Former TV judge falsely claims Kamala Harris was never part of 'busing' program

What's the claim?

A video of a Fox News segment featuring television personality Joe Brown posted by a TikTok user on September 8, 2024, has gone viral. In the video, Brown makes multiple false and misleading claims about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Brown claims Harris lied about being part of a school busing program, an initiative aimed at desegregating schools by transporting students to different districts to diversify the racial makeup and dismantle segregation in the United States. Brown argues that the state of California had not segregated schools when Harris was in school.

Brown concludes by claiming that the Nazi-era program "Strength Through Joy" resembles Harris's proposal with a similar name. He says, "You can see Strength Through Joy. 90 years ago last month in Nazi Germany, they came up with a program, Strength Through Joy, and it was exactly the same one she's proposed."

Archived versions of the TikTok video and similar posts can be found here, here, here, and here.

Integration and Busing

During a June 2019 Democratic primary debate, Harris had confronted (archived here) Joe Biden over his past opposition to busing, stating she was part of a busing program and the second integrated class at her school. The claim seems to have stemmed from this statement of Harris. 

In July 2019,  Berkeley Public Schools confirmed that Harris was part of the second integrated class at Thousand Oaks Elementary, having joined the busing program in 1970. Born on October 20, 1964, Harris entered first grade two years after the busing plan was implemented following the 1968 decision by Berkeley Unified's school board to desegregate the district's elementary schools through a two-way busing system.

The 'Strength Through Joy' claim

Brown repeats a claim circulating on social media that Harris is using the Nazi-era phrase "Strength Through Joy" as a campaign slogan. However, there is no mention of the phrase on the Harris campaign's website or social media accounts (archived here and here). 

While "joy" has been a recurring theme in Harris's campaign, no credible news sources have reported that Harris has used this phrase in any official capacity. The phrase "Strength Through Joy" does not appear in the Vice President's speeches or campaigns. Instead, the prominent slogan on the Harris campaign homepage is "Let's win this," and official campaign merchandise features phrases like "When we fight, we win."

The "Strength Through Joy" program, initiated by the German Labor Front in Nazi Germany, aimed to control the leisure activities of workers and promote the regime's ideology. 

This is not the first time Brown has posted false information about Harris. On August 13, 2020 he posted a photo of Kamala Harris's birth certificate with a false claim that the certificate identifies Harris as "Caucasian." Logically Facts has also fact-checked posts centering around the same certificate falsely claiming that Harris is ineligible to hold the office of president because her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth.

The verdict

Contrary to Brown's claims, Harris was part of the second integrated class at Thousand Oaks Elementary, starting in 1970 after the district's 1968 integration. Additionally, there is no evidence that Vice President Harris's campaign has used a Nazi-era program's name as a slogan.

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