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PAGE 8—SEPTEMBER 1958—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
\ Desegregated at all grade levels
Desegregation extended to additional
grades this fall
Desegregation policies, but
no Negro applicants
The extent of desegregation as of school opening 1958 is shown in the map above. Garrett County, in the extreme north
west corner of the state, has no Negro pupils. Calvert and Caroline counties (unshaded) have no announced desegregation
policies and no Negro applicants for admission to white schools.
(Question ^>11'ifiiti
District Ordered To
Accent
Following is an extensive excerpt of the decision by U.S.
Judge Roszel Thomsen in the case of Groves v. St. Mary’s
County Board of Education:
The principal purpose of this action is to secure the ad
mission of Thomas Conrad Groves, a Negro, to the ninth
grade at the Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County,
Md., and of his sister, Joan Elaine Groves, to the 11th grade
at that school.
Following the decision of this court in Robinson v. Board
of Education of St. Mary’s County, the Board of Education,
on July 31,1956, accepted the recommendation of the Citizens’
Advisory Committee and declared that integration in the
public schools of St. Mary’s County would begin with the
school year 1957-58 on a voluntary basis in the elementary
grades where administratively feasible. Nevertheless, in Sep
tember 1956, applications were filed with the board seeking
the admission of 31 Negro children to white public schools.
After a number of conferences between the county superin
tendent of schools and the parents of some of the children,
the superintendent denied the applications. No appeals were
taken from that action to the state Board of Education.
In May 1957, instructions to parents seeking pupil trans
fers were distributed to all school principals and parents and
were publicized through PTA
meetings, the public press
and the Lexington Park ra
dio station. Four Negro chil
dren requested to transfer to
elementary grades in white
schools, and three Negro
children, including the infant
plaintiffs, requested transfer
to high school grades. The
superintendent approved the
requests for transfer to ele
mentary grades, but denied
the requests for transfer to
high school grades, in ac
cordance with the policy of
the county board. None of
the four Negro children
whose requests for transfer
had been approved entered a
white school .. .
The infant plaintiffs, through their father, appealed to the
state Board of Education from the action of the county
superintendent denying their request. The appeals were not
taken within the time fixed by statute. The state board,
however, granted a hearing, after which on Feb. 26, 1958, it
dismissed the appeals . . . because the superintendent was
acting in good faith pursuant to the integration policy
promulgated by the county board, and because “the question
of whether the above-referred-to segregation policy of the
county Board of Education at St. Mary’s County contravenes
the constitutional rights of the appellants in this case in deny
ing their admission into the Great Mills High School is a
question which is not within the scope of the powers of the
state Board of Education to pass upon, or decide, for the
reason that the same is a purely legal question to be decided
through judicial proceedings.” ...
Thereafter, on April 11, 1958, this action was filed on
behalf of the infant plaintiffs and all other Negroes similarly
situated.
On April 22, 1958, pursuant to a resolution of the county
board, the county superintendent announced that for the
school year 1958-1959 integration would be extended on a
voluntary basis through grades seven, eight and nine. No plan
has been announced or adopted for grades 10,11 and 12, but
the vice president of the board testified that “their thinking”
was that it “would probably follow next year,” but that
there are “too many factors to be considered to make a
statement that such will be the case.”
Since the hearing in this case on June 23, 1958, the super
intendent has notified plaintiffs that Thomas Conrad Groves
will be admitted to the ninth grade at the Great Mills High
School in September 1958.
William Groves, the father of the infant plaintiffs, is a
self-employed electrician, a citizen and taxpayer of St. Mary’s
County for seven years, who was educated in unsegregated
schools in the North. He has been dissatisfied with the Jar-
boesville School, a consolidated (elementary, junior high and
senior high) school for Negroes, to which his children would
normally be assigned, not only because it is a segregated
school, but also because he considered its physical facilities
unsatisfactory and because it did not offer all of the courses
which were offered at the Great Mills High School, to which
his children would have been assigned if they had been white.
He was so dissatisfied that for a time he sent his daughter
to school in New York. That proved unsatisfactory, and
more recently he has been sending her to the Cardinal Gib
bons High School, a parochial school in St. Mary’s County,
although that school is many miles from his home, and he
must pay a small tuition fee. He desires his daughter to attend
the Great Mills High School because he wishes her to have a
desegregated education and to take certain courses leading
to a “stenographic major” commercial diploma, which are
offered there but which have not heretofore been offered at
the Jarboesville School.
Like most Maryland counties, St. Mary’s is engaged in a
school building program to care for its rapidly expanding
school population, and to provide more adequate buildings
and facilities. So, at one time the white school in a particular
section may have better facilities than the colored school,
whereas the next year the facilities of the colored school may
be better, and vice versa. Until 1955 all facilities at Jarboes
ville were inadequate, and to a considerable extent they have
remained so. However, a new elementary school building
has just been completed, and a large addition thereto, in
cluding science and commercial rooms, for use by elementary,
junior and senior high grades, will be completed next year.
