EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, Hon. RALPH YARBOROUGH, Chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in response to your request of May 27, 1970, for our views on S. 3883, a bill "To provide financial assistance to improve education in racially impacted areas and to assist school districts to meet special problems incident to desegregation in elementary and secondary schools, and for other purposes." S. 3883 is similar to a bill transmitted to the Congress by the President. It differs, however, from that bill in three significant respects. First, S. 3883 contains a broader definition of "minority groups" to include linguistic minorities and would make provision for the participation of private school children in special educational services. The provisions in the Administration's bill focus more precisely on the needs of racial minorities in the public schools. Second, unlike the Administration bill, S. 3883 would establish a national advisory council to review programs that would be established by the bill. Finally, the Administration recommended that the use of funds for transportation services solely to achieve racial balance be prohibited; S. 3883 would provide that nothing in the bill may be construed to require the transportation of students in order to overcome racial imbalance. We recommend the enactment of S. 3883, with amendments to reflect the provisions initially submitted by the Administration. Enactment of S. 3883, with these amendments, would be in accord with the program of the President. Sincerely, WILFRED H. ROMMEL, Assistant Director for Legislative Reference. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, Hon. RALPH YARBOROUGH, Chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, July 28, 1970. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in response to your request of May 27, 1970, for a report on S. 3883, a bill “To provide financial assistance to improve education in racially impacted areas and to assist school districts to meet special problems incident to desegregation in elementary and secondary schools, and for other purposes". S. 3883 is substantially the same as a bill, the Emergency School Aid Act of 1970, which embodies the recommendations of the President in his Message of May 21, 1970, on Aid to Schools with Financial Problems and which was transmitted to the Congress with that Message. S. 3883 differs from that bill in the following respects: (1) S. 3883 does not contain an express prohibition against the expenditure of funds "to establish or maintain the transportation of students solely to achieve racial balance". It is not the intent of this language to preclude the exercise of discretion to assist transportation which is supported by substantial educational or other considerations but to provide assurance that the proposed legislation will not be used to impose transportation requirements for the sole purpose of achieving a mathematical racial balance. (S. 3883 and the bill transmitted with the May 21 Message both provide that nothing therein may be construed to require the transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.) (2) S. 3883 includes in the definition of "minority group" (for the purposes of determining eligibility for assistance) children from environments where the dominant language is other than English and who, as a result, are educationally deprived, and requires that local educational agencies submitting proposals to the Secretary indicate that they have made appropriate provisions for the participation in authorized programs of children in racially isolated non-public schools. We believe that omission of these provisions would more appropriately direct the bill to the problems of desegregation and racial isolation. (3) Finally, S. 3883 contains a provision, not found in the Administration recommendations, for the establishment of a national advisory council to review the administration of the Act. We do not feel that this provision is necessary in a short term emergency measure. For the reasons stated in the Message of the President, as further amplified in testimony of the Secretary and other representatives of the Department before the Subcommittee on Education of your committee on June 9, 1970, we strongly urge prompt and favorable consideration of S. 3883 with the appropriate changes requested by the Administration. We are advised by the Office of Management and Budget that enactment of S. 3883 with these amendments would be in accord with the program of the President. Sincerely, ELLIOT L. RICHARDSON, Secretary. Senator PELL. The bill as introduced is general in tone. It is for this reason that we will be having indepth hearings, both to obtain answers to the many questions raised about the proposal, and to hear from those who wish to impart their views to us. It should be kept in mind, however, that the subject matter is most vital, and deserves expeditious action if we are serious about bringing out a bill this year. One specific question I would like to bring out at this time before asking Senator Mondale, who is the chairman of the Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity for any comments, is addressed to you Mr. Finch: Are you here as Secretary of HEW or as counselor to the President? Secretary FINCH. I am still Secretary, Mr. Chairman. Secretary FINCH. That is correct. Senator PELL. As you know, we in the Congress have been attempting to get White House counselors to come up before committees. I thought this would be too good to be true. I also want to stress very strongly that the whole subject matter of the select committee involves this question to which we are directing our own attentions and the subcommittee will be working very closely with the select committee, as they will-develop, I am sure, a great deal more on the subject than we will be able to. For the benefit of the spectators in the audience, the select committee is on your left, my right, and the subcommittee is on my left. Senator DOMINICK. We just changed the order. Senator MONDALE. Senator Javits did not want to be on your left. SENATOR JAVITS' OPENING STATEMENT Senator JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a brief statement, if I may. First I would like to welcome the Secretary and express my feelings for the new post that he is going to assume I know that he will render at least an equal amount of service to our Nation-and to express my great admiration for him and for the extraordinary work that he has done as head of HEW and the fine service he has rendered to our Nation at a very, very difficult time when we have been bur dened with so many problems. That he solved some is a great tribute to him, especially gratifying to his old friends like myself. Secretary FINCH. I appreciate that very much, Senator. Senator JAVITS. Second, Mr. Chairman, I would like to note that we are opening hearings on a very significant measure which I have the honor to sponsor for the administration, along with the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Pell, in a very unusual gesture because he is chairman, has joined as principal cosponsor. To me this demonstrates to the country that this is deeply a bipartisan issue. He is not necessarily committed, and neither am I, to every aspect of the bill, but we thought enough of it to put it in together and are very hopeful of an affirmative result. I think what has been pointed out and which has been a matter of great doubt for a long time is the fact that there is an equality of weight and status between the failure to desegregate according to the mandate of the Supreme Court and pursuant to the constitutional order and the failure to establish intergroup situations which is in response to the moral commitment and which we call euphemistically "de facto segregation." Whatever you call it, "de facto segregation,' "racial unbalance," or "the absence of intergroup activity," it is a serious block to effective education for children of minority groups anywhere in the country, especially in the north and central part of the country where you don't have the established social order of segregation. And so I join the President, and this bill makes it clear that we do, in the determination that we would deal with so-called de facto segregation with equal vigor. That was the whole thrust of the way we compromised the so-called Stennis amendment to H.R. 514 that we will use in respect of the de jure segregation which has been condemned by the courts under the Constitution. