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3(5 5^7 LS Factual Southern School News Objective VOL. I, NO. 9 NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE MAY 4, 1955 SERS To Continue For Two More Years ★ ★★ ★★★ ★★★ Supreme Court Hears Arguments On School Case Decrees When the U. S. Supreme Court called for further arguments in the school segregation cases, it asked in terested parties and friends of the court to submit answers to two ques tions: 1. Whether the court should order “forthwith” admission of Negro chil dren to schools of their choice, or whether the court, in the exercise of its equity powers, could “permit an effective gradual adjustment ... to a system not based on color distinc tions.” 2. Whether the Supreme Court should issue detailed decrees, appoint a special master, or remand the cases to lower courts with directions to frame decrees there. Last month, attorneys representing 10 states and the District of Columbia and counsel for the Negro appellants and petitioners argued the questions for four days, beginning April 11. The official transcript ran to 440 type written pages. With all the qualifica tions and variations stripped away, the court was left with these three broad alternatives: 1. To issue “forthwith” decrees, setting September, 1955, or at the latest, September, 1956, as a deadline for desegregation in the five cases. This was the position taken by coun sel for the appellants and petitioners. 2. To remand the cases to lower courts, without a time limit, but with broad authorization for federal dis trict judges to weigh local problems in (A large section of this issue of “Southern School News,” begin ning on Page 11, is devoted to excerpts from the official tran script of the arguments by coun sel in the five cases before the court. The June issue will carry further excerpts from the argu ments by “friends of the court.”) Squiring adjustment to the decrees, riris was the position broadly taken y the attorneys general and private Dwyers representing the states. ■ To permit discretion for district c°urts, but with guarantees that dis cretion would be used to encourage c° m pliance “as soon as feasible” and not to accomplish frustration. This the “middle-course” outlined by hcitor-General Simon E. Sobeloff t ^ resen ting the Department of Jus- This term of court is scheduled to nd on May 31. Notice Southern School News is the r, c ' a l Publication of the Southern l9*l. Ca, ' 0n Reporting Service, 1109 I t . Ay e., South, Nashville, Tenn. • 18 currently distributed free to rested individuals and organiza- io u P°n request, but a small sub- 'PJ'on fee will be charged effec- ' ® July 1, 1955. S "luiries about SOUTHERN I .' “ 11 News should be addressed Sh,.- S - P - O. Box 6156, Acklen Nashville, Tenn. tahl' l Reporting Service was es- atu | K rieri by the southern editors 0n educators whose names appear e masthead on Page 4. It is c n ced hv a f--.ii the Fund Education, established F SERS pol- he a j'R a bo be found in the mast- ior »l . - ■ a„ . ® Advancement of by 'P'-ndent agency ^ e Ford Foundation, is* "o/ficial statement o Notice To Subscribers Here Is The Subscription Plan Effective July 1, 1955, a small subscription fee will be charged for Southern School News. The charge is necessary because of the skyrocketing circulation of Southern School News (currently more than 30,000) and the resulting increases in printing and mailing costs. The Fund for the Advancement of Education will con tinue to underwrite all basic overhead costs for the Southern Education Reporting Service. Subscribers are asked to pay only the final cost of printing, mailing and bookkeeping. A complete index will be furnished to each subscriber at the end of each volume year. The index will be highly detailed and cross-indexed for quick and easy reference. It is included in the subscription price. Checks or money orders should be made payable to the Southern Education Reporting Service, and mailed to SERS, P. O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville, Ten nessee. A subscription blank is enclosed with this issue. A prompt reply will insure the uninterrupted continua tion of your subscription. Subscription rates will be: One Year (July, 1955—June, 1956) $2.00 Two Years (July, 1955—June, 1957) 3.75 Bulk Annual Subscription (5 or more).... 1.50 each Single issues 20 cents each Single issues in bulk (10 or more) 15 cents each Letters Explain Details Of Grant (Here is the exchange of corre spondence between Chairman Virginius Dabney of the South ern Education Reporting Service and officials of the Fund for the Advancement of Education cov ering a two-year extension of Fund support for the SERS.) Mr. Clarence H. Faust, President The Fund for the Advancement of Education 655 Madison Avenue New York 21, New York Dear Mr. Faust: On July 5,1954,1 wrote to you out lining in detail a proposal for an im partial and objective reporting serv ice which would provide accurate and unbiased information concerning the adjustments which various commun ities in the southern region made as a result of the Supreme Court’s opin ion and forthcoming decrees in five cases involving segregation in the public schools. As a result of that letter, a grant of $99,200 from the Fund for the Advancement of Educa tion was made available to establish the Southern Education Reporting Service, with headquarters in Nash ville, Tennessee. SERS has been in existence for ten months, during which eight issues of its monthly publication, Southern School News, have been distributed, on request, to an ever-growing list of interested public officials, news paper editors, and lay citizens in all sections of the United States, but primarily in the 17 southern and border states and the District of The Reporting In less than 13 months, Southern School News has developed from an idea in the minds of a group of South ern editors to a monthly publication with a circulation of more than 30,000. Its purpose was a new journalistic assignment: to tell the story, factu ally and objectively, of what happens in education as a result of the Su preme Court ruling that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. In April, 1954, several southern members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors met in Washing ton with representatives of the Fund for the Advancement of Education to discuss the establishment of a report - Columbia whose laws required seg regated