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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—July 6, 1955—PAGE 9 Tennessee Lays Plans For Gradual College Desegregation NASHVILLE, Tenn. -jl two separate announcements last month, Tennessee’s State Board of Education ended 13 months of official silence on the public school desegre gation issue. First, on June 15, the board ap proved a gradual desegregation plan .-beginning this September and end ing in the academic year 1959-60—for Tennessee’s six state-supported col leges. And second, on June 20, Dr. Quill E. Cope, state commissioner of edu cation and chairman of the state board, placed responsibility for de segregation in public elementary and high schools squarely on the shoul ders of local school officials. In effect, the state, therefore, took its first step toward compliance with the spirit of the United States Su preme Court’s desegregation rulings —and also removed itself as a party to, or controlling factor in, general desegregation on a local level. COLLEGE LEVEL PLAN The gradual desegregation plan for the colleges provides for the admis sion of qualified students without re gard to race to the colleges’ graduate schools this September. Senior, jun ior, and sophomore classes, accord ing to the plan, will be desegregated in succeeding years, with desegrega tion extending to freshman classes in the academic year 1959-60. The plan was adopted by the board in a two-hour long, closed door meet- ■nilllilSiSISIIiiiSlSIIlSiSIlgSilliSi ‘Excellent Start’ Many persons who had inter preted the Supreme Court’s ruling as permitting the greatest possi ble delay will be surprised by the quick action in the capital (Nash ville). Especially so since the state did not submit a brief on the work ing out of the problem as did some other states in response to the Su preme Court’s request. But the court placed direct re sponsibility on the school boards and the district judges. It said move slowly when necessary, but move. We believe that the Tennessee board of education has made an excellent start, following in the tradition of reasonableness estab lished by the justices of the Su preme Court in their unanimous decision.—Chattanooga Times. ln g. The meeting was called by Cope to discuss the board’s defense against a su if Pending in the Federal District Court at Memphis in which five Negro students are seeking admission to Memphis State College as under graduates. It was included as a part of the state’s answer to the suit, filed by George F. McCanless, state attor ney general, on June 21. The gradual desegregation formula, according to Dr. Everett Derryberry, president of Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, was submitted to the State Board of Education as a “unanimous recommendation of the Council of Presidents (composed of the presi dents of state supported colleges.) “But it was born of discussions and deliberations over a long period of time with many different groups of people,” Derryberry said. CONTINGENCY CLAUSES The State Board of Education’s de cision, however, included contin gency clauses. 1. Provisions of the Tennessee con stitution requiring segregated public education be held invalid. 2. That it is determined that the opinion of the Supreme Court in the school segregation cases not only ap plies to public school education, but also to the state colleges and uni versities in Tennessee. 3. Any other available grounds for defense which will manifest the right of Tennessee to arrange and provide free education for its citizens on its own terms and conditions, provided only that all are treated fairly and equally, have been presented in court. Whether the plan will be operative, Cope said, depends on whether the court will consider it acceptable. If approved by the court, the plan will immediately apply to Memphis State College, Memphis; Austin Peay State College, Clarksville; Middle Tennessee State College, Murfrees boro; East Tennessee State College, Johnson City; and the state’s single university for Negroes, Tennessee A&I State University, Nashville. The state’s sixth college, Tennessee Polytechnic Institute at Cookeville, does not include graduate courses in its curriculm. U. T. MAY STAKE STEP While the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is excluded from the plan—it is controlled by a board of trustees separate from the State Board of Education—Dr. C. E. Brehm, U T. president, said the university’s trustees will “probably’’ adopt a sim ilar plan. The university has admitted Negro Kentucky Board (Continued) (Continued from Page 8) °fhers acquainted with practical school problems. Co-chairmen are r. Howard W. Beers and Dr. A. D. '“bright of the U. K. faculty. r LEGISLATIVE action now° ne ^e summer primarie fall ant ^ an e f ec h° n coming thi bi e ’ . General Assembly’s regula > nrua l session is scheduled for nex actions have been in hv 0 - ^ending, in Louisville, ar tion rS see king an end to segrega the municipal parks. ^as vule Catholic ins He nrTs°mu ed June 17 ' H< a sso c ; = , ‘ Wilson, 53, now a i chemists m t ! le de Partment at the University o: ville Medical School, and formerly professor of chemistry and chairman of the division of natural sciences at Louisville Municipal College, inte grated in 1950 with the U. of