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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—August 1955—PAGE 7
Proceedings
(Continued)
presented in such a program. The
situation in this school district repre
sents one extreme of ‘the great variety
0 f local conditions’ and the ‘varied
local school problems’ to which the
Supreme Court has referred in its
opinions in this cause.
“The District is in a predominantly
rural and agricultural section, sparse
ly settled. Approximately 10% of its
school population is white. Both its
white and Negro schools are central
ized, with reliance to an unusual de
gree upon school bus transportation
(presently operated upon a dual sys
tem basis). The problem in this dis
trict is not the assignment of a com
paratively small number of Negro
puoils to white schools. Here is in
volved the assignment of white pupils
in the proportion of approximately
one out of ten, or a less proportion in
some instances, to what are in real
ity Negro schools, and the transporta
tion of many of the white pupils in
what are essentially Negro school
buses, all in abrupt departure from
and rupture of the pattern of com
munity ways and habits of nearly a
century.
“The petitioners believe that it is
impossible to conceive of a problem
arising under the Supreme Court’s
decision which is more difficult of
solution than that facing them in
their school district, or one in which
there is more need for the exercise
by the court of eouitable discretion
to enable them in the public interest
to continue the provision of efficient
I public education to all of the school
i children of the district while they
| are endeavoring to bring their nu
merous problems to a solution. As
| was stated in the evidence of Dr.
; Robert Redfield, ‘the steps by which
j and the rapidity with which segrega
tion in education can be removed
with the benefits to the public welfare
| will vary with the circumstances’ and
‘the circumstances of the community
j and how long there has been sgre-
gation will have a bearing on it . . .’
‘That the petitioners themselves
do not have the knowledge, training
| and experience needed to discharge
their responsibility for elucidating,
assessing and solving the problems
and overcoming the obstacles pre
sented in their district, and they have
therefore directed and made provis-
i '“n for a comprehensive survey of
the organization of the school system
at the district, and of the communi-
y served by its schools, bv compe-
I jent technical consultants in the
elds of education and sociology and
such other fields as mav be found
I appropriate, including the visiting
I n d study of school systems in other
Jurisdictions which have handled or
are presently handling similar transi-
i 10r >s to see what obstacles have been
I fj^onntered and what measures have
, ™*n employed to meet the same and
solve the problems which have
I tasen in such school systems.
.That the petitioners have care-
) jy considered the situation in the
of + IC ^ ' n relation to the operation
lts school system during the en-
th e - ® stdl °ol year 1955-1956, and it is
tJ r , c °nsidered judgment as such
PracP trustees that it will be im-
|cable to operate the schools
rem on any other basis during
and S . ocd year as to the admission
° n ® ss 'aTiment of pupils than that
the v the y were operated during
corn,- 001 y ear 1954-1955. They are
6fi ‘ nced beyond doubt that any
sis a t? °Perate on any other ba-
dij^rr^g said school year will so
ttjjt ^ an .' ze the schools of the dis
til 1 so impair the efficiency of
therei^ 03 ^ 0113 ^ advantages afforded
Sublj and so adversely affect
in jc s , u Pnort of public education
SrjpjL, dlst rict that it cannot be rea
son ^ exoected that public educa-
th 6 y y° u ld survive. Accordingly,
^p’sihl • d 'scharge of their re-
kes l 1 lty as such board of trus-
kndp n j! Ve Sheeted that the superin-
khooj ' ^nol Principals and other
kaltp . au thorities in the district
'kps n ar rang°ments and take all
l he **«Mrv to open and operate
: °ols >n the district in the
. as yaar 1955-195R on the same
10 fhe admission and assign
ATTORNEYS FOR NEGRO PLAINTIFFS—Left to right: Thurgood Mar
shall, Oliver W. Hill and Spottswood Robinson III. (Harold Boulware, another
attorney, is not shown.) This picture was taken at the Virginia hearing, at
which Marshall, Hill and Robinson appeared for the plaintiffs.
ment of pupil to the said schools as
was in effect in the school year 1954-
1955, and they respectfully urge that
the court, in the exercise of its dis
cretion, permit such interim opera
tion during the school year 1955-
1956 as being necessary in the public
interest and in the best interest of
all of the pupils of said district.
