The Jewish Rights Council (JERICO), a national organization of rabbis and laymen, has written to U.S. Attorney General Edward H. Levi expressing disappointment over the decision of the Justice Department not to enter the Boston school busing case. JERICO claims that all mass busing orders by courts violate the individual rights and needs of the pupils being bused.
JERICO said that every busing decree, in order to agree with the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution, must be based upon a detailed examination of the impact of the busing upon each individual pupil. Otherwise, according to JERICO, individual pupils are going to be punished for the sins of others. This inherent fault of busing decrees, and the resulting adverse impacts upon the education of the bused pupils, renders the present-day mass busing being mandated by the courts unconstitutional, in JERICO’s opinion.
JERICO, which was founded in 1971, has previously filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the United States Supreme Court opposing the forced busing of children in public school cases in Denver, Richmond and Detroit.
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