L. For several years after L. M. C. closed, Dr. Wilson was educational field di rector of the Mammoth Life and Ac cident Insurance Co. He has bach elor’s, master’s, and doctor-of-phil- osophy degrees from Indiana Univer sity, and is a Baptist. Negro students have been admitted to Bellarmine since it opened in 1950. Other Catholic spokesmen an nounced that “everything has gone completely satisfactorily and there have been no protests” over the inte gration of four Catholic schools be gun last September with the admis sion of a few Negro pupils to each. The schools are St. Benedict’s ele mentary at Lebanon Junction, St. James elementary at Elizabethtown, St. Catherine’s elementary at New Haven, and St. Catherine’s Academy near New Haven. The latter is a boarding school, but the two Negro girls in attendance there come from the nearby community and none are in residence at the school. The Rt. Rev. Felix N. Pitt, secre tary of the Catholic School Board of the Archdiocese of Louisville, said on June 1 that “principals and pastors of the schools made a special request to the archbishop to allow the integra tion. Because there were no sepa rate parochial schools for Negroes, they felt there was no other way for Negro youngsters to obtain a Cath olic education.” DR. QUILL E. COPE Tennessee Education Commissioner students to graduate school since 1952. “I think the procedure as outlined by the board,” Brehm said, “is a very logical one, and it seems highly prob able to me that the board of trustees will decide on a similar plan.” PLAN CALLED DILATORY Rev. J. F. Grimmett, Nashville, president of the NAACP’s Tennessee branch, declared, “I am certain nei ther our organization nor right think ing individual citizens will regard any such delaying tactics, as proposed by the board, as satisfactory or as good faith compliance with the decision of the United States Supreme Court.” The high court ruling already ap plies to the state colleges, he said, be cause “it nullified any state law or laws requiring segregated public education ... and any system of edu cation that is supported by public funds is public education, whether it be on the elementary, secondary, college or graduate level.” Said Z. Alexander Looby, Nash ville city councilman, member of the NAACP’s national board of directors and the Tennessee branch’s legal re dress committee, “It is evasive. It is neither prompt nor reasonable, as re quired by the Supreme Court. And it seems the board is seeking un necessary delay.” NEGRO ENROLLED The day after the college deseg regation formula was approved, a Negro applied for admission to the graduate school at Austin Peay. He is a 37-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. W. N. Daniel of Clarksville. Anticipating approval of his appli cation, the Rev. Mr. Daniel said, “When I enter in September, I antici pate a cordial reception by the faculty and student body.’’ So far, he said, everyone at the col lege has treated him well. On the day he applied for admission, he said, “The atmosphere this morning was wonderful. It made one feel at home, and the president and the dean, and all who were contacted, were very cordial.” LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY The state announced its removal from direct responsibility in general public school desegregation in a let ter from Cope to city and county school superintendents throughout the state. Attached to the letter was an opinion written by the state at torney general in which the state’s responsibility in public school deseg regation was defined. The opinion said: “It is the responsibility of each lo cal school board to determine for itself the way in which it is going to meet the problems of desegregation of the schools under its jurisdiction. “Under the Code of Tennessee the management of the public schools is solely the business of the local school boards. “These boards, within the limits of applicable law, determine all of the local problems. This has been the law since the origin of the public school system in Tennessee and is the law today. “Each board must determine for itself, in the light of all existing ap plicable circumstances (physical, fis cal, sociological, transportation prob lems, etc.... ) when where, how and to what degree the schools under its jurisdiction are to be desegregated.” STATE MAY ADVISE Furthermore, he said, “While the office of the attorney general is aware of the problems that will confront the school boards, and is sympathetic with their problems, the office can do no more than advise with repre sentatives of the boards with respect to these problems as they arise. Un der the constitution and statutes of Tennessee, the office of the attorney general is limited to the representa tion of the state and state officials with respect to state revenue and other state matters.” In the same letter, Cope informed the school officers., “The State De partment of Education will be happy to advise with you on the problem involved in the implementation of the Supreme Court, just as on any other educational problem, at any time you think a discussion of the problem will be profitable and advisable.” The General Asembly of Tennessee is not in session. Excluding a special session, the possibilities of which are extremely slight, the Assembly will convene next in January, 1957. ton Road: “I would like to say we are perfectly satisfied with the school they (the children) are attending now, and we would rather our chil dren attend a Negro school.” On the other hand, Churchwell re ported “a large portion of the re mainder answered in the same tone as did Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Toms Jr., 937 Sixteenth Avenue, North (five children of school age): “We are looking for the best advantages for our children regardless of the school or dsitance.” The statistical results of Church- well’s survey: 1. To a Negro school—80 2. The nearest school, Negro or white—72. 