhood they chose because it had good schools.
2:13:44They 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.
2:13:57There are right reasons for opposing busses,
2:14:00And there are wrong reasons.
2:14:03Most people, including large increasing numbers of blacks, oppose it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with race.
2:14:11It would compound an injustice to persist in massive busting, simply because some people oppose it for the wrong reasons.
2:14:16There's another element to consider, most important of all.
2:14:22That's the human element.
2:14:23which I see reflected in thousands of letters I received in my mail from working parents all over the country.
2:14:31Nor these questions, son.
2:14:34Let me give you some examples.
2:14:35I 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.
2:14:40I 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.
2:14:50I believe it's wrong when parents are burdened with new worries about their children's safety on the road and in neighborhoods far along.
2:14:57And 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.
2:15:11All these individual human wrongs add up to a deeply felt and growing frustration.
2:15:14These are wrongs that can be and must be set right.
2:15:20and it's the purpose of my dyslexia that I am sending to Congress tomorrow.
2:15:25I 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.
NARA Description
On March 16, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:17 pm and 9:40 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 323-026 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 323-26 Date: March 16, 1972 Time: Unknown between 9:17 pm and 9:40 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 17, 1972
- 021-087 8:47 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:47 pm and 9:14 pm.
- 021-088 9:14 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 9:14 pm to 9:17 pm.
- 323-025 9:14 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:14 pm to 9:17 pm.
- 021-089 9:17 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:17 pm and 10:27 pm.
- 323-027 9:17 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:17 pm and 9:40 pm.
- 323-028 9:17 PM · 1 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 9:17 pm and 9:40 pm.
- 687-001 9:42 PM · 37 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Mark I. Goode, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:42 pm and 10:20 pm.
- 021-090 10:27 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler talked on the telephone from 10:27 pm to 10:29 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 323-026, March 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/323-026 (accessed October 3, 2026).