“That the petitioners here to an
nex a copy of their resolution as the
board of trustees of said district by
which they took the actions referred
to in paragraphs 15 and 16 hereof.”
•
JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Figg, as I
catch this motion, this petition, it
does two things. It asks for a change
in the parties.
FIGG: Yes, sir.
JUDGE PARKER: Which you have
suggested, and it proposed a plan
with respect to the decree.
FIGG: Yes, sir.
JUDGE PARKER: It would seem
to me to be appropriate to pass on
the first matter right now. There is
no objection, is it, to the change in
the parties he suggests?
MARSHALL: No sir, no objection.
JUDGE PARKER: Well, an order
will be entered to that effect. Pre
pare and present an order.
Now, with respect to the other
matter, we will hear you in the
general argument of the case...
FIGG: If Your Honor please, we
have undertaken here to set forth
the action of the trustees over their
signatures, taken in the manner in
which boards of trustees act as poli
tical subdivisions of South Carolina,
and we have set forth somewhat in
the same language as they did in the
resolution the reasons which they
have given for believing that this
plan in this district is the only way
that they can devise to bring about
the continuance of public education
while they undertake to perform
their responsibility of elucidating,
assessing and solving the problems
presented by the Supreme Court’s
decision.
The court put that responsibility
upon the trustees, and if the plan
which they propose does not meet
the conscience of the chancellor, I
presume that they will in normal
course of events have to go off and
determine another plan. But, they
say they cannot present to this court
in this district any other plan.
It seems to me that one thing is
clear from the action which the Su
preme Court took, because it heard
argument in this particular case,
among others which were heard, and
that is that the Supreme Court
adopted its opinion of May 31st to
grant time in appropriate cases, and
I think that this was the case prob
ably above all others that demon
strated to the Supreme Court the
necessity of granting to the school
authorities time to meet the prob
lems which were produced by the
decision of May 17, 1954...
And one reason that we set forth
in the petition Dr. Redfield’s testi
mony, Dr. Redfield, as Your Honor
will recall, gave that evidence in the
University of Texas Law School case,
and we agreed that it should go in
this case by agreement of counsel.
And, Dr. Redfield was an anthropolo
gist, a scientist, and his testimony
in that case showed what we have
quoted from, that the steps by which
and the time within which transi
tions of this kind can be accom
plished with benefit to the public
will vary in each community, and
that the status of the community and
how long segregation has been main
tained in the community will have
an important bearing upon it....
And, I think that everyone will
agree that the Supreme Court in
effect has followed the same philoso
phy as Dr. Redfield scientifically
stated, and that is, the circumstances
will vary from community to com
munity, from conditions to conditions,
and that each problem must be as
sessed on its own basis.
•
Now, we say in our petition, and
we told the Supreme Court, that this
school district presents the extreme
of difficulty because of the popula
tion ratio. Under the scientific opin
ion that I have referred to, we are at
the extreme. Kansas was at one ex
treme and this particular school dis
trict is at the other. The population
ratio in this district at the time that
we were last in this court was less
than 300 white and 2,799 Negro pu
pils. I think at the past year it was
296 white and 2,483 Negro pupils.
The district was a consolidated
district in order to construct cen
tralized school buildings for the
large Negro school population of the
district under the order of this court
which permitted us time to obtain
the funds and provide physical and
tangible equality, which we did.
There is a good feature already
demonstrated, we believe; it is good
faith in this matter by complying to
the limit with the permission which
this court itself granted at the end
of the previous hearing in the Dis
trict Court.
