Newspaper Page Text
Factual
VOL. Ill, NO. 8
13-* r .4*^-3 (HFV 0
3N8D8SO *1 * b
21 101 L 9 3wnr
HI 1 V) li
NASHVILLE, TENN.
$2 PER YEAR
Objective
FEBRUARY, 1957
Background
Power to Assign Pupils
Is Studied In 7 States
Placement Acts Occupy
Legislatures, Courts
jOupiL placement—the assignment of students to specific schools under various criteria usually ex-
'eluding race—as a method of delaying or avoiding school desegregation is getting increasing attention
from southern legislatures.
And also from courts.
Tennessee last month joined Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and Virginia in the
adoption of pupil placement acts.
Legislation of this type was praised by Florida’s Gov. LeRoy Collins as preventing integration (which he
regarded as inevitable under the law) in the “foreseeable future” in his state. And Gov. Orval Faubus urged
the Arkansas legislature not to tamper with a placement act adopted by referendum.
Meanwhile, Virginia’s placement law was found unconstitutional “on its face” by a federal judge. A sim
ilar ruling was returned in January, 1956, by a federal court dealing with Louisiana’s segregation statutes.
These laws in both North Carolina and Florida also were under attack in federal court actions.
rpm: power of local school boards to
assign students to particular schools
on the basis of factors other than race
appears to be soundly imbedded in
school administrative procedures, edu
cation authorities say. Court decisions
indicate the validity of express legisla
tion for this purpose will depend upon
the intent with which the power is
granted and the execution of such laws
on a non-discriminatory basis.
This is likely to be the standpoint
from which other courts will view the
pupil assignment acts that seem to be
the focus of state legislatures seeking
methods of resolving the problems
raised by the Supreme Court’s school
segregation decisions. Assignment acts
already have been adopted by the leg
islatures in Alabama, Florida, Louisi
ana, North Carolina, Tennessee and
Virginia; adopted by referendum in
Arkansas, and are under consideration
by the legislature of Texas.
Authorities in school administration
are of the opinion that the power to
assign individual pupils to particular
public schools is an inherent one, es
sential to the efficient operation of the
schools. However, in the absence of
express laws it appears to be a discre
tionary power, and the criteria on
which it is based must have a clear
relevance to an educational purpose,
these authorities maintain.
RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY
Says the recognized authority on this
subject, Newton Edwards of the Uni
versity of South Carolina, in The Courts
und the Public Schools:
“As a rule, the statutes authorize
boards of education to determine what
particular school a pupil shall attend.
So long as the board acts reasonably
and does not abuse its discretion, a pu
pil must attend the school to which he
is assigned. Where a school board in
good faith assigns a pupil to a school
m the promotion of the best interests
°f education as it conceives it, its dis
cretion will not be overruled by the
courts. It is not necessary that a child
■ nssigned to the school most conven
iently located for his attendance, but a
child cannot be required to attend a
school so situated as to jeopardize the
life of the child in approaching it or so
far removed from the residence of the
child as to make the distance an un
reasonable one to walk.”
Legal precedents upon which this
interpretation of school boards’ pupil
assignment powers are based clearly
uphold the authority of school boards
to assign pupils on the basis of factors
relevant to education and the efficient
administration of the school systems.
The judicial insistence is equally strong,
however, that the powers of the boards,
expressed or discretionary, be exer
cised in a manner free of abuse or dis
crimination.
KEY IN LEGISLATION
The key to the future of the pupil
assignment acts then lies in the acts
themselves, in companion legislation
and in the administration of it. As can
be seen in the accompanying table
(page 2), the pupil assignment meas
ures have several aspects in common.
All except Louisiana’s express or imply
the intent of the acts as insuring effi
cient education and school administra
tion, promoting health, safety and wel
fare of the students. The Louisiana act,
No. 556, adopted by the 1954 legislature,
has been construed by a district court
as having for its purpose to implement
Act. No. 555 which specifies its intent
is to preserve segregation in the schools.
On this basis, the 1954 legislation in
Louisiana was declared invalid by a
three-judge federal court in the case of
Bush et al v. Orleans Parish School
Board in January, 1956.
Said Federal Judge J. Skelly Wright
in his opinion on the case: “Act 555 of
1954 implements that constitutional
provision [for maintaining segregation
through the exercise of the police pow
ers] by providing that ‘all public ele
mentary and secondary schools in the
state of Louisiana shall be operated
separately for white and colored chil
dren’ and Act 556 of 1954 details the
(See ASSIGNMENT LAWS, Page 2)
One more district (in Oklahoma) be
gan the desegregation process, bringing
to 673 the number of districts in the
southern and border states having be
gun or accomplished desegregation
since 1954. Some 3,000 having pupils of
both races remain segregated.
