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PAGE 6—JANUARY—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Justices Uphold Lower Court Ruling
Knocking Out School Closing Law
WASHINGTON, D.C.
N A SERIES OF DECISIONS growing
out of desegregation disputes,
the Supreme Court:
• Upheld a lower court which
struck down an Arkansas law in
voked 16 months ago to close
Little Rock’s high schools. States
may not close some schools and
leave others open to avoid deseg
regation, the court held.
• Refused to hear a challenge
to Nashville’s plan of gradual desegre
gation. The grade-by-grade plan had
been upheld by a lower court.
» Agreed to speed up consideration of
a lower court decision which has put a
halt to Civil Rights Commission hear
ings on voting restraints. (See “National
Affairs.”)
District of Columbia educators re
ported that desegregated schools are
increasing their holding power for Ne
gro students, though the drop-out re
mains high between the 11th and 12th
grades of high school. (See “District
Schools.”)
The Supreme Court ruled Dec. 14 that
states may not close some schools and
leave others open to avoid desegrega
tion.
The decision upheld the action of a
federal court in Arkansas which had
struck down the state law invoked 16
months ago to close Little Rock’s high
schools. Also upheld by the Supreme
Court was the lower court’s action in
striking down a companion state law
under which state funds were withheld
from closed schools.
The lower court had held that closing
Little Rock’s schools while leaving other
Arkansas high schools open deprived
Little Rock students of the “equal pro
tection of the laws” guaranteed by the
14th Amendment. A similar decision had
been reached earlier by a federal court
in Virginia which ruled against that
state’s school closing laws.
The Supreme Court ruling was viewed
as likely to hasten the trend toward
adoption of local-option pupil place
ment laws which have been enacted by
several southern states and which so far
have stood up under legal challenge.
Justice Charles E. Whittaker said he
would have granted a hearing on
Arkansas’ appeal. The other eight jus
tices merely wrote that the lower court
“judgment is affirmed.”
LETS PLAN STAND
In another Dec. 14 decision, the Su
preme Court refused to hear a challenge
to Nashville’s plan of gradual desegre
gation. The court consistently has re
fused to review such plans when they
have been approved by lower courts.
Under the Nashville plan, compulsory
school segregation is being gradually
abolished at the rate of one grade each
year.
The Supreme Court agreed Dec. 7 to
speed up consideration of a lower fed
eral court decision which has put a halt
to Civil Rights Commission hearings on
voting restraints.
That case arose from the commission’s
attempt last summer to hold a hearing
in Shreveport, La., on Negroes’ com
plaints that they had been purged from
the voting lists or denied the right to
register solely because of their race.
State officials obtained a federal court
ruling that the commission’s hearing
regulations—under which it refused to
divulge the names of complaining Ne
groes or permit their cross-examination
—had not been authorized by Congress
and were therefore invalid. The decision
was based on a Supreme Court ruling
involving the government’s industrial
security program.
The lower court order applies only in
Louisiana, but the commission an
nounced it would hold no further vot
ing hearings until the question of its
regulations has been settled. The Su
preme Court scheduled the case for oral
argument on Jan. 18. Two other cases
involving the constitutionality and
meaning of the 1957 Civil Rights Act,
which created the commission, are al
ready before the court.
CRC ABANDONED’
In New York, the Democratic Advis
ory Council charged Dec. 7 that Presi
dent Eisenhower had “virtually aban
doned” the Civil Rights Commission by
failing to fill a vacancy created by the
resignation in October of former Vir
ginia Gov. John S. Battle.
The Democrats also complained that
the administration has taken no action
to carry out any of the recommendations
in the commission’s September interim
report.
Recommendations for civil rights and
education legislation were the only con
troversial planks at the Democratic
Advisory Council’s two-day meeting.
The council proposed financial and
technical assistance for communities
which are proceding to desegregate their
public school systems, and extension of
the attorney general’s powers to initiate
injunction suits in civil rights cases.
The council also called for federal aid
for public school construction and a
federally supported scholarship pro
gram.
Gov. Leroy Collins of Florida and Mrs.
Benjamin E. Everett of North Carolina
said they could not go along with federal
aid for school construction since they
regard schools as a state responsibility.
Mrs. Everett dissented from the civil
rights plank without comment and Col
lins asked the council to study his own
plan for the appointment of commissions
to assist in dealing with racial problems.