It is clear that the commercial program at Jarboesville was
not equal to the commercial program at Great Mills in the
spring of 1957, when Joan Elain Groves applied for transfer
to Great Mills. It is impossible to determine at this time
whether the new stenographic curriculum which will be
offered there this fall will be equal to the stenographic
curriculum at Great Mills.
It is doubtful whether any possible inequality in the pro
grams may still be considered in such a case as this. See
Brown v. Board of Education, . . . The offering of certain
courses or certain curricula in white schools which are not
offered in any colored school in the county may be an
element which should be considered by the court in weigh
ing “the public and private considerations” referred to in the
second Brown opinion. However, I do not base my decision
of this case on any possible inequality between the programs
at the two schools.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Negro children have a
constitutional right to a desegregated education. The denial
of that right to a child who applies for it can be justified only
on equitable grounds similar to those listed in the second
Brown opinions ...
This court held in the Robinson case . . . that St. Mary’s
County had made a prompt and reasonable start toward com
pliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling. The plan of deseg
regation which it has adopted appears to proceed with more
than “deliberate” speed. But such a plan cannot be considered
in the abstract, apart from the particular facts of each case.
A delay which might be necessary to permit the solution of
administrative problems created by the transfer of a con
siderable number of students is not justified in this case
where only two Negro students are applying for admission
to a white school, where one has been accepted into a grade
which has already been desegregated, and it is hoped to
desegregate the remaining grades next year. The order of
the state board, read in connection with the opinion in the
Robinson case, indicates that the state board found no ad
ministrative problem justifying the denial of the applications
filed on behalf of the two Groves children. The state board
evidently regarded the case as raising only a legal question
of constitutional rights.
The second opinion of the Supreme Court in the Brown
case . . . requires district courts to weigh the equities and
to adjust and reconcile public and private needs. I do not
question the good faith of the defendants in adopting the
plan of desegregation nor their sincere belief that a further
delay in the complete desegregation of the high schools is
desirable. But constitutional rights are personal, and if Joan
Elaine Groves does not receive a desegregated education at
this time, she never will. Her rights and her needs cannot
properly be postponed simply because certain members of the
community think it would be wiser to delay segregation
of the three highest grades. Without disapproving the overall
plan, and without prejudice to defendants’ right to offer the
plan as a defense if additional applications are filed, I conclude
that defendants have not shown any legally sufficient justi
fication for denying the infant plaintiff, Joan Elaine Groves,
the constitutional right for which she has applied . . .
An appropriate decree will be entered.
# # #
Thomsen
MARYLAND
St. Mary’s Lawsuit Gets
Top Legal Attention
BALTIMORE, Md.
he outlook was for more of
the same as some 550,000
Maryland youngsters headed back
toward nearly 1,000 schools in this,
the fifth school year since the
initial Supreme Court school de
segregation decision.
In some counties additional
grades or schools were open to
racial integration, but the general
picture was a repetition of last
year, when about 14 per cent of all
Negro pupils were in mixed
classes in roughly one-fourth of all
schools.
St. Mary’s County was scheduled to
become the 14th of Maryland’s 23 coun
ties to have some actual integration
when one Negro boy in August was ac
cepted voluntarily for ninth grade en
rollment in a white school, and his
sister obtained a court order to enter the
11th grade of the same school. In saying
the girl must be admitted, Chief District
Judge Roszel C. Thomsen conceded the
county had moved with “more than
‘deliberate’ speed” in desegregating its
first nine grades but found no legal
justification for delaying the girl’s en
trance into a higher grade. (See “Legal
Action.”)
EXTENSIONS PLANNED
A county breakdown of desegregation
moves showed that integration was
moving into higher grades in six coun
ties, into more schools in two counties,
into both more schools and more grades
in one county and was to continue at
much the same pace as last year in five
counties. (See “Under Survey.”) Balti
more city, desegregated since the fall
of 1954, was entering the new school
year with no change of policy.
Negro teachers were assigned to
racially mixed classes for the first time
in Baltimore County (see “School
Boards and Schoolmen”), as NAACP
representatives requested a similar
move in Prince George’s County. An
NAACP spokesman said the request
did not represent a new departure. (See
“Community Action.”)
fclf-
LEGAL AC
hoN
Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen last
month ruled St. Mary’s County has no
legal justification for not admitting a
Negro girl to the 11th grade of a white
school, even though its court-approved
desegregation schedule calls for opening
grades one through nine this fall.
The action in the U.S. District Court
in Baltimore was on the suit of a Negro
brother and sister to gain admission to
the ninth and 11th grades of the Great
Mills High School (Thomas Conrad
Groves et al v. Board of Education of St.
