The Carrot or the Stick for School Desegregation Policy: Magnet Schools or Forced Busing

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

6 Conclusions and Recommendations THE ISSUE of which model ofpolicymaking-the "command and control" model or the "public choice" model-is more relevant to school desegregation is part of an ongoing philosophical debate among intellectuals. The debate focuses on the nature and causes of the reaction of white Americans to the mandatory reassignment, or "forced busing," of white children to black schools and the legitimacy of providing incentives for socially desirable behavior on "moral" issues. White reaction to "forced busing" can be understood within the context of two major conflicts involving desegregation and the legal status of black Americans (see also Taylor, 1986). The first dispute is over the difference between civil rights and social equality. Civil rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Constitution. The Brown decision and its pre-Green progeny are viewed as civil rights decisions because they ordered the State to refrain from discriminating against black Americans. Americans now wholeheartedly accept these decisions and the nondiscrimination principle on which they rest. School integration falls within this sphere. It is, in the minds of many Americans, legitimate because it will occur naturally when people stop discriminating. Americans are not united, however, in supporting the doctrine of social equality. Survey research indicates that the majority of white Americans do not see the difference in socioeconomic status between blacks and whites as a problem, because 183 184 Conclusions and Recommendations they believe it is caused, not by discrimination, but by a lack of motivation and skills among blacks (Kluegel, 1985). Blacks, it is believed, violate such traditional American values as individualism and self-reliance, the work ethic, obedience, and discipline (Kinder and Sears, 1981 :416); thus, it is unfair for equal social interaction to be forced by government. Blacks have to earn this right by changing their behavior and values. Nor do whites view these attitudes as racist. Morris Abram, the former vice-chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, summarizes the sentiments of many Americans when he writes that favoritism, affirmative action, and other forms of "reverse discrimination" produce unintended negative consequences and are unconstitutional: Civil rights have a unique meaning in this country. Elsewhere, in some of those societies where engineering a certain distribution of wealth and goods is part of the state's mission, people have economic rights-the right to housing, health care, and other goods. But civil rights have a different meaning in this country. We live in a constitutional democracy built not on the proposition that each [individual] has a fundamental entitlement to a particular piece of the economic pie, but rather on the concept that it is up to each individual to compete for economic goods, constitutionally protected from interference by guarantees of equal protection under the law, due process, the Bill of Rights and, most fundamentally, the ballot. (Abram, 1984:52) The second great dispute, involving desegregation and the legal status of black Americans, concerns whether the behavioral changes required of whites to ensure black civil rights should be voluntary or mandatory. This dispute is tied to the first disagreement over civil rights and social equality. There is a general acceptance of the notion that it is legitimate to force whites to stop discriminating but that compliance with affirmative action policies whose goal is social equality should be voluntary . It is thought that whites will naturally and voluntarily participate in equal social interactions when blacks have earned the right by working hard and increasing their income and social class. Conclusions and Recommendations 185 Thus, what appears to be a contradiction between overwhelming white support for the principle of integration and overwhelming rejection offorced busing is not a contradiction at all. It follows logically from the fact that Americans support civil rights-for example, integration-but believe that blacks have to earn social equality, not have it forced through busing or affirmative action. In the area of school desegregation, academics and intellectuals dispute the implications of these attitudes for the direction of school desegregation policy. There is disagreement among intellectuals over the best policy alternative in part because ofdiffering interpretations of the empirical evidence on these attitudes and their effect on behavior and in part because ofdiffering feelings about whether incentives in matters of race are morally right. There are those who believe that social equality can be achieved only by government mandates-in the case of school desegregation, by...