Two districts in Kentucky where
disorders brought the National Guard
to the scene at school-opening last Sep
tember—Clay and Sturgis—announced
Inside
• Virginia’s Pupil Place
ment Act Invalid ‘On Its
Face,’ Says Federal
Judge. Text on Page 6.
• Alabama’s Doors Close
to Autherine Lucy.
What the Court Said, on
Page 15.
• Baltimore’s Third Year
of Desegregation — A
Special Report. Story
on Page 4.
• More Time Is ‘Impera
tive,’ Federal Judge
Tells Virginians in His
toric Prince Edward
Case. Text on Page 11.
desegregation plans.
A federal district court upheld the
plan of Nashville, Tenn. for first grade
desegregation in 1957-58 but directed
the school board to return by Dec. 31
with a more complete plan for further
desegregation.
And in Houston, the nation’s largest
segregated district, school trustees indi
cated they would present a plan for
compliance with the Supreme Court’s
decisions by May 1.
Five pro-segregation bills, the first
adopted in Tennessee, cleared both
houses and were signed into law by
Gov. Frank Clement, who had spon
sored them. A “Tennessee Manifesto”
(criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court)
was adopted in one house but was
awaiting action in the other.
In four legislatures including Ten
nessee’s, more than a score of bills were
pending, all of them designed to
strengthen existing school segregation
laws.
COURT ACTION
Other key court decisions involved
Memphis State University, where a
“stairstep” or five-year desegregation
program was ruled invalid by the Sixth
Circuit Court, and—
• Prince Edward County, Va., where
a federal district court refused to set a
time limit for previously court-ordered
desegregation.
• The Autherine Lucy case, in which
a federal court upheld the right of Uni
versity of Alabama officials to expel the
former Negro coed, apparently fore
closing her attempts to enter the uni
versity but leaving the door open to
other qualified Negroes.
• South Carolina’s ban on state em
ployment of members of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, transferred from feder
al to state courts in a three-judge split
decision.
• Louisiana’s effort to remove Ne
groes from state colleges, enjoined by
federal court orders.
A state-by-state summary of major
developments follows:
Alabama
The attempt of Mrs. Autherine Lucy
Foster to enter the University of Ala
bama apparently ended with a federal
court ruling which upheld her expul
sion from the university for unproven
charges that authorities had conspired
in the Feb. 6, 1956 riots on the campus.
However, the ruling was interpreted as
leaving the university’s doors open to
other qualified Negroes.
Arkansas
Gov. Orval Faubus warned against
tampering with the state’s pupil assign
ment act lest it be “jeopardized” as the
legislature opened a 60-day session. No
bills on school segregation-desegrega
tion had been introduced by the end of
January.
Delaware
A special study of classroom teacher
salaries made in the area outside Wil
mington shows that a slightly greater
percentage of Negro teachers have more
college training than whites and that
the median salary for white teachers is
slightly higher.
District of Columbia
In a report to the board of education
Supt. Hobart M. Corning rejected
changes in the school system recom
mended by congressional investigators
and, in effect, charged the probers with
having made up their minds in advance
of the hearings.
Florida
Gov. LeRoy Collins told Floridians in
his inaugural address that integration
was inevitable as a matter of law but
said that the state, under its pupil as
signment law, has found a way to keep
schools segregated for the “foreseeable
future.”
Georgia
New legislation designed to augment
the state’s segregation laws—one giving
the governor broader powers to deal
with disorders—occupied the General
Assembly in the first weeks of its ses
sion.
Kentucky
Three western counties, including
two where disorders occurred last Sep
tember (at Clay and Sturgis) filed de
segregation plans. Under court direc
tion a fourth county filed a new plan to
speed up completion of the desegrega
tion process.
Louisiana
A federal court ruling apparently
opened the way to continued integra
tion in state colleges, with an actual
showdown predicted this month after
Negroes seek to re-register.
Maryland
The number of Negroes enrolled in
Baltimore’s formerly all-white schools
in the third year of desegregation is
now double that of the last school year,
according to a survey, but a large ma
jority remains in all-Negro schools.
Some movement of Negroes back to an
all-Negro high school is reported from
desegregated Montgomery County.
Mississippi
Gov. J. P. Coleman announced that a
special session of the legislature, report
edly concerning in part the school seg
regation-desegregation question, would
not be called.
Missouri
A flare-up of racial tension following
a murder and rape occurred in the
“bootheel,” a section which has been
slower than the rest of the state to be
gin school desegregation.
North Carolina
The legislature may be asked to re
enact pro-segregation tuition grant and
school-closing legislation passed at a
special session last year and later writ
ten into the constitution by referendum.
