Nixon’s 1970 desegregation stance adopted the suburban antibusing movement’s color-blind ideology.

Evidence

Although he reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to the Brown decision, Nixon advanced a constitutional vision that embraced an inviolable principle of neighborhood schools, even when they reflected segregated housing patterns. In short, the president endorsed the viewpoint that most remaining school segregation in the metropolitan South, as in the urban North, resulted from de facto residential forces beyond the proper jurisdiction of the federal courts. … He charged that certain federal judges had launched a “tragically futile effort to achieve in the schools the kind of multiracial society which the adult community has failed to achieve for itself.” The White House policy statement, a political agenda presented in constitutional wrapping, closely echoed the color-blind stance of the CPA and clearly represented a direct response to the mobilized members of the Silent Majority. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 76

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ and especially the overall theme of a rationalizing ideology being rebranded under political pressure; the segregation ideology rebranding as color-blind individualism is the exact dynamic the reader is studying.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s larger project on ideologies forced to retreat and rebrand under sustained political pressure. — connects to: A middle-class antibusing movement forced segregationist ideology into a ‘color-blind’ populist frame. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 51; The Nixon administration nationalized the suburban color-blind stance against busing in 1970. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 76; White suburban antibusing parents weaponized the Silent Majority trope against Nixon — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 72 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The Nixon administration nationalized the suburban color-blind stance against busing in 1970. #expands (0.97) — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 76
• Color-blind ideology enshrined suburban autonomy and white racial innocence as national doctrine. #expands (0.85) — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 113
• White suburban antibusing parents weaponized the Silent Majority trope against Nixon #complicates (0.78) — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 72
• 1990s suburbans rebranded desegregation opposition as color-blind neighborhood protection #exemplifies (0.74) — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 109