3. The school offering the best ad vantages, Negro or white—18 4. The nearest white school—3 Dr. Charles S. Johnson, president of Fisk University, on June 27, told members of the 12th Annual Race Relations Institute sponsored by the American Missionary Association: “There is no reason why the Deep South could not desegregate its schools as promptly as the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., has a Negro school population proportion higher than any city in Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennes see, Texas, Virginia, or even South Carolina and Mississippi. There are some counties in Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina with higher Negro population ratios, but by no means a majority of them.” A case is pending in Memphis Fed eral District Court in which five Negro students are suing for admis sion to Memphis State College as un dergraduates. Commissioner Cope, as chairman of the State Board of Education; Dr. J. M. Smith, president of Memphis State College; and R. P. Clark, Memphis State registrar, are the defendants. The suit was filed May 26 by Elijah Noel, 31; J. M. Mc Ghee Jr., 23; Mardest Knowles Van Hook, 18; Ruth Hooker, 19; and Nellie Peoples, 18. A second case is pending in the Federal District Court at Knoxville. There, the suit is in behalf of five Negro students seeking admission to the only high school in Anderson County, which is for whites only. The case was remanded to the district court from the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati in June, 1954, with instructions to the lower court judge to dispose of the suit in com pliance with the May 17, 1954 ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court. There have been no surveys or spe cial studies on the segregation-deseg regation problem that have been re leased for publication. As far as is known, there are no such surveys in progress in the state of Tennessee. The Nashville Banner, however, published results of an opinion sur vey of Negro parents, conducted by reporter Robert Churchwell, a Negro. The survey, said Churchwell, was conducted in the city’s five public housing projects for Negroes. This was supplemented, he said, by a “spot check” in East Nashville. The question asked the Negro par ents: “If the authorities rule that children may go to our schools re gardless of race, will you send your child to the nearest Negro school, or to a white school that is nearer, or to the nearest white school?’’ Churchwell said, “Many parents spoke out on the subject with feeling and with reasoning, but not for pub lication. “Just as many voiced opinions in the same manner, quite willing to be quoted,” the reporter said. In reply to the survey question, Churchwell said, “almost half the parents answered as did this mother of three school age children on Clif In Nashville, Mrs. W. O. Benson, chairman of the city school board, said on June 14, “We have no inten tion of evading the court’s order. I am confident the board’s action before school opens this fall will show everyone we intend to comply with the ruling.” Also in Nashville, J. E. Moss, sup erintendent of Davidson County schools, said, from a residential standpoint Negroes will be eligible to attend virtually every Nashville and Davidson County school when seg regation is ended. A group called the Federation for Constitutional Government an nounced its intention to restrain edu cation officials from desegregating their school systems on grounds of the unconstitutionally of segregation without constitutional authority for such action from the state. In a statement signed by five men, the group said, “It is, at present, both improper and illegal for educational officials to take any steps whatever toward integration. The Constitution of the State of Tennessee specifically forbids the intermingling of white and Negro students in public schools. It is still in force. County and city school boards have no order from any court before them to the contrary. “But, second, if through court ac tion in Tennessee, segregation should be ruled unconstitutional, pursuant to the recent decree of the Supreme Court, such a court will invalidate the entire section of the State Consti tution upon which our public schools are founded. The educational system will then be left without a constitu tional and legal basis for existence.” Signing the statement were: Don ald Davidson, professor of English at Vanderbilt University; Dudley Gale, Nashville insurance man, former Chamber of Commerce president; Jack Kershaw, artist and real estate dealer; L. V. DuBose, Nashville busi nessman; T. Walker Lewis, Memphis civic leader.