Washington Post, July 8, 2019
The issue of “busing” has returned to public conversation following a testy exchange between Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and former vice president Joe Biden in the second night of the Democratic presidential debate. When Harris highlighted Biden’s opposition to “busing,” Biden pushed back, saying he had been a “lifetime champion of civil rights,” but just opposed “federal intervention” and what opponents called “forced busing.”
After scoring points in the debate for her courageous intervention, Harris herself later backtracked, saying busing is a tool that should be “considered” by local districts, but that she opposed federally mandated busing. Despite studies documenting how deeply segregated schools across the country now are, Harris told reporters in Iowa on Thursday that “today it is very rare that we require the courts or the federal government to intervene” in school desegregation.