Mr. MORRISON. Yes, sir. We have 9,000 local associations who are constantly watching these problems that children have in relation to safety, bus, or any other kind. Chairman CELLER. How is your organization financed? Mr. MORRISON. By voluntary dues from its members. Mr. MORRISON. From all over the country and the overseas Department of Defense schools. Chairman CELLER. Are there any questions? Mr. POLK. Mr. Chairman, I have a question. Mr. Morrison, in your statement you indicated that the studies on the values of integration have indicated, I believe, that there were advantages for the black children and no significant disadvantages for the white children, is that correct? Mr. MORRISON. That is correct. Mr. POLK. I would like to have your comment on some material which has appeared in a column by Joseph Alsop. He says that: The results predicted by the liberal educationists have not been attained even in these two referring to Berkeley and White Plains, these two school populations of easily manageable size with strong goodwill to help. The results are obviously bound to be far less moreover where attempt is made to rearrange school populations of tens of thousands in an atmosphere of extreme illwill. I wonder if you would comment on that statement? Mr. MORRISON. I would like Mr. Rubin to respond to this, please. Mr. RUBIN. I think Mr. Morrison's testimony refers to a study by the so-called Allen commission in New York, a very, very careful and comprehensive study of the research that had been done to date as of December 1969, and its conclusion was that the integrated setting had relatively greater potential for achievement of black students than the segregated setting and that integration did not affect the achievement of the white students, and there is subsequent research, most recently reported in December 1971, with regard to Dade County, Fla., which has been shifting students around pursuant to court order for 2 years, and with respect to Evanston, Ill., which confirms the findings of the Coleman report and the Allen commission which have reviewed quite a number of studies that have been done in this area. So I would disagree with Mr. Alsop. Mr. POLK. Would these studies also take into account what happens to the white middleclass child who is bused from his neighborhood to a ghetto school? Do the studies take that into account as well? Mr. RUBIN. I believe they do. The Berkeley plan called for cross-busing of students. Mr. MIKVA. Will counsel yield at that point? Mr. POLK. Yes. Mr. MIKVA. Didn't they find in Evanston that there was no disadvantage to the white students, and black students were reading at least one grade level higher after integration was achieved through busing than before? Mr. RUBIN. They were reading higher, yes. 80-449-72-21 Mr. MIKVA. And there was no detrimental effect on the white students? Mr. RUBIN. Yes. And the same thing in the Dade County situation. Mr. MIKVA. If counsel would yield further, yesterday when Congressman Lent was testifying, I asked him specifically whether his amendment would require the Evanston School Board-which as you know achieved desegregation on a voluntary basis without any court pressure to resegregate the schools, and he agreed it would. Do you agree? Mr. RUBIN. That is the way we would read it also. Mr. MIKVA. And they would have to stop busing children to maintain integration? Mr. RUBIN. It prohibits using race in assigning students to school and it seems to us that it follows that, if a school board has voluntarily desegregated the schools, they would have to roll it back, and at least it is susceptible to that interpretation. Mr. MIKVA. Thank you. Mr. MORRISON. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I am a teacher, and I am on leave following 20 years of teaching, and I voluntarily moved to a school in the city of San Diego, which is composed of 90 percent black and other minorities. I asked a group of ninth-grade students, bright students, lively, energetic, wide-awake students, after I demonstrated to them that the classroom, on a circle graph, was nine-tenths black, I asked these students about the city of San Diego, and those students felt that the city of San Diego, which at that time was about 8 percent minority, they thought the city of San Diego reflected the same racial composition as their classroom. Furthermore, when I asked them about the United States, they thought the United States was made up of 90 percent black minority people because when these children took a vacation and visited grandparents in other States across the Nation, even though they traveled for 5 days at that time, which was only 3 years ago, they had to stop in areas where they always saw 90 percent black. That is the Nation to them. And when I told them that it was the opposite, that this Nation was 90 percent white, they said, "Mr. Morrison, you are a prejudiced man." Mr. ZELENKO. One final question, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Morrison, would you tell us whether NEA could furnish to the subcommittee an estimate of how many school districts now desegregated would be affected by House Joint Resolution 620 and required to reverse their programs? Mr. MORRISON. Sir, we could, within a week, get a random sampling for the committee. Mr. ZELENKO. And in that sample, Mr. Morrison, would the NEA also indicate not only the number of districts but also the number of students, minority and majority, that would be affected? Mr. MORRISON. If we went to the number of districts and did that complete, it would take us a little longer to do it, but I think we could get the