Mary’s County). The litigation dates
back to 1956 when 66 Negro children
sought admision to white schools in St.
Mary’s. The first six grades were de
segregated in the 1957-58 school year,
but the application of the Groves chil
dren to enter upper grades was denied.
Between the hearing in federal court
in June and Judge Thomsen’s ruling in
August, the county superintendent of
schools notified the Groves boy that he
would be admitted to the ninth grade at
Great Mills in accordance with the
county school board’s resolution in
April that extended desegregation from
the elementary schools through grades
seven, eight and nine. That left only the
Groves girl as litigant, since there were
no other Negro applicants.
GIRL'S ADMISSION ORDERED
In two subsequent meetings with the
lawyers involved in the case Judge
Thomsen indicated his belief that the
girl should be admitted along with her
brother. County school officials declined
the suggestion, standing firmly on their
desegregation timetable. Judge Thom
sen then filed his opinion Aug. 19 which
said, in effect, the county would have to
admit the girl.
Judge Simon Sobeloff of the Fourth
Circuit declined Sept. 2 to grant St.
Mary’s request for a stay but re
peated assurances of an early hearing
by appellate judges.
BUS CASE ‘MOOT’
A companion suit that Judge Thom
sen heard along with the St. Mary’s case
concerned the refusal of school officials
in Charles County to allow a Negro boy
to ride to an integrated school on the
same bus that carried his white class
mates (Gilbert C. Hart Jr. v. Board of
Education of Charles County). A week
prior to the hearing before Judge
Thomsen in June, the boy was notified
by school authorities that he could ride
the bus this fall. The plaintiff’s lawyer
sought to make a class action out of the
suit, but the judge ruled in August that
inasmuch as the plaintiff was the only
member “of the alleged class,” and he
had obtained relief, the suit was “moot.”
Charles has had two Negro children
in the lower grades of one white ele
mentary school, with a third due to en
ter in September.
Maryland approached the opening of
its fifth year of school desegregation
with expectations of little change in the
prevailing picture. In Baltimore and
some counties the outlook was for more
of the same pattern of integration; in a
few counties the desegregation time
table had advanced one or more grades,
and in the remaining counties no mixed
classes were anticipated.
The one large change in store was the
entrance of two Negro children into a
white secondary school in St. Mary’s
County (see “Legal Action”). The
scheduled advent of mixed classes in St.
Mary’s increased the number of Mary
land counties with actual integration to
14, plus Baltimore city. Six counties had
established policies of permitting Negro
pupils to apply for transfers to white
schools, but no applications had been
received by late August.
Of the remaining three Maryland
counties, one (Garrett) had no colored
pupils and the other two (Caroline and
Calvert) had no published desegrega
tion programs.
PROGRAMS OUTLINED
Among the counties that already have
had some mixed classes the significant
new developments were these:
• Montgomery County, which borders
the District of Columbia, has converted
its one remaining Negro junior high
school into warehouse and office space
and reassigned the pupils to formerly
all-white schools. This and other moves
increase the number of Negro pupils in
mixed classes from 936 last fall to a
scheduled 1,326 this fall, or 43.4 per cent
of the total Negro enrollment. Of the
1,732 Negroes remaining in all-Negro
classes, 424 are enrolled at Carver High
School, which is the one Negro secon
dary school still in operation. The num
ber of integrated schools in the county
remains the same: 48 out of 107.
• Prince George’s County, which also
borders the District of Columbia, has a
voluntary desegregation policy under
which Negroes may apply for transfers
or admission to white schools. Thirty
six new applications were received, and
all were approved. The changes were
expected to boost the number of Ne
groes in mixed classes from 214 last fall
to 245 this fall and the number of inte
grated schools from 17 to 20, out of a
total of 120 schools. The requests of five
Negro pupils to be reassigned to Negro
schools also were approved.
74 MIXED SCHOOLS
• Baltimore County, lying imme
diately to the north of Baltimore city,
has reassigned pupils and also some
teachers (see “Schoolboards and
Schoolmen”). This was in preparation
for the reopening later in the year of the
former all-Negro Carver Junior-Senior
High School, as a greatly enlarged and
predominantly white junior high school,
to be known as Towsontown Junior
High. Enrollment figures are not yet
available in this and many other school
systems, but Baltimore County school
officials say that 74 out of their 93
schools will have mixed classes this
fall.
• Frederick County, in western
Maryland, is a third county making re
ductions in the number of separate
schools for Negroes. Under a consoli
dation program begun last year and
since expanded, the plans call for hav
ing one less Negro school this fall, a re
duction in the number of grades at two
additional Negro schools and the elim
ination of all separate seventh grade
classes.
• Harford County, under its time
table approved by the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals, opened three addi
tional elementary schools to Negro ap
plicants this year and provided that
sixth grade Negro graduates would be
admitted to white junior high classes for
the first time this fall. The desegrega-
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