Despite its apparent insensitivity to Negroes, the Nixon Administration lobbied last week to disarm legislation intended to sabotage Southern school desegregation. At issue was the "Whitten amendment," a booby trap tacked on to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's $17.8 billion appropriations bill by Representative Jamie L. Whitten of Mississippi.
He sought to take away the Government's most effective integration weapon: the authority granted to HEW under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to withhold federal aid to school districts refusing to carry out adequate plans for desegregation. The Whitten amendment specifically barred HEW from withholding funds to force bussing, the...
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