THIS bill contains a wholesale retreat by the Congress from responsibility on school busing. Congress has refused to put a limit to court orders busing small children under 11 out of their neighborhoods. Congress has granted no relief whatsoever to school districts which have been ordered by the courts to institute massive busing programs. This is not good enough.
Cross-city and cross-county busing is wrong; it is harmful to education; it does not unite races and communities; it divides them. If Congress continues to refuse to act on the proposal I have made to solve this problem--a moratorium on all busing orders--we will have no choice but to seek a constitutional amendment which will put the goals of better education for all of our children above the objective of massive busing for some children.
Note: The President's remarks were filmed in the Family Theater at the White House for later broadcast on radio and television.
Richard Nixon, Remarks on School Busing in Connection With the Education Amendments of 1972. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/254590
