Assignment

EYES ON THE PRIZE EPISODE 13: KEYS TO THE KINGDOM 1974-1980. PART ONE: BUSING IN BOSTON SCHOOLS

1. Batson described the situation in the Boston Public Schools as de facto segregation. What is the difference between de facto segregation and legally sanctioned segregation? How did Batson account for the situation in Boston?

2. In Boston, what was the difference between integration and desegregation?

3. Why did Hicks and others object to Batson's description of the schools as segregated?

4. Why do you think Batson insisted that the schools needed to be desegregated? Why did she believe it wasn't enough to fix schools in their local communities?

5. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton argued there was a public interest in sustaining integrated schools. What is it? Is there an educational value to school integration?

6. What rights did the "forced busing" protesters think they had lost? What were the similarities and dissimilarities between the campaign against desegregation and the civil rights struggle?

7. Do you think that the white majority had a moral and legal responsibility to help blacks in Boston's impoverished neighborhoods? Do civic responsibilities cross community boundaries or is each com- munity responsible for only itself?

8. How do you think young students would have reacted to the busing without pressure from their par- ents and the presence of the media?

9. In Milliken v. Bradley, a case involving school desegregation in Detroit, Michigan, in 1974, the US Supreme Court ruled that busing procedures were confined to school districts within the city.

In Boston, desegregation busing had also involved only city schools.

What do you think would have happened if suburban communities had been affected by court-ordered busing?