Chapter one examines the constitutional context of the busing issue and focuses on the way courts have dealt with the problem. Attention is divided between the United States Supreme Court's rulings and the work of the lower courts. When courts have required busing for desegregation there has almost inevitably been considerable public opposition. Chapter two concentrates on the Congress' response to the busing crisis. The development of the issue is traced with special emphasis on the growth of the anti-busing movement outside the South. In chapter three, which deals with presidential politics and busing, the politics of busing in the presidential campaigns of 1964, 1968, and 1972 has been analyzed, and the political, rather than the legal, administrative and educational dimensions of the problem in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, have been discussed. Chapter four deals with state politics and busing; the politics of racial balance and the role of busing to achieve that goal is treated in two case studies in New York and Massachusetts. In chapter five, the limited systematic studies of the politics of desegregation and busing are reviewed. In addition are analyzed some of the community contextual factors associated with participation and nonparticipation in central city-suburban voluntary pupil transportation projects in the Boston and Hartford metropolitan areas. (Author/JM)