Affirmative Action and Forced Busing

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>As blacks benefited from new voting rights and school desegregation, the workplace remained a hostile environment for some. Many businesses openly flaunted hiring policies that excluded blacks or confined them to menial jobs. <br></P> <P>To make the workplace more equitable, President Lyndon Baines Johnson issued an executive order in 1965 requiring that all federal contractors implement "affirmative action" hiring practices towards women and minorities. This meant that many large businesses that held contracts with the government were forced to increase the number of females and minorities in their organizations. In 1967, Johnson backed up his resolve toward civil rights by appointing Thurgood Marshall as the first African American to the Supreme Court.</P> </p> <p> <P>Johnson's executive order was intended to protect individuals from discrimination, but there were no metrics by which to measure the success of his order. When Richard Nixon took office following Johnson's term, affirmative action measures were extended to protect other under-represented groups. Nixon's Philadelphia Plan of 1969 required that construction-trade unions that worked on federal contracts establish goals and timetables for hiring minorities. Unlike Johnson's order, Nixon's Philadelphia Plan included specific, measurable standards by which to judge the plan's success. <br></P> <P>Soon after it was enacted, the Philadelphia Plan's measures were extended to include all organizations that worked on federal contracts. As a result, thousands of employers had to meet quotas or set aside a specific number of contracts for minorities. Similarly, colleges and universities that received federal funds were required to admit a certain number of minority applicants. </P> </p> <p> <P>Fearful of losing jobs and educational opportunities, critics of affirmative action began to view the program as "reverse discrimination." Critics attacked the program because it was implemented by judicial mandate and executive order and not by a vote of the people. Critics charged that their rights had been violated because affirmative action placed more emphasis on race or gender than on ability or achievement. <br></P> <P>Taking center stage in the civil rights movement along with affirmative action was the desegregation of schools. Although the government had begun a policy of forced desegregation in the 1950's, many schools remained segregated. In 1969, a unanimous Supreme Court declared an immediate end to all school segregation when it ruled in the case of <i>Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education.</P> </p> <p> <P>The Supreme Court forced the issue of school desegregation again when it ruled in <i>Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education </i>(1971). The Court ruled that school systems must begin busing students to schools outside of all-minority neighborhoods to achieve integration. Many middle class suburban whites opposed forced busing, believing that busing students would destroy neighborhood schools. Major protests were held in Boston and Denver, and angry parents in Pontiac, Michigan, firebombed buses in an attempt to draw attention to the issue. <br></P> <P>Nixon, an opponent of forced desegregation, asked Congress to impose a moratorium on all busing orders by federal courts. Although the House of Representatives passed Nixon's measure, a Senate filibuster blocked his anti-busing bill. </P> </p> <p> <P>Opponents of busing won a limited victory in 1974 when the Supreme Court ruled in <i>Milliken v. Bradley.</i> The Court's opinion said that Detroit could not bus students from inner-city schools to suburban areas because doing so would require students to move across school district lines. As a result, suburban school districts were exempted from participating in desegregation, and many whites moved their families to suburbs where their children would not have to participate in forced busing.<br></P> <P>Many historians view the civil rights movement that took place between 1954 and 1968 as the second Reconstruction. The gains made toward equality during this period in American history continue to encourage new generations. Many minority groups, including Native Americans, Hispanics, gays, and women look to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as a blueprint for their own efforts to gain equality.</P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>