data. Mr. ZELENKO. Thank you, Mr. Morrison. Chairman CELLER. We want to thank you and your associates for your contribution. It has been most helpful, and we are grateful. Mr. MORRISON. Thank you, sir. (Subsequently, the following information was submitted:) NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL, BENJAMIN L. ZELENKO, ESQUIRE, General Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. ZELENKO: During Mr. Morrison's testimony before Subcommittee No. 5 on March 2, 1972, you requested information regarding the number of school districts in which students have been assigned by race, either to achieve some type of racial balance or to desegregate, and the number of black and white students who would be affected if those whose race has been considered in their school assignments had to be reassigned on a non-racial basis. Our Research Division has diligently pursued all known avenues to obtain this information but, unfortunately, has not met with complete success. The requested data is not collected in a form suitable to responding to your request by either the U.S. Office of Education or HEW's Office of Civil Rights and is unavailable from boards of education or building principals. We have, however, received some useful information from the U.S. Office of Education. This information indicates that, in response to your first question to Mr. Morrison, approximately 1400 school districts have implemented desegregation plans since the start of the 1968-69 school year. Since these districts are located in southern states, this number does not include northern or western districts that have desegregated. Nor do these figures include districts in any area that had desegregated before September 1968. With respect to the second question, concerning the number of students who would be affected by a color-blind reassignment, our information indicates only that the total enrollment of these 1400 school districts is approximately 10 million pupils, of whom an estimated 3.4 million are from minority groups. The information presently available does not permit us to assess the number of students who would be affected if reassignment on a non-racial basis were mandated. Sincerely, DAVID RUBIN, Deputy General Counsel Chairman CELLER. Our next witness is the Reverend Stanley M. Andrews, National Coordinator, ACTION NOW. Reverend Andrews. STATEMENT OF REV. STANLEY M. ANDREWS, NATIONAL COORDINATOR, ACTION NOW, ACCOMPANIED BY WARREN RICHARDSON, GENERAL COUNSEL Reverend ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I have with me Mr. Warren Richardson, who is general counsel, and who has had a part in the research work. In the light of the legislative events of the last 24 hours, I will beg the indulgence of the committee to add to the position paper that you have in your hands. ACTION NOW favors the proposed constitutional amendment set forth in House Joint Resolution 620, representing as we do more than 70 local, State, and national groups in 17 States. We have secured thousands of signatures on petitions asking Congress to adopt House Joint Resolution 620. Mr. Chairman, ACTION NOW today believes, as a result of the legislative action in the last few days, that the majority of parents in this country have lost confidence in the credibility of the Congress and our Federal courts and their abilities to meet the problems created by forced busing. The polls which are cited in our position paper now before the members of this committee on page 6 clearly demonstrate the majority will of the people. Chairman CELLER. Are you reading from the position paper or reading from something else? Reverend ANDREWS. Yes. Chairman CELLER. Do you want your paper placed in the record? Reverend ANDREWS. Yes, please. Chairman CELLER. It will be placed in the record. (The statement follows:) STATEMENT OF ACTION NOW REGARDING COMPULSORY BUSING OF SCHOOLCHILDREN Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the subject of compulsory busing has aroused the emotions of the body politic, which in turn has created a plethora of comment by politicians. Those who are for compulsory busing often agree with Senator Mondale, who is reported to have said: "Busing is the means-and at times the only means-by which segregation in public education can be reduced."1 Perhaps Rep. Paul N. McCloskey (R-Calif.) has stated succinctly the philosophy for compulsory busing in these words: "The April 1971 Supreme Court decision in the Swann case laid down two clear rules with which I agree. The first rule recognized that busing was an appropriate tool to end deliberate segregation practices [emphasis added]." 12 People who oppose compulsory busing do so primarily on the grounds that it takes the children away from the community-out of reach of parental help and control-with no educational objective. Perhaps Sen. Henry M. Jackson (DWash.) has expressed the thought best in these words: "But forced busing based on race does not achieve this objective (equal education). On the contrary, it singles out a child because of the color of his skin and sends him off to school in a strange, sometimes distant neighborhood. And with all that, there is no guarantee of a better school at the end of the bus ride. . ." It is impossible, of course, to say that all proponents of using compulsion sing the same song. It is fair to say that the vast majority of people favoring a compulsory "tool" have as their goal integration. It is equally fair to say that responsible opponents of compulsion see the main issue as one of education. To the latter group good education is the true goal. Since each group talks about different goals, the opportunity for rational discussion is diminished. But wait! Perhaps endless talk is not a true indication of what people are really "saying." Actions, we know, speak louder than words. Consider, for example, the fact that some leading proponents of civil rights causes have enrolled their children in private schools with a very low ratio (sometimes zero) of blacks. Congressman Derwinski entered the Chicago Tribune article by Nick Thimmesch in the Congressional Record on Dec. 8. 