Roberts Memo Urged Laws Prohibiting Busing, Quotas

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A02

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. advised the Reagan administration's attorney general that "it makes eminent sense" to seek legislation permanently barring the use of employment quotas to redress discrimination and prohibiting the busing of students to foster the integration of schools, according to newly disclosed archival documents.

The March 15, 1982, recommendation to enact administration policy into law came up in a written assessment that year by Roberts and a colleague in the office of then-Attorney General William French Smith of legal issues raised by conservative groups.