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out a very interesting effort to do exactly what we are discussing which has been undertaken in Rochester, N.Y. And I hope very much that we have an opportunity to study the experience there, because they have actually done a great deal in dealing with the problem. And of course we have an excellent witness before us in the Commissioner of Education, who was the Education Commissioner of New York State. I feel we have a historic opportunity to this bill. It is the first civil rights bill on education and it attacks the problem with an understanding of the facts and that all the pious generalities get us exactly nowhere, desirable as they may be. This takes fundamental activity and money. Finally, I would like to pay my tribute to our subcommittee chairman, Mr. Pell, for the fine patriotism and public spirit which induced him to join with me in the bill, and to the President, the administration, and the Secretary of HEW, who is before us, for this extraordinary and very important initiative in substantively endeavoring to deal with one of America's truly great injustices and one of America's truly great domestic problems. Senator DOMINICK. I want to join Senator Javits in welcoming Secretary Finch back to the committee. We have enjoyed having him and I wish him well in his new job. I hope it will be somewhat less ulcerous than the one he has been holding at the moment. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make several additional comments. Although I have great belief in legislation in order to support and give every legislative basis that we can for civil rights measures, I am not a bit sure that we aren't stepping into a hornets' nest here by providing additional Federal funds for so-called de facto segregation. And I say that with great care. I would hope that we could cure this problem in other ways than just by providing more funds and so-called compensatory education programs which many people have already felt have been ineffective. All we are doing is pouring more money into programs of questionable effect. The second thing that concerns me is when we start putting a quota system into determining what schools are or are not going to get aid, we immediately exclude, by the size of the quota whatever it may be, schools which may have just as many problems as the schools which will receive funds and yet they get no assistance. What happens to them? What happens to the poor whites who have just as bad educational problems as everybody else, and yet by the nature of this they are not going to get any aid? I find this is a very difficult thing to deal with. And I find it most complicated. And I, for one, hope that we are going to examine this at some length and not just try to brush it off, because I am not a bit sure that the program as it is now set up, insofar as it deals with de facto segregation, is the way to try to deal with that very vexatious problem. Senator JAVITS. Would the Senator yield? Senator DOMINICK. Yes. Senator JAVITS. I thoroughly agree with the Senator. What he calls poor white, indeed they represent a very, very large number of the poor in the country. Senator DOMINICK. There are more of them on welfare than anybody else. Senator JAVITS. I would like to join with the Senator in the assurance that we will dig into that, and I know that Senator Pell and Senator Mondale feel the same way. Our experience has been when you deal with minority problems, you must, because of the continuity of residences, and the nature of the educational conditions of these disadvantaged peoples is of such a character that you must inevitably deal with both. But if there is any case in which that is not dictated by the residential pattern, et cetera, I would certainly like to join with Senator Dominick in the determination. I thank the Chairman. Senator DOMINICK. Thank you. Senator PELL. Senator Hughes? Senator HUGHES. No comment. Senator PELL. Before proceeding, I neglected to say how sorry I am to see you leaving HEW. We publicly wish you well in your new responsibilities. We have admired your work very much and ask you, Mr. Secretary, as Secretary, to go ahead with your testimony. STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT H. FINCH, SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE; ACCOMPANIED BY HON. JOHN G. VENEMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE; HON. JAMES E. ALLEN, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF EDUCATION AND U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION; J. STANLEY POTTINGER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS; JAMES W. MCLANE, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY FOR PROGRAMS/SPECIAL AFFAIRS; GREGORY ANRIG, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION; AND T. MICHAEL O'KEEFE, DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATION PLANNING, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PLANNING AND EVALUATION Secretary FINCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, I would like to indicate those accompanying me are Under Secretary Veneman, the Commissioner of Education, Mr. Allen, Mr. Stan Pottinger, director of the Office of Civil Rights, James McLane, executive assistant for Special Affairs, and Dr. Gregory Anrig, executive assistant to the Commissioner. They all appear to answer any questions that you may have. I want to first express my gratitude for the chairman's willingness to allow me to delay the appearance I hoped to make last week. I do appreciate the indulgence of the committee on that score. Mr. O'Keefe, at the end, has done much of the statistical work. I think everyone else has been identified. I think it is important to note, in response to some of the points that were made by Senator Dominick and Senator Javits, that the title of this bill is the Emergency School Aid Act of 1970. We are not attempting to reach the same kind of problems in terms of the underprivileged or poverty. We are here trying to deal with an immediate, short term crisis, which the President spelled out in his messages both on March 24 and May 21. We need to help these districts that are now caught up in the desegregation process, under a very proper immediate constraint laid down by the courts. We have to recognize that racial isolation has an adverse effect on the quality of education for all children. I think that it is important, as Senator Javits indicated, that this legislation does take on the question of de facto segregation, a point that Senator Dominick also raised. As the President has said, until the courts indicate otherwise, this administration does not feel that Federal educational dollars should be cut off from school districts which are segregated not by reason of official action but by reason of housing patterns resulting from private bias and other factors. But it is true that in this bill the Federal Government for the first time is establishing a short term policy addressing itself to de facto segregation. Substantial assistance for communities desiring to undertake the task of reducing racial isolation in the public schools is being provided. This administration in this bill will commit Federal dollars to help those districts eliminating both de facto and de jure segregation and trying to overcome the educational disadvantages of minority stu |