University of Pennsylvania
From the SelectedWorks of Demetri L. Morgan
March, 2011
Actions Speak Louder Than Words - Nixon's
Effect on School Desegregation
Demetri L. Morgan, University of Pennsylvania
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/demetrilmorgan/2/
Nixon’s Effect on School Desegregation
Presented by: Demetri L. Morgan – Indiana University
Nixon’s
Rhetoric
• Appease the “Silent
Majority and Southern
Democrats”
Nixon’s
Actions
• Properly live out “Law
& Order” by enforcing
recent civil rights
rulings
Nixon’s
Rhetoric
Nixon’s
Actions
• Conducted symbolically using
rhetoric, public relations
campaigns, and figurative
gestures
• Advanced through Nixon’s
Administrations policy
statements, executive orders,
and proposed and
implemented cabinet policies.
 School Busing
 Title 1 School Funding
 Locus of School Governance
1964 – Signing of the
Civil Rights act of
1964
1954 -Brown vs.
Board of
Education
1957 –Little Rock 9
1966 - Coleman Report on
Education
 Nixon’s Idea of a Good Education
 Education & the Silent Majority
 Education & Nixon’s Southern Strategy
 Education & Nixon’s “Law & Order”
Nixon’s
Rhetoric
• “No Busing, No
Way, No How”
Nixon’s
Actions
• “School Busing
Gaines ‘will not
be televised’”
Nixon’s
Rhetoric
• “Money &
Power for
Everyone”
Nixon’s
Actions
• “Real Money
moves in
Silence”
 America’s first wide scale experiment with racially
integrated public schools.
 Lasting involvement of the Federal Government in
education
 Increased complexity of an already misunderstood
Presidency

Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education. 396 (Supreme Court, October 29, 1969).

Brown v. Board of Education. 347 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1954).

Brown v. Board of Education. 349 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1955).

Brown, Frank. "Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and Forces against Brown." The Journal of Negro Education, 2004: 191-208.

Chester, Lewis, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page . American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: Viking Press, 1969.

Cooper v. Aaron. 358 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1958).

Cross, Christopher T. Political education: national policy comes of age. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.

Delaney, Paul. "U.S. RIGHTS PANEL CRITICIZES NIXON ON SCHOOL BUSING; Says Limited-Travel Plan Would Undermine Efforts to Desegregate
Classes Rights Panel Criticizes Nixon Bus Policy." The New York Times, August 13, 1971: 1.

Esienhower, Dwight D. "State of the Union Adress before a joint session of the Congress ." Washington D.C., January 7, 1954.

Green v. County School Board of New Kent County,. 391 (Supreme Court, May 27, 1968).

Jones, James R. "The Role of the Federal Government in Educational Policy Matters: Focus on Finance." Journal of Education Finance, 1984: 238-255.

Kantor , Harvey . "Education, Social Reform, and the State: ESEA and Federal Education Policy in the 1960s." American Journal of Education, 1991: 47-83.

Kiesling, Herbert J. "Value to Society of Integrated Education and Compensatory Education." The Georgetown Law Review, 1971-1973: 857-878.

Kimbrough, Jackie, and James Hyman. An Evaluation of the Emergency School Aid Act Nonprofit Organization Program: Vol. 1, An Analysis of Federal
Program Implementation and Funding Procedures. Report, Santa Monica: Rand Corp, 1978.

Kowtlowski, Dean J. Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Princple, and Policy. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 2001.

Lassiter, Matthew D. The Silent Majority. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Levine, Robert A. "The Silent Majority, Neither Simple nor Simple Minded." Public Opinon Quarterly, 1971: 571-577.

New York State Education Department. "Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009: A Brief Synopsis." States’ Impact on Federal Education
Policy Project . New York: New York State Education Department , 2009.

New York Times. "INTEGRATION HELD 'TOO FAST' IN POLL; Gallup Finds 44% Opposing Present Pace in Schools." New York Times, August 17,
1969: 42.

Nixon, Richard M. "Busing and Equality of Educational Opportunity. Message From the President of the United States Relative to Busing and Equality of
Educational Opportunity, and Transmitting a Draft of Proposed Legislation to Impose a Moratorium on New and Additional Stude." Washington, DC.:
Executive Office of the President, 1972.

—. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

—. "School Desegergation: "A Free and Open Society"." March 24, 1970.

—. "Special Message to the Congress on Education Reform." March 3, 1970.

Orfield, Gary. Must We Bus? Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution , 1978.

"P.L. 85-864; 72 Stat. 1580." 1958.

"Papers of the Nixon White House (PNWH)." no. 6B Fiche 22. January 19, 1970.

Rudolph, John L. Scientists in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education. New York: Palgrave, 2002.

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. 402 (Supreme Court, April 20, 1971).

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "School Desegregation and Equal Educational Opportunity." Civil Rights 101 . n.d.
http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/desegregation.html.

The Westinghouse Learning Corporation and Ohio University. The Impact of Head Start: An Evaluation of the Effects of Head Start on Children's
Cognitive and Affective Development. Executive Summary, Springfield: Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific & Technical Information, 1969.

Vinovskis, Maris A. "Do Federal Compensatory Education Programs Really Work? A Brief Historical Analysis of Title I and Head Start." American
Journal of Education, 1999: 187-209.

Watts , Harold W., and Glen G. Cain. "Problems in Making Policy Inferences from the Coleman Report." American Sociological Review, 1970: 228-242.

Wells, Amy Stuart, Jennifer Jellison Holme, Anita Tijerina Revilla, and Awo Koranemaa Atanda. Both Sides Now: The story of school desegergation's
graduates. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009.

Willis, Gary. Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man. New York: Mariner Books, 1979.