schools prior to the May 17, 1954 Supreme Court opinion. In the judgment of the SERS Board of Directors, the Reporting Service has succeeded beyond our hopes and expectations. In the thousands of letters and postcards received at the Nashville office, in the many refer ences to SERS in newspapers, maga zines and other media of communica tion, there is overwhelming and un contradicted testimony to the success of the Reporting Service in achieving high standards of impartiality, objec tivity and factual accuracy. More over, there is abundant evidence that SERS is meeting a major need by supplying a documentary account of developments, as they happen, state by state, and that Southern School News is being used extensively as an authoritative and unique source of detailed information about events in the wake of the Supreme Court opin ion. Quite early in the project, it be came apparent to the members of the SERS Board of Directors that the Re porting Service could not fulfill its objectives in one year, especially since the Supreme Court delayed is suing formal decrees implementing its decision. It became apparent, also, that unlimited free distribution would eventually involve costs far greater than foreseeable financial resources. The members of the SERS Board of Directors, therefore, undertook a study of several means for making the Reporting Service partially sell ing service that would handle this as signment. The following month a group of southern editors and educators met in Nashville and constituted themselves a board of directors for SERS, elect ing Virginius Dabney, Editor of The Richmond Times-Dispatch as chair man and Thomas R. Waring, editor of The Charleston News & Courier, as vice-chairman. On June 6, the board held a second meeting in Nashville and elected C. A. McKnight, then editor of The Char lotte News, as executive director, laid down broad policy directives, and designated George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, to act as fiscal agent for the project. supporting. Of the several alterna tives, the charging of a minimum an nual subscription fee seemed most promising as a way to stabilize costs, and least likely to change the char acter of the Reporting Service. Early this year, SERS sought the advice and counsel of others. Letters were sent to a large and representa tive number of subscribers in many sections of the southern region ask ing these four questions: 1. Have we really been completely objective? If you have found de viations from objectivity, will you give specific examples? 2. To what uses have you put Southern School News? Can you suggest specific ways in which Southern School News could be of greater use to you (and your staff)? 3. Our project was originally set up for one year, until June 30,1955. Do you think it important that the Reporting Service continue in existence longer than that? And if so, for how long? 4. In your judgment, is the in formation brought to you by Southern School News impor tant enough to warrant our con sidering a modest subscription fee in the second or third year? This would not change the non profit character of our agency. The replies reinforced the convic tions of the SERS board members. They were virtually unanimous in stating, many of them enthusiastical- See LETTERS on Page 16 On July 5 formal application for the initial grant of $99,200 was made to the Fund and ten days later the Nashville office of SERS was opened. Within two months a central head quarters staff was employed, corre spondents in 17 southern and border states plus the District of Columbia were hired, a mailing list started, SERS became incorporated under Tennessee law as a general welfare corporation, and the first issue was prepared, printed and distributed. The response to Southern School News far exceeded its board’s hopes and expectations. Today it is well established as a unique and author itative source of information on one of the biggest issues of our time. A two-year extension of the South ern Education Reporting Service and a plan for a modest subscription fee for Southern School News effective with the July issue were announced today. The announcement was made by Virginius Dabney, editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and SERS board chairman. The Reporting Service was estab lished in Nashville in June, 1954, by a group of southern editors and ed ucators to report factually and ob jectively developments arising from the Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools. The project was originally set up for one year, ending June 30, 1955, under the direction of C. A. Mc Knight, former editor of The Charlot te News. GRANT FROM FUND The extension was . made possible by a grant of $213,884 from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, Dabney said. The Fund, an independ ent agency established by the Ford Foundation, made an original grant of $99,200 last year to underwrite SERS expenses for the first year. In announcing the new grant, Dabney also revealed that the Fund had supplemented its original grant by $33,822.31 to enable SERS to com plete its first year. He explained that the supplemental grant was made necessary by the “tremendous demand” for the SERS publication, Southern School News, which has been distributed free, on request, to public officials, educators, newspaper editors, libraries and in terested lay citizens, mostly in the southern region. He also said that the subscription fee ($2 for one year, $3.75 for two years) would become effective with the July, 1955, issue of Southern School News. (Full details on the subscription plan will be found else where in this issue). The fee will cover the cost of print ing, mailing and bookkeeping, with all other SERS costs being covered by the Fund’s grant, Dabney ex plained. PEABODY FISCAL AGENT The grant was made to George Pea body College for Teachers, Nashville, which serves as fiscal agent for SERS. The decision to charge a small sub scription fee in order to stabilize the skyrocketing cost of distributing a free publication was made by the SERS Board of Directors in April. The decision was reached after a poll See EXTENSION on Page 16 Index State Page Alabama 8 Arkansas 2 Delaware 9 District of Columbia 5 Florida 9 Georgia 3 Kentucky 2 Louisiana 10 Maryland 7 Mississippi 8 Missouri 3 North Carolina 10 Oklahoma 4 South Carolina 6 Tennessee 10 Texas 5 Virginia 6 West Virginia 4 Service . . . And How It Grew