The Rappaport Public Service Lectures

The Rappaport Public Service Lecture series offers an opportunity to showcase Greater Boston’s creative leaders and voices in public policy and governance. In presenting new visions of the region’s prospects and challenges, the series seeks to foster a dialogue that engages all of Greater Boston’s people and organizations.

The Spring 2005 Ford Hall Forum/Rappaport Institute Public Discussion is currently being scheduled. As soon as details are confirmed they will appear on this website. If you would like to be notified with updates for our Spring Forum, please send an email to Polly O'Brien.

2004 Fall Public Service Lecture
"30 Years After School Busing: Where Do We Go Next?"
Thursday, October 7, 2004

On October 7, 2004, the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston and the Ford Hall Forum at Northeastern University convened a panel discussion that focused on the 30th anniversary of public school busing. When court-ordered busing began in September 1974, it marked the beginning of one of the most traumatic periods in Boston's history. Inciting violence and intensifying racial tensions, the merits of this controversial plan for desegregating Boston's schools continue to be debated even today. In fact, three decades later, we are still struggling with very familiar questions about educational inequities and how to make opportunities for learning available to all people across racial as well as economic boundaries. Panelists at this discussion included Professor Ronald Ferguson, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government; Ellen Guiney, executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence in Public Schools; Cassell Walker, principal of the Manning School in Jamaica Plain; and Ted Landsmark, president of the Boston Architectural Center and chairman of a mayoral task force on current school-assignment policy in Boston. The discussion was moderated by Professor Robert B. Schwartz, lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and chair of the state's Education Management Audit Council.

This free event was attended by over 100 students, community activists and scholars and was presented by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston in collaboration with Northeastern University's Ford Hall Forum and the Old South Meeting House. For more information, contact Polly O’Brien at 617-495-5091 or polly@rappaportinstitute.org

About the Old South Meeting House

Since 1729, Bostonians have gathered at the Old South Meeting House for debates, discussion, revolution, and celebration. Today this museum and historic site is a living symbol of our country's quest for freedom and justice. Old South Meeting House is an inspiring National Historic Landmark that is an important resource for more than 85,000 children, parents, teachers, visitors, and citizens each year.

About the Ford Hall Forum

The mission of the Ford Hall Forum is to promote and facilitate public involvement in the open exchange of ideas on issues of public interest through the presentation of free lecture programs that actively engage diverse audiences in discussion and debate. Since 1908, the Ford Hall Forum has presented such notable speakers as Maya Angelou, Clarence Darrow, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., Henry Kissinger, Thurgood Marshall, Yitzhak Rabin, Ayn Rand, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, and Malcolm X.