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THE MAROON TIGER
April, 1967
Federal Government
Responsible For
Building Ghettos;
NCDH Calls For
Presidential Action
The Federal government “is pri
marily responsible for undergirding a
ghetto system that dominates, distorts,
and despoils every aspect of life in the
United States today.”
So charges one of the country’s ma
jor civil rights organizations which to
day unwrapped for public view a bill of
particulars that the White House asked
for and received nine months ago.
The National Committee Against
Discrimination in Housing levels 17
specific complaints against Federal
agencies for policies and practices which
it says tend to perpetuate “tortuous”
patterns of racial and economic segre
gation.
The charges are part of a 32-page
booklet, “How the Federal Government
Builds Ghettos,” released by Edward
Rutledge and Jack E. Wood, Jr., the Com
mittee’s executive and associate direct
ors.
Publication coincided with a Wash
ington meeting of the Committee’s 71-
man Board, which first approved the bill
of particulars last April.
NCDH is a nonprofit group through
which 46 national organizations cooper
ate in programs to achieve integrated
neighborhoods.
The Committee documents its bill
of particulars with what amounts to a
case history of Federal housing opera
tions, beginning in 1938 with FHA regu
lations that urged the use of restrictive
covenants to keep out “inharmonious
racial groups.”
In the Committee’s judgment, the
effect of such practices has been to fix
“white racist patterns in thousands of
new suburbs, where 80 per cent of all
new housing is now being built,” and to
trap Negroes in the central cities where
“two- thirds of the dwelling units are
sub-standard.”
Today’s “Federal establishment,”
according to the Committee, is guilty
mainly of failing to back up its good in
tentions with affirmative action. “Its
sin is not bigotry . . . but blandness,
not a lack of good-will but a lack of
will. ”
Most of the Committee’s charges are
directed against the Department of Hous
ing and Urban Development, whose ac
tivities annually account for about 20
per cent of new housing in the U. S.
Generally, NCDH finds the Department’s
desegregation efforts “administratively
unworkable, self-defeating, ineffectual,
and understaffed.”
“FHA continues doing business with
discriminatory builders, lenders, and
real estate brokers,” the indictment con
tinues. “Urban renewal and highway
projects destroy integrated neighbor
hoods . . . Federal loans and grants are
poured into restricted white suburban
communities for schools, hospitals,
water and sewer systems and other fa
cilities. Government installations and
plants with Federal contracts locate in
areas where employment opportunities
are cancelled out by racial barriers to
housing.”
For each charge, the Committee has
a recommendation. One example:
“The Department of Housing and
Urban Development is replete with of
ficials who are out of sympathy with the
nondiscrimination policy and objectives
of the Administration.
“RECOMMENDATION: Fire them.”
Among the other principal recom
mendations:
No urban renewal grants should go
to any community which fails to come up
with an overall plan for desegregation.
The exemption of existing FHA-aided
housing from the non-discrimination re
quirements of Executive Order 11063
should be revoked immediately.
Instead of acting only on complaints
received, FHA should initiate complaints
against builders and developers whose
policies discriminate against Negroes
and other minorities.
The President’s Committee on Equal
Opportunity in Housing should either be
abolished or reconstituted as an inde
pendent agency, composed exclusively
of public members with power to review
and issue regulations.
HUD should investigate the mort
gage-loan policies of insurance com
panies which benefit by participation in
Federal programs.
Going beyond HUD, the Committee
accuses the Department of Justice of
taking “a narrow constitutional position
in advising the President respecting the
reach of his Executive power, contrary
to the views and recommendations of
leading . . . constitutional lawyers
throughout the country.”
The Committee touches on the cur
rent debate over integration as a real
istic goal, citing the Administration’s
Model Cities program as a crucial op
portunity for re-statement of the national
commitment.
“The summer soldiers who in defeat
and frustration are prepared to make
their peace with apartheid and to re
build the ghettos as ghettos, must face
the stark reality that ‘separate but
equal’ is not only constitutionally and
morally wrong but that as a practical
matter it simply won’t work.”
While supporting the concept of fair
housing legislation, the Committee con
tends that the Federal government al
ready has sufficient authority to achieve
a turnabout.
“What is required,” it concludes,
“is a strong . . . directive by President
Lyndon B. Johnson which publicly as
sures the (HUD) Secretary and other Fed
eral agency administrators that the goal
of equal housing opportunity so fre
quently enunciated by him must be
achieved and that he expects members of
his Administration to pursue this goal
vigorously with affirmative programs
and policies.”
NCDH president is George Metcalf,
former New York State senator and co
sponsor of the pioneering Metcalf-Baker
fair-housing laws. Algernon D. Black,
Senior Leader of the New York Ethical
Culture Society, is chairman of the
Board. Copies of the report are avail
able at 25 cents each from the Commit
tee’s headquarters at 323 Lexington
Ave., New York City, 10016.
NEXT EDITION:
DEDICATED TO
THE CLASS
OF 1967
Drain of Scientific
Talent to U.S.
Hampers
Many Nations
The “brain drain” of scientific and
professional talent from the underde
veloped nations to the United States has
become a source of increasing anxiety
throughout the world. For without sub
stantial resources of trained manpower
the poor nations will inevitably get
poorer.
Approximately 100,000 foreign stu
dents come to U. S. universities for ad
vanced training every year — to be edu
cated for service in their own countries.
But an estimated 90 percent of the Asian
students, 50 percent of those from the
Near East, Greece and Egypt, and a
large proportion from Africa and Latin
America never return home. The lure:
high salaries and vastly better working
facilities.
Some 11,000 foreign interns and
residents are now serving our hospitals.
At least 25 percent of them will end
up living here permanently. Of the phy
sicians admitted to practice here last
year, 1488 — almost 17 percent — were
foreigners.
Particularly disturbing is the fact
that almost 80 percent of our foreign
physicians come from developing nations
whose medical needs are vastly greater
than ours — from India, Pakistan and
Thailand, where there is one physician
per 5000 to 9000 of the population; from
the Philippines, Turkey, Colombia and
Peru, where each doctor serves an ave
rage of 2000 to 3000 people.
U. S. agencies are now making ef
forts to reduce the number of foreign
students allowed to remain here after
completion of training. These agencies
are also trying to persuade industry,
universities and hospitals to modify
their recruitment efforts abroad.
Another step would be for foreign
countries to require students to con
centrate on courses vital to their home
lands; and to have adequately-paid jobs
waiting for them, permitting them to
make use of the skills acquired.
Laughing Matter
“I wonder if I could borrow
your car and $25, sir. I’d like
to make a good impression on
your daughter.”