busing

American  

[buhs-ing] / ˈbʌs ɪŋ /

Or bussing

noun

1. the transporting of students by bus to schools outside their neighborhoods, especially as a means of achieving socioeconomic or racial diversity among students in a public school.

---

busing Cultural  

1. The movement of students from one neighborhood to a school in another neighborhood, usually by bus and usually to break down de facto segregation of public schools.

---

Discover More

A Supreme Court decision in 1971 ruling that busing was an appropriate means of achieving integrated schools (see integration) was received with widespread, sometimes violent, resistance, particularly among whites into whose neighborhoods and schools black children were to be bused. In 1991, the Court ruled that school districts could end busing if they had done everything “practicable” to eliminate the traces of past discrimination.

Etymology

Origin of busing

1885–90; bus ¹ (v.) + -ing ¹, spelled irregular with single s, perhaps to avoid association with buss

Example Sentences

Robert Docter, an L.A. school board member in the 1970s who successfully pushed to end corporal punishment and who sacrificed his political career trying to integrate campuses through busing, has died at 97.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 5, 2025

Instead, the city is busing students to schools that have extra space.

From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 29, 2025

Daryl, 42, a self-described conservative, lived in several Southern communities as a child, including Charlotte, North Carolina, in the mid-1980s as the city wrestled with its court-ordered school busing program.

From Salon • Aug. 18, 2025

For the most part, the busing system is used by students with disabilities — for whom transportation is legally required — and students attending magnet programs at campuses far from where they live.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 11, 2025

A few years ago, they started busing students in from all over the city.

From "On the Come Up" by Angie Thomas