1971 (p. E13149). Mr. Thimmesch reported the story of a CBS program, Mike Wallace's Sixty Minutes, detailing how "an array of black and white liberals who managed to keep their own children out of Washington's heavily black schools by sending them to private or suburban schools." More quotes from Derwinski's insertion in the Record follow: "As Mrs. Donald Fraser, whose husband is Minnesota's most liberal Congressman, put it to Wallace: 'Your children get educated only once.' That's why the Frasers took their daughter out of Washington public schools and placed her here in Georgetown Day School, a private school. She told Wallace that her daughter was used to having white people around in school, and while there were three or four black pupils with her in each class at Georgetown, "they're much nicer than the blacks in the public school she attended. 1 "Busing Panel Studies Taxes, Poor Schools," by Carroll Kilpatrick and Eric Wentworth, Washington Post, Feb. 19, 1972. 2 "Candidates Differ on Busing, Agree on Quality Schools," by David S. Broder, Washington Post, Feb. 15, 1972. 3 Ibid. "But he [Walter Fauntroy, Washington's black Congressman] isn't the only black notable whose children are used as 'tokens' in the private schools. Our mayor, Walter Washington, has his child driven by limousine to private school each day, as Wallace reported. Liberal columnist Carl Rowan has his children in private school. So does civil rights activist Clifford Alexander. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's children attended private schools here. "One sardonic columnist for the Washington Post, interviewed by Wallace, said, 'Nobody wants to make their children pay for their own social philosophy'." The columnist's own son is in private school and he admits the rich can "buy" out." Then why do liberals support integration and busing if they really don't believe down deep? The Washington Post columnist told Wallace: "The lines get drawn in such a way that you end up supporting something that you think is unwise, perhaps unworkable, simply because of its symbolic content, simply because you get a bunch of rabid mouth-foaming racists opposing it, so you're forced to support it.” Before leaving the Thimmesch article it should be pointed out that he names Senators McGovern, Kennedy, Bayh, Muskie, Eugene McCarthy, and Stevenson as sending (or having sent) their children to private schools. Thimmesch continues: "When Senator Stevenson (D-Ill.) was questioned on Meet the Press as to how he could criticize White House leadership, and, as a resident of Washington, send his children to private, mostly white schools, he answered that he wanted to send them to public schools, 'but regrettably the ones available to us are not very good, and I just didn't want to sacrifice the education of my kids'." On Feb. 23, 1972, Sen. Harry Byrd made the following statements on the Senate floor: "Representing her husband at a political rally in Florida, Mrs. George McGovern angrily denounced another presidential candidate for charging that the McGoverns pay $1,400 a year to send their daughter to a school in Maryland so she does not have to go to an integrated school in District of Columbia. "That was not our motive, Mrs. McGovern stated. "Why then do they pay $1,400 to send their daughter to a particular school? Mrs. McGovern answered this from a mother's heart: "She wanted to be with friends." "What mothers and fathers everywhere want for their children is what Senator and Mrs. McGovern want for their daughter; they want her to be with her friends." 994 With new-found hypocrisy abounding in the mouthings of many proponents of compulsory busing, it may be wise for us to re-inspect some of the proponents' basic theories as to why they believe compulsory busing should occur. Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr., is the U.S. District Judge in Richmond who handed down the controversial 325-page opinion in the Carolyn Bradley, et al. v. The School Board of the City of Richmond, Va., et al., Civil Action No. 3353. On p. 19 of that document, Judge Merhige said: "The Court, bearing in mind the rationale that a segregated school is inherently unequal and recognizing further that those students who have been and are being subjected to segregated education in the public schools are, regardless of race, having thrust upon them educational infirmities which are constitutionally impermissible, is much disturbed about the racial composition anticipated under the school board's plan for the eight schools heretofore referred to." Later on (p. 286) Judge Merhige says: "Generally speaking, black and white children enter school at about the same level, as measured by achievement tests. Thereafter, black academic achievement declines over time in segregated systems.' There are other, very moderate, voices who perceive the entire matter differently, or at least bring different facts into juxtaposition to those relied upon by Judge Merhige. • Congressional Record, Feb. 23. 1972. p. $2380. 5 Carolyn Bradley, et al. v. The School of the City of Richmond, et al., Civil Action No. 3353, p. 19. Ibid., p. 286. |