Anti-Busing Movement

From the late 1960s through the subsequent 2 decades, the policy of busing represented arguably the most controversial proposal for ending public school segregation, whether in a de jure (legalized) or, especially, a de facto (e.g., residence-driven) capacity. Busing involved the transportation of students across traditional school district lines (which tended to coincide with geographical proximity) for the purpose of achieving racial balance reflective of the larger school system. Concomitantly, opposition to court-ordered “forced busing” became the most salient means by which activists and their mostly white sympathizers resisted school desegregation. While the anti-busing movement cut across the political spectrum (and included a few minorities, as well), it paralleled a resurgence in grassroots conservative activism that began in the 1970s.

As with most policies concerning school desegregation, busing programs developed largely as a consequence of federal court mandates. Court-ordered busing began as a response to segregation in southern schools, which had persisted (especially in the Deep South) into the late 1960s. In Green v. County School Board of New Kent (VA) County in 1968, the Supreme Court outlawed “freedom of choice” plans and other indirect methods school boards had used to evade desegregation. Instead, the Court called for as much integration as possible. This decision, along with another ruling requiring an immediate end to school segregation (Alexander v. Holmes County (MS) Board of Education, 1969), indicated a more aggressive interpretation of the Court's existing dictum that desegregation should proceed with “all deliberate speed.” The Court began to consider the structural factors—namely, residential patterns—underlying school segregation. In areas with substantial residential segregation, race-conscious student assignment programs (and, with them, busing) emerged as viable options to ensure that school systems did not perpetuate historical patterns of racial separation. In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Board of Education in 1971, the most important busing decision, Supreme Court upheld a judicially prescribed busing order there, arguing that the need for racial balance outweighed the tradition of neighborhood school districts.

Busing became a national controversy when it moved outside of the South. The policy represented one of the first attempts to grapple with the existence of segregation well above the Mason-Dixon line. In Keyes v. School District Number One, Denver, Colorado in 1973, the Court applied the reasoning of Swann to a district lacking a legacy of Jim Crow laws. Both Swann and Keyes addressed city school districts, which in certain metropolitan areas contained only a fraction of the overall population. Most suburbs remained largely white, as did their schools. When district courts consequentially began to apply busing to larger metropolitan regions, the Supreme Court balked. First in a case involving Richmond, Virginia, then more influentially in Milliken v. Bradley in 1974, which concerned Detroit, the Court exempted from busing programs suburban areas not linked with city school districts. As a result of these rulings, the most effective busing programs occurred in cities (such as Charlotte) that had previously merged with their adjacent suburbs. Most large American cities lacked such an arrangement, however, meaning that busing programs largely occurred in inner-city, working-class communities. Many white students from wealthier families, meanwhile, attended suburban schools or could afford private education.

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