JUDGE DOBIE: May I ask you a
question, Mr. Figg?
FIGG: Yes, sir.
JUDGE DOBIE: Do I understand
you to say that you wish us to in
corporate in our decree a specific
provision that the schools may be
operated for the ensuing session on
a segregated basis?
FIGG: That is what we want you
to approve. We don’t say you have to
say it in your decree. If you approve
the plan of the trustees, it is already
in effect unless you enjoin them.
They have already taken that action
and presented to you, not as some
thing they propose to do, but as
something they had to go ahead and
do because September is almost on
us. And, even if everybody wanted
to do it, the trustees feel that it
would be impossible to reorganize
this school system by September
1955. It may be possible in some
school districts in the United States
which had separate schools, but it
will be impossible in this school dis
trict for a number of reasons. One
is the district itself will inevitably
have to be broken up in order to
run an efficient school system. It was
centralized to run segregated schools,
and we don’t believe the centraliza
tion adapted itself to any other than
the set-up which was created under
the 1951 legislation....
Then you have the teacher prob
lem, the personnel problem, the
transportation problem. You have
this problem of state aid for teachers’
pay which is allocated on a basis, as
the attorney general says, “It was
tailored to fit a segregated school
system.”...
Then the most important problem
as we read the learning on this sub
ject ... is pointed out in there that
in many districts and jurisdictions
where transitions of this kind have
been attempted and have been car
ried out, that it was found necessary
before anything else was done to
have months of work in the com
munity itself in order to be able to
attempt a transition of the school
system from one basis to the other
without destroying support for pub
lic education among the people of
the district
•
And we ask Your Honors as the
chancellors, in the exercise of your
conscience as the chancellor, to re
spect the integrity and the good
faith of these trustees, acting as
public officials, to continue educa
tional advantages to these children,
to allow them to get the people they
need to study their district and ad
vise them what the problems are
and what they, as country trustees,
can do about them. We say that we
will bring that report to Your Hon
ors when it is brought to us and we
have ordered it to be done as soon as
possible. We will make any report
you ask for in the interim. We have
called the operation for the coming
year an interim operation.
We say that is consistent with
good faith compliance with the de
cree at the earliest practicable date,
and it is the only thing practicable
these trustees see to do now, and we
ask Your Honors, as the chancellors
of this court to enter an order ap
proving that plan and specifying
what further reports you may wish
from these trustees in the exercise
of the court’s functions, which is
also, as I read the decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States,
to enable public education to con
tinue while these problems are being
coped with and studied and solved.
The Supreme Court would never
have rendered the decision of May
31st if they did not mean some school
districts to have time. And if this
school district is not entitled to time,
no school district is entitled to
time....
•
MARSHALL: May it please the
Court, I do not think that it would
help the court if I review the argu
ments that have already been made
in the Supreme Court. I believe that
what is wrong with this proposed
plan and petition is brought out by
the repeated arguments over and
over again of the matters that were
decided by the Supreme Court, not
May 31 but May 17 of last year. In
the first place, this petition does not
present a plan of any kind. It is a
petition asking for time, unlimited
time, if you please, to get a plan to
present to the court. And that, we
submit, is not the type of start
toward compliance with the decree
that was meant by the decision of
May 31. It is also highly significant
that practically 14 months after May
17th of last year is the first move
made by the defendants in this case
toward compliance with the May 17,
1954 decision.
JUDGE DOBIE: Well, were they
obligated to do anything, Mr. Mar
shall, until the Supreme Court
handed the decree?
MARSHALL: I think they were
obligated as citizens to look for this
type of information they are now
looking for. The court said on May
17th that the maintenance of segre
gated schools was unconstitutional as
of May 17 ... The only thing that
they could have argued was that they
couldn’t actually segregate...
JUDGE DOBIE: Do you think
there was any obligation on these
school people here to act in any way
until the decree came down from
the Supreme Court? And the decree
of the Supreme Court was not what
you would call with inconsequential
speed. It took them more than a year
to formulate a decree.
