Each year after passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act up until 1977, the Democratic controlled House passed at least one new law designed to restrain school integration—often in the guise of anti-busing legislation. Until 1974, the Senate rejected those bills. But as white resistance to busing escalated in many cities across the country, the House Democrats anti-busing majority began to pull more Democratic senators to their side.
In 1975, Sen. [[Joseph Biden]], later [[Vice President of the United States of America|vice-president]] and [[President Obama]]'s token segregationist, proposed an amendment that gutted Title VI of the [[1964 Civil Rights Act]], which enabled the federal government to cut off funding to school districts that refused to integrate. ''[[Politico]]'' writes of the whole sordid affair, {{quotebox|Biden morphed into a leading anti-busing crusader—all the while continuing to insist that he supported the goal of school desegregation, he only opposed busing as the means to achieve that end. This stance, which many of Biden’s liberal and moderate colleagues also held, was clever but disingenuous. It enabled Biden to choose votes over principles, while acting as if he was not doing so....In a seminal moment, the Senate thus turned against desegregation. The Senate had supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act, [[1965 Voting Rights Act]] and 1968 Fair Housing Act....the Senate remained the last bastion for those who supported strong integration policies. Biden stormed that bastion...<ref>https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/joe-biden-integration-school-busing-120968_full.html</ref>}} A Boston NAACP leader said, “An anti-busing amendment is an anti-desegregation amendment, and an anti-desegregation amendment is an anti-black amendment.” Republican Sen. [[Edward Brooke]], the first black senator ever to be directly elected, called Biden’s amendment “the greatest symbolic defeat for [[civil rights]] since 1964.” Brooke accused Biden of leading an assault on integration.
During a [[Democratic party]] presidential primary debate before the [[2020 presidential election]], California senator [[Kamala Harris]] confronted then frontrunner former VP Joe Biden over his role in repealing sections of the [[1964 Civil Rights Act]] that restored funding to schools refusing to integrate with [[Black]]s after the 1954 ''[[Brown vs. Board of Education]]'' desegregation order.<ref>[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/kamala-harris-says-she-was-a-victim-of-bidens-racial-policies 'That little girl was me': Kamala Harris says she was a victim of Biden's anti-busing racial policies], by Ellie Bufkin, ''Washington Examiner'', June 27, 2019.</ref> The Biden Amendment,<ref>[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/joe-biden-integration-school-busing-120968_full.html How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration], By JASON SOKOL, ''[[Politico]]'', August 04, 2015.</ref> originally written by segregationist Democrat Sen. James Eastland, but with Biden's name on it with few modifications, restored federal funding for schools that refused to comply with court ordered desegregation and busing.<ref>[http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/joe-biden-record-on-busing-incarceration-racial-justice-democratic-primary-2020-explained.html Will Black Voters Still Love Biden When They Remember Who He Was?], By Eric Levitz, ''Intelligencer'', Mar. 12, 2019.</ref> Harris told [[MSNBC]]'s [[Chris Matthews]]: {{quotebox|If those segregationists would have had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate, and I certainly would not be a serious candidate for President of the United States. ... Barack Obama would not have been in a position to appoint Joe Biden Vice President of the United States. So the consequences of their actions were very real, and on the shoulders of the history of our country of really a very bad, awful, dark, dangerous, and lethal time.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p23VyNxnOQ&feature=youtu.be</ref>}}