Oklahoma
A federal court ordered four Negroes
admitted to the Earlsboro district high
school (the 184th district in Oklahoma
to report mixed classes) but permitted
the district to segregate other pupils
until the 1957-58 school year. Gov. Ray
mond Gary, citing economies under a
state integration policy, told the legis
lature that these savings and improved
finances would permit more “liberal”
support for schools.
South Carolina
A handful of new pro-segregation
measures has been introduced in the
state legislature. A suit arising over a
law banning public employment of
NAACP members was transferred from
(See PLACEMENT ACTS, Page 2)
College Segregation-Desegregation
Issue Revived By New Court Action
J?EDERAL-.JUDICIAL AND STATE-LEGISLATIVE
Ruthoritv met head-on last month in
?. case involving segregation-desegrega-
,.°n ln Louisiana colleges and universi-
' e s. At the same time, other legal action
, rou ght into sharp focus again the is-
f at the higher level of education
er e the segregation wall was first
br ®ached 22 years ago.
s a federal district court enjoined
Ur Louisiana institutions from imple-
to ent ' ng a 1956 legislative plan designed
a j e ' se S re gate state-supported colleges
Universities, these other develop-
m ®nts occurred:
of ^‘ e University of Alabama board
coi ? Stees vvas a U. S. district
Aubi ') lat was “justified” in expelling
, e rine Lucy Foster last February
v e rs> Se << l )ase l ess ” charges that uni-
fi ot f y au thorities had conspired in the
~ drove her from the campus.
^"NESSEE PLAN UPSET
p^ a j y 16 Sixth Circuit Court of Ap-
Aw. keld that the Tennessee five-year
Hot gre ® a lj° n plan for state colleges did
Ccurt° mply w ' tPl the U. S. Supreme
3) tr ^ ese gregation decision.
a gain , ear ' n ?s ’n the Horace Ward case
w, s the Georgia University System
i r dicat° mP ' etecl w 'lh the federal judge
th e his decision would turn on
plj c ^ Mastic qualifications of the ap-
crim; anc ' not on alleged racial dis-
■p^ation.
the ] S cons titutes the current phase in
Hi ch attack against segregation
frajjj^hagan in the 1930s within the
doetrj or h of the separate but equal
Ut iiv 6r *" ases involving colleges and
h g ® Itles laid the groundwork for the
17, i3 .;P^me Court decision of May
»Ublj c ^hich held that “in the field of
''as n. , Uca tion ‘separate but equal’
10 Place,”
The Maryland Court of Appeals in
1S35 was the first court to apply literally
the separate but equal doctrine. In a
case brought by Donald Murray seeking
admission to the University of Mary
land law school this court became the
first to specify desegregation as a rem
edy where no other was readily avail
able. Murray was the first Negro thus
to enter a heretofore white college or
university under a court order. He was
graduated in 1938.
In that same year the, U. S. Supreme
Court held state scholarship arrange
ments to provide Negroes the education
they sought outside the state did not
satisfy the separate but equal require
ment in the case of Missouri ex rel
Gaines v. Canada. The decision also held
that the right to equal education was an
individual one that had to be met within
the state.
Ten years later in the Sipuel case, the
Supreme Court expanded this decision
to hold that the equal facilities required
under the separate but equal doctrine
had to be extended to one race as soon
as they were provided for the other.
The court refused in further prosecu
tion of the case to rule directly on the
question of segregation.
In 1950 the court, in the McLaurin
case also involving graduate level edu
cation at the University of Oklahoma,
held that once a student was admitted
under the separate but equal doctrine,
he was entitled to “the same treatment
at the hands of the state as students of
other races.”
IMPOSSIBLE TO MAINTAIN
On the same day, June 5, 1950, how
ever, the court in the case of Sweatt v.
Painter set criteria so exacting for pro
viding a legal education for a Texas Ne
gro that separate but equal facilities on
the graduate and professional levels
were impossible to maintain. The cri
teria included such tangibles as the size
of the library, the number of instruct
ors, the existence of professional or
ganizations; and such intangibles as the
reputation of the school and the posi
tions within the profession held by
graduates of the school.
In consequence of these decisions and
of actions taken by university directors
in the light of such decisions, at least
110 of the 208 publicly-supported col
leges and universities in the South now
have policies under which Negroes may
be accepted. Between 95 and 100 insti
tutions actually have Negroes on the
campus. The number of Negroes attend
ing formerly all-white schools is not
known but estimates indicate it prob-
(See COLLEGES, Page 2)
Index
State Page
Alabama 15
Arkansas 3
Delaware 3
District of Columbia 10
Florida 7
Georgia 9
Kentucky 12
Louisiana 16
Maryland 4
Mississippi 12
Missouri 14
North Carolina 5
Oklahoma 14
South Carolina 10
Tennessee 8
Texas 13
Virginia 6
West Virginia 5