MARSHALL: I think, Judge Dobie,
that the District of Columbia ... de
segregated immediately after May
17th and in a far more complicated
and involved school system than
Clarendon County will ever have.
And accelerated its plan so that, in
the argument preceding the May
31st decision of this year, the District
of Columbia could come into the
Court and say “We have complied
with your May 17th decision.” And
I believe that the defendants in this
case should not wait until the last
minute. And I also do not think they
have a right, after May 31st of this
year and after this case was set for
this hearing, to adopt a resolution
deliberately saying that, at least for
one more year, we are going to vio
late the law...
e
JUDGE TIMMERMAN: Don’t you
think that these trustees had a right
to expect the Supreme Court to elu
cidate its own opinion, to make it
plain and not refer to these non
lawyers the obligation and duty of
elucidating, that is, making plain
what the Supreme Court was driving
at?
MARSHALL: Well, I think Judge
Timmerman that the Supreme Court
did not have to do anything more to
get the defendants in other school
boards started than to make the law
clear, which is maintenance of ra
cially-segregated public education is
unconstitutional. Now, as to how you
would get rid of it, yes, anybody
could lawfully wait until the Su
preme Court came down with its
May 31 decision. But this board
hasn’t, as of yet changed its policy.
It is still operating under the same
policy. I think a minimum step for
ward would be a resolution adopted
by the board saying that our present
system of running schools on a seg
regated basis is admittedly unlawful.
Now, we are going to take steps to
correct it. And then put down what
the steps are. That is my idea of
what a plan is...
JUDGE TIMMERMAN: Doesn’t
that argument preclude the equit
able consideration if you are stand
ing on a legal right when you make
that assertion.
MARSHALL: I’m not standing on
an equitable right or legal right. I’m
standing on the Constitutional right,
which is a right to non-segregated
schools.
JUDGE TIMMERMAN: Hasn’t the
Supreme Court said this is an equit
able case?
MARSHALL: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TIMMERMAN: And
should be governed by equitable
principles?
MARSHALL: Yes sir, should be
governed by equitable principals but
the equitable principals should not
go in opposition to the law. For ex
ample, to adopt what they say would
be for this court to say to Clarendon
County that you can, specifically,
you can continue to violate the law
of the land for at least another year.
And we say ...
JUDGE DOBIE: You don’t contend
that this is a violation of the law.
MARSHALL: Sir?
JUDGE DOBIE: Let me put this
question to you.
MARSHALL: Yes sir.
JUDGE DOBIE: Let’s suppose that
in X County, not Clarendon Coun
ty... the feeling there toward the
colored race is the fondest any where
in the world.
MARSHALL: Is what?
JUDGE DOBIE: The feeling
toward the colored race and between
the colored and white is the fondest
of any where in the entire world.
MARSHALL: The fondest?
JUDGE DOBIE: Yes. All right.
MARSHALL: Yes sir.
JUDGE DOBIE: All right, they
meet; the board does and they want
to implement this and they are de
sirous and it is admitted that there
are no group of men in the world
that want to put integration com
pletely into effect so severely and so
quickly and so effectively as this
school board.
MARSHALL: Yes sir.
JUDGE DOBIE: They get the ad
vantage of the best expert advise
they can, not foreign Communistic
anthropologists but people who know
the problems that face them in the
South. In the light of all that infor
mation, they decide on the finest
faith in the world that they can not
integrate for two months but that,
at the end of the two months, that
there will be complete integration.
Would you say they violated the law
during that two months?
MARSHALL: I go further than
that, sir. I have agreed already with
one town just like that for one year.
JUDGE DOBIE: Well, you spoke
just now of time they were main
taining segregation. The answer to
my question, then, is that is not vio
lating the law by that board, or is it?
MARSHALL: Technically, it could
be because the statute, the statute
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