Boston busing crisis (1974)
Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered Boston to desegregate its schools through busing, reassigning students across neighborhoods. On the first day of school, police escorted buses through hostile crowds; South Boston High School became a flashpoint, with rocks thrown at buses and violent clashes with police.
Years of protests and white flight followed. White enrollment in Boston public schools plunged as families left the district or went private.
The episode became a national symbol of the social cost of top-down assignment changes, and it shaped how districts approach enrollment reform for decades.
San Francisco's shift from a citywide lottery to zones will also redistribute students, and the board's contentious 5-2 vote shows the political difficulty of changing who gets into which school.