Retreat from Integration

To civil rights advocates, the decision of the New York State Board of Regents came as a bitter surprise. Once in the forefront of the drive for school desegregation, the board announced recently that it will no longer consider the racial balance in enrollment to determine if a school is in compliance with state integration laws. Instead, the regents will henceforth require New York schools only to make a "serious effort" to desegregate. The decision, black Regent Kenneth Clark said bluntly, was "a tragic retreat."

Such retreats have become almost commonplace in the North. While only 25% of black pupils in the South are still attending largely black schools, the percentage in the North is still 49%. The movement for Northern school desegregation has become mired down somewhere between interminable court delays in Los Angeles, uneasy anticipation in Detroit and outright racial violence in Boston. In most large Northern cities, it seems, the pressure for desegregation has been significantly relaxed.

In Detroit, for example, Claud Young, head of the Michigan chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, wants the $200,000 earmarked by the school board for busing plans to be used instead to improve the schools, particularly in the area of vocational training. Young also opposes busing on the pragmatic ground that the reaction would make South Boston "look like a warmup." Still, Detroit, which has a 70% black enrollment, may face busing next fall. Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Detroit plan to merge the city and suburban schools, and ordered the school board to come up with another plan.

Even court orders do not bring rapid integration. Although San Francisco schools have been under court order to desegregate since 1971, 43 of the city's 96 elementary schools have still not met the court's standards. Another California court ordered the Los Angeles schools to desegregate five years ago, but the issue has been under appeal ever since. Says School Board Member Georgina Hardy: "Basically, there's no real desire on the part of anyone--black, white or Chicane--to move from their schools."

The drive for desegregation has also come virtually to a stop in Chicago, where the school enrollment is already 70% minority. Chicago school officials are reluctant to do anything that will make the remaining whites move away, and many blacks support their inaction.

One-Way Busing. In Boston's bitter school battle, 16 different proposals have so far been submitted in response to U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity's order for citywide desegregation next fall. The plan that has the most substantial support would require suburbs with declining enrollments and empty school seats to take students from Boston. Such a plan--involving voluntary, one-way busing--was introduced in the Massachusetts legislature last month; it has the backing of new Governor Michael Dukakis and Boston Mayor Kevin White. It would involve relatively small numbers of students and would not significantly change the racial balance of Boston-area schools.

The North's desegregation record is not universally bad. Berkeley, Calif., voluntarily desegregated its schools in 1968 and combined massive changes in the curriculum with large-scale busing. Last year more than 26,000 of Denver's 78,300 pupils changed schools under a court desegregation order; there were some demonstrations at first, but the schools are now peaceful.

While the court battles continue in many cities, there is still debate about the academic effects of desegregation in city schools. Recently, for example, the results of a two-year study in Philadelphia showed that both black and white elementary school pupils learned more in integrated classrooms. When black youngsters reached junior high school, however, they learned more when the majority of their classmates were black. John Coleman, president of Haverford College and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which financed the research, believes that the study has "the potential to shake up the entire educational establishment." At the very least, it could provide a new rationale for those who want to hasten the retreat from integration.

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