STATEMENT BY SENATOR STROM THURMOND (R-SC) BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE REFERENCE HEARINGS ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND SCHOOL BUSING, MAY 14, 1981, ROOM 5110, 9:30 A.M.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

I want to thank the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee for beginning hearings on the subject of school busing.

The

As most people recognize, this is a controversial subject which has both ardent advocates and opponents. As time has gone by, however, I believe more and more people have reached the conclusion that busing of children away from neighborhood schools is not in the best interests of all concerned. strains that are placed on families, schools, and local public officials to meet the requirements of busing orders have had a profound effect. A renewed look at this issue is timely and again I commend the Chairman for holding these hearings.

I am

It would orient

a cosponsor of S. 528, a bill to limit the injunctive relief courts may impose in busing suits. I support that bill because it is a move in the right direction. the actions of the courts and the Justice Department toward equal educational opportunity and away from racial quotas through forced busing.

I would be willing to consider any measure in this area that will make quality. education for our children its primary purpose. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses who are with us today.

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Mr. Chairman: I can be here only a limited period of time due to the executive session of the Finance Committee, but I do want to thank you for holding these hearings.

Racial-integration-motivated forced busing of school children is a concept born of a noble cause, but I am afraid that we in Congress have been negligent in looking at two aspects of this that our constituents have been well aware of:

First, that forced busing, by undermining the concept of the neighborhood school does not achieve the educational goals that this concept is supposed to achieve, and Second, when we choose children for school assignment based upon the color of their skins, we are raising very serious constitutional questions.

These are questions which must be examined by this Congress in a much more thorough manner than they have been before. These hearings are definitely a much needed part of that examination, and I look forward to studying the testimony of these witnesses.

Senator HATCH. I have just learned the meeting has been canceled. I am able to stay here and hear testimony.

Mr. Turner, we will turn the time over to you. We look forward to what you have to say and to asking you some questions.

STATEMENT OF JAMES TURNER, ACTING ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; ACCOMPANIED BY BRIAN HEFFERNAN, ATTORNEY, AND

MURIEL MORISEY, ATTORNEY

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Jim Turner. As senior career attorney, I am Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division for the Department of Justice.

As you initiate your inquiry into the issue of student transportation and school desegregation, the Attorney General thought it would be useful for me to describe to you the Justice Department's recent action in two important school desegregation matters which illustrate how our Department has sought to work with local school systems to make effective use of the full range of available remedies for unconstitutional school segregation.

I must make clear, however, as you indicated, that I am not authorized to present any administration policy views on school desegregation remedies. Nor can I present to you any legal or constitutional analyses of this issue on behalf of the Department. That role should properly be reserved for the permanent Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights after that individual has been confirmed by the Senate and has had an opportunity to direct the development of the administration's policy positions.

Within those limits, I can describe to the committee briefly two major litigative actions which demostrate in the context of actual cases how a number of the tools to facilitate school desegregation can be used to fashion practicable solutions to very complex problems.

I have given committee counsel for the record, and to each member of the subcommittee, copies of papers we filed recently in the Federal district courts handling those cases in Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, which is in Shreveport, and Liddell v. the Board of Education, which is in St. Louis. Both submissions are ow the subject of district court considerations so it would be

inappropriate for me to testify here on the legal predicate for these submissions.

I believe that our work in these cases clearly illustrates that we have been able effectively to enforce the Constitution as the courts have construed its requirements regarding school desegregation without relying on busing as a principal component of the remedy and by deferring, to the greatest extent possible, to the desires and interests of the affected local communities.

CADDO. PARISH, LA., PLAN

Turning to the Caddo Parish, La., plan, on May 7, 1981, the Department of Justice and the Caddo Parish School Board filed in Federal court a consent decree settling a school desegregation suit that began 16 years earlier in May 1965.

The suit was initially filed by private plaintiffs under 42 U.S.C. 1983 to enjoin the continued operation of, in the words of their complaint, "a compulsory biracial school system" and the assignment of "students, teachers, and other school personnel-on the basis of race."

The Caddo Parish School Board and a number of individuals were named as defendants. In July 1965, the United States moved to intervene in the action under title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit allowed and mandated this intervention in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education.

In the 16 years that this matter has been pending there have been numerous orders, plans, judgments, appeals, modifications, and alterations of plans, including the July 1973 court-ordered implementation of a desegregation plan developed by a biracial committee appointed by the district court at the request of the United States.

Since 1976, the board and the United States have been involved in a protracted process arising from the board's attempts to have the school system declared constitutionally desegregated and the pending case dismissed.

We and the school board have engaged in extensive negotiations to develop a plan to resolve this suit without the necessity of further litigation. Those efforts moved very close to success this month when the parties filed with the court a consent decree embodying a plan to create a unitary, desegregated school system for Caddo Parish with its student population of 45,469, which is 55.1 percent black and the balance white. That plan begins at the beginning of the 1981-82 school year.

The key features of the plan are the following: First, the establishment of magnet schools to attract racially integrated student populations through innovative or special focus educational offerings. The board will establish procedures for application, acceptance, and admission to those schools consistent with assignment priorities spelled out in the decree to facilitate desegregation, siblings attending the same school, and program continuity for students in magnet schools as they proceed to higher grade levels.

Second is the creation of a laboratory school to be operated in conjunction with universities and colleges in the Caddo Parish

area.

Third is the construction of a combination elementary-junior high school complex.

Fourth is some modification of attendance zone boundaries and grade restructuring.

Fifth is permission for any student who attends a school in which his or her race is a majority to transfer to a school where his or her race is in the minority, that transportation to be provided by the school system.

Sixth is the school board efforts to make any needed improvements in educational programs at the remaining one race and predominantly one-race schools which it will not be practically possible to desegregate effectively, and attempts to attract white students to those schools through the establishment of some special programs.

The plan requires the board to file with the court and the United States a yearly report which will include student enrollment statistics by race, a description of the progress of construction of the new elementary-junior high complex, and a description of efforts with respect to the remaining one race or predominantly one-race schools.

After the 1983-84 school year, the board may file a notice of compliance with the decree, and unless the United States believes the board has failed to comply, the board shall enter an order declaring the system unitary and terminate this case at long last. Mr. Chairman, I wish to emphasize a few points about this consent decree. First, although it is a major step toward the resolution of a protracted legal dispute that has been costly to all parties concerned, it is not yet final. The decree is before the court. There is a 10-day comment period that began on May 7. If objections are raised to the plan, there could be further litigation.

Second, to address the matter of primary interest to this subcommittee, while the plan does involve some additional busing, the busing results, by and large, from other changes in the educational system such as boundary line changes, grade restructuring, and the employment of magnet schools. It must be pointed out that transportation already exists in the Caddo Parish school system.

Third, as I have indicated, the plan embodied in this consent decree involves a wide variety of approaches to school desegregation and is faithful in its priority of remedies to the requirements of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, in which Congress set forth its view of the priorities of desegregation remedies. Finally, I want to emphasize that the negotiation process that has led to this consent decree has been very delicate, and the agreements in the decree reflect many hours of good-faith work on both sides. The parties acknowledge that the elimination of all racially identifiable schools in Caddo Parish is impracticable.

At the same time, we are committed to the goals of maintaining the significant desegregation that has already been achieved and insuring that the burdens of additional desegregation are borne as equitably as possible by both black and white students.

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