The Congress finds that—

(1) the forced transportation of elementary and secondary school students in implementation of the constitutional requirement for the desegregation of such schools is controversial and difficult under the best planning and administration; and

(2) the forced transportation of elementary and secondary school students after the commencement of an academic school year is educationally unsound and administratively inefficient.

Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, no order of a court, department, or agency of the United States, requiring the transportation of any student incident to the transfer of that student from one elementary or secondary school to another such school in a local educational agency pursuant to a plan requiring such transportation for the racial desegregation of any school in that agency, shall be effective until the beginning of an academic school year.

For the purpose of this section, the term “academic school year” means, pursuant to regulations promulgated by the Secretary, the customary beginning of classes for the school year at an elementary or secondary school of a local educational agency for a school year that occurs not more often than once in any twelve-month period.

The provisions of this section apply to any order which was not implemented at the beginning of the 1974–1975 academic year.

(Pub. L. 93–380, title II, § 258, Aug. 21, 1974, 88 Stat. 520; Pub. L. 96–88, title III, § 301(a)(1), title V, § 507, Oct. 17, 1979, 93 Stat. 677, 692.)