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This Day In 1970's History: Saturday August 16, 1975
A Federal District Court judge in Detroit declined to order the widespread busing of children to accelerate the desegregation of Detroit's public schools. In a long-awaited decision, Judge Robert DeMascio rejected two divergent desegregation proposals, both involving extensive busing, that had been advanced by the Detroit Board of Education and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The judge ordered the school board to devise a less-sweeping desegregation plan with less busing. In Detroit, the school population is 74 percent black and 26 percent white. [New York Times]
The nuclear industry is growing worldwide, with more suppliers moving into more countries, selling a wider range of related technology. Such exports have become the focus of a worldwide controversy that has spread to high levels of international diplomacy because such plants produce a by-product -- plutonium -- which after relatively simple chemical reprocessing can become the raw material for a nuclear bomb. To prevent the ostensibly peaceful uses of nuclear power from being used for the development of nuclear weapons, the supplier nations are reported to be in secret negotiations in an attempt to reach agreement on rules governing the controls to be placed on sales. But the efficacy of the controls is being questioned. [New York Times]
A ransom, believed to be $4.5 million, was left for the kidnappers of Samuel Bronfman II early this morning, with an agreement that the 21-year-old heir to a liquor fortune was to be released within hours. But last night there was no word from the kidnappers about the release of the young man, abducted eight days ago. Law enforcement officials were becoming increasingly concerned about his well-being. [New York Times]
That millions of Americans cannot afford legal counsel when they need it -- the poor, the elderly, Indians on reservations and middle-class people -- is a fact known among the legal profession. Ways to change that situation are increasingly getting the attention of lawyers, but not yet with any resolution. Lawyers are calling for solutions that include legal clinics, the deliberate undercharging of middle-class clients on personal matters and bar association backing of public interest law firms. [New York Times]
In the seven weeks since the Supreme Court ruled that certain mentally ill persons may not be confined against their will, the decision has not, apparently, led to the release of a single mental patient other than Kenneth Donaldson, the plaintiff in the case that led to the Court's decision. It had been expected that thousands of people would soon be released from psychiatric hospitals, but the decision has produced little more than controversy about its narrow and sometimes vague language and efforts to decide how, or even whether, it may be immediately applied. Physicians and lawyers say each of the three conditions on which the decision says a mental patient may be released is stated imprecisely enough to need further clarification. [New York Times]
