20 U.S.C. § 1702: Congressional findings

Summary

Congress requires clear rules to end school systems that put students into schools just because of race, color, sex, or national origin, because that denies equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ending segregation has often forced school districts to reorganize, move students, and use extensive student transportation. That has used up money that could improve school buildings and teaching. Long student travel can harm health, safety, and learning, especially for children in the first six grades. Court guidance so far has been unclear and incomplete. For these reasons, Congress must set appropriate remedies under its constitutional powers to remove the remaining effects of segregated systems, without limiting the courts’ authority to enforce the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Title 20, §1702

Education, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Dual school systems as denial of equal protection; depletion of financial resources of local educational agencies; transportation of students; inadequacy of guidelines

The Congress finds that—

(1)the maintenance of dual school systems in which students are assigned to schools solely on the basis of race, color, sex, or national origin denies to those students the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment;

(2)for the purpose of abolishing dual school systems and eliminating the vestiges thereof, many local educational agencies have been required to reorganize their school systems, to reassign students, and to engage in the extensive transportation of students;

(3)the implementation of desegregation plans that require extensive student transportation has, in many cases, required local educational agencies to expend large amounts of funds, thereby depleting their financial resources available for the maintenance or improvement of the quality of educational facilities and instruction provided;

(4)transportation of students which creates serious risks to their health and safety, disrupts the educational process carried out with respect to such students, and impinges significantly on their educational opportunity, is excessive;

(5)the risks and harms created by excessive transportation are particularly great for children enrolled in the first six grades; and

(6)the guidelines provided by the courts for fashioning remedies to dismantle dual school systems have been, as the Supreme Court of the United States has said, “incomplete and imperfect,” and have not established, a clear, rational, and uniform standard for determining the extent to which a local educational agency is required to reassign and transport its students in order to eliminate the vestiges of a dual school system.

(b)Necessity of Congress to specify appropriate remedies for elimination of dual school systems

For the foregoing reasons, it is necessary and proper that the Congress, pursuant to the powers granted to it by the Constitution of the United States, specify appropriate remedies for the elimination of the vestiges of dual school systems, except that the provisions of this chapter are not intended to modify or diminish the authority of the courts of the United States to enforce fully the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Section effective on and after sixtieth day after Aug. 21, 1974, see section 2(c) of Pub. L. 93–380, set out as a note under section 1221–1 of this title.

§1702 Congressional Findings

Summary

Title 20, §1702

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Citations & Metadata