Phi Delta Kappan, July 17, 2019
For three weeks now, news outlets have been pumping out stories about busing, a topic unexpectedly restored to prominence by a dramatic Democratic primary campaign debate moment when Senator Kamala Harris challenged former Vice President Joe Biden on his record opposing busing students to integrate schools.
Several news outlets have tried to fact-check Biden’s past history on busing. Many have reported the candidates’ current desegregation positions, or simply covered the controversy. A few have looked back at the busing experiences of Harris and her classmates in Berkeley or other places. Others have looked at the lackluster history of recent federal desegregation efforts.
While surprising and abundant, this wave of school desegregation coverage hasn’t been as helpful as it could have been, according to a handful of prominent researchers and journalists who argue that media outlets have been talking about busing the wrong way, using the wrong terms, focusing on the wrong things.