Word: bickel
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Perhaps the most perplexing question for many Americans is whether the Constitution is still capable of guaranteeing both the security of the state and the liberty of the individual. Yale Law School Professor Alexander Bickel believes that it is. "It is flexible enough to answer particular security needs," he says. But he draws a distinction between illegal activities and certain covert security activities that may be acceptable under the Constitution-such as legal wiretapping. "The President cannot decide for himself what is in the interest of national security," Bickel says. "National security does not exist outside the rule...
...that," says Bickel, "is intolerable." The next step, in the name of national security: the internment of Ellsberg, perhaps, and then of his relatives and his friends and his business associates. "If you start down that road," adds Bickel, "there...
...still seems to embody a moral imperative as well as sound logic, even though many blacks themselves are disillusioned by the idea of integrated education. But given the country's mood, integration will obviously not be brought about by massive busing. Draft legislation has been drawn up by Bickel and North Carolina Congressman Richardson Preyer that would allow one-way busing -ghetto to suburbs-or permit students to transfer as part of a national plan to end segregated schools...
...Agnew argument, noting that any amendment might well nullify landmark civil rights decisions. The word spread on Capitol Hill that John Mitchell, too, opposed an antibusing amendment. Senate Leaders Hush Scott and Mike Mansfield registered disapproval. Congressional conservatives and liberals alike were in agreement with Yale Law Professor Alexander Bickel's view: "There is no way to fine-tune a constitutional amendment to deal solely with busing. It is beyond the wit of the most articulate draftsman, and it trivializes the Constitution...
There are other methods of removing the inequities in education: better funding for substandard schools, special programs, a student "voucher" system and traveling teaching teams. Yale's Bickel believes that imaginative programs can be devised to equalize educational standards, noting that the courts are insisting on busing partly because no other alternatives for bettering schools are available to them. Says Bickel: "The remedy for unequal education is a fluid concept. What is needed is for school districts to make the courts deal with a changed problem. I hope men of good-will will address the problem creatively...