Busing Will Not Affect City, Cambridge Board Member Says

Charles Pierce, a member of the Cambridge School Committee, said last night that he doubts expansion of Boston's busing desegregation program will affect Cambridge.

Pierce said that Cambridge, with a black population of 12 to 13 per cent in the schools, does not have enough blacks to bus into Boston schools.

Pierce made his statement in connection with U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity's announcement last week that he may reconsider the issue of including the suburbs in the busing decision to desegregate Boston schools.

Garrity's announcement came in response to the appeal of Boston citizens who are pressing him to present a suburban busing order despite a Supreme Court ruling in July which turned down a similar busing program in Detroit and 53 suburbs.

Not 'Realistic'

Garrity said that the proposal was not a "realistic prospect," but he opened the possibility of integrating Boston and suburban schools for the first time since 1972.

Cambridge City Councilor Francis Duehay '55 said last night that he is in favor of extending the busing program to Boston suburbs, warning that "until we expand, we cannot have racial and socioeconomic integration."

Duehay added that one major problem with the proposal is "whether it would create a gigantic school district and a bureaucracy." He said small-sized districts would prevent such problems.

City Councilor David A. Wylie, who was on the school committee for six years, said there are no serious proposals on expansion of the busing program.

Slim Chance

However, there is a very slim chance of having a voluntary busing program involved in an effort to balance school children racially and socially, he said. Before the proposal would affect Cambridge, state laws would first have to be passed with funding to enact the program, Wylie added.

Boston Mayor Kevin White last week authorized a committee to determine whether there is a legal basis for the court order after Garrity said he would decide which route to follow in organizing a metropolitan desegregation plan.

Among possible changes in Garrity's desegregation plan are doubling the current level of 2000 black students bused to suburban schools and expanding existing voluntary programs that link city and suburban school systems.

Garrity said that the primary goal should be to ensure a "quality education" at every level in the Boston metropolitan area.