LACK TRAINING
Negroes will constitute a substantially
larger portion of the nation’s work force
in the 1960s, but many Negroes will lack
the education and training required for
employment, the President’s Committee
on Government Contracts declared Dec.
27.
In its sixth report to President Eisen
hower, the committee predicted that it
“will become increasingly difficult for
young workers without a high school
education to obtain their first or en
trance job, and when they are success
ful in obtaining it, to achieve promotion
to better jobs.” The report added:
“Yet 7.5 of the 26 million new workers
who will be in the labor force in the
1980s will be without a high school
education, according to the Labor De
partment’s projections—and a high pro
portion of these 7.5 million workers will
be Negroes.”
MANY NOT IN SCHOOL
The committee said 80 per cent of the
white children aged 14 to 17 are attend
ing high school, while only 65 per cent
of Negro children in the same age group
are enrolled.
“The disparity in education which
continues to handicap Negroes will be
come a more serious drawback as occu
pational needs develop in the next 10
years,” the report said.
“Our national leaders, be they colored
or white, will have to make added efforts
to convince parents to keep their chil
dren in school so that they can compete
for employment more effectively.”
Vice President Richard Nixon, chair
man of the committee, commented that
“today’s pessimistic estimates with re
spect to the availability of trained Negro
workers during the next decade can be
reduced through education and train
ing.”
COUNCIL STATEMENT
The Southern Regional Council, an
80-member group of white and Negro
southerners seeking to promote better
race relations, issued a statement Dec.
6 calling for urgent efforts to “get the
issue of school desegregation out of the
courts and into the hands of responsible
educators.”
The council said southern communi
ties should redefine the problem as
“How best to educate all our youth?”
rather than how to bar Negroes from
white schools.
The council also expressed concern
over the use of pupil placement plans
as “a political device to evade or thwart
desegregation.” It added:
“When placement is not guided by
professional concern and criteria, but is
designed to perpetuate racial separa
tion, its use will only prolong the
South’s unrest.”
Noting that more than 200 southern
school districts have voluntarily started
desegregation, the council said they
“give witness to the fact that where
responsible leaders take the initiative,
desegregation can be handled by south
erners without turmoil or court de
crees.”
Washington’s desegregated high
schools are increasing their holding
power for Negro students but still have
a high drop-out rate between the 11th
and 12th grades of high school, School
Supt. Carl F. Hansen reported.
Hansen told reporters it was “signifi
cant” that this year’s total of Negro 10th
graders is 98.2 per cent of last year’s
ninth grade enrollment. In 1954-55 only
80.6 per cent of the ninth grade enroll
ment “survived” to enter the 10th grade.
This year’s Negro 11th graders repre
sent 73.9 per cent of the ninth grade
enrollment two years ago, compared
to 54.9 per cent survival in 1954-55.
Among 12th graders, the survival rate
for the ninth grade was 54.9 per cent
this year and 41.9 per cent in 1954-55.
Hansen released the figures at a Dec.
2 press conference and said they indi
cated increased motivation among Ne
gro students to remain in school. But
he said further efforts are needed to
reduce the drop-out rate between the
11th and 12th grades.
Other statistics released by the school
system showed that about 35 per cent
of the District’s senior high school stu
dents are taking honors or college pre
paratory courses this year.
FOUR-TRACK REPORT
A report on the high schools’ four-
track program of ability grouping indi
cated that 878 students are enrolled in
the tough honors sequence; 3,784 in the
regular college preparatory program;
5,665 in tlje general course for students
not planning to go to college, and 2,786
in the remedial basic track. The major
change from last year was a decrease of
240 in the basic track enrollment.
All four tracks were reported in oper
ation at seven of the city’s 10 high
schools. There were no honors students
at two schools and no basic students at
one.
Hansen also released enrollment fig
ures for new ability grouping programs
put into effect this year in elementary
and junior high schools.
At the junior high level he reported
1,045 students in the honors category,
15,948 in regular classes, 1,960 basic
students with about two years’ retarda
tion and 2,729 “severely retarded” basic
students.
1,000 HONORS PUPILS
In elementary schools, 1,016 children
in grades four through six have been
identified as honors students. Hansen
said there may be “hundreds of others”
who are as capable but who have not
yet been screened for the honors pro
gram.
The general track in elementary
schools has an enrollment of 51,383, and
14,558 youngsters are in the basic track
—including 2,143 classified as “severely
retarded.”
The superintendent reported that ele
mentary schools did not promote 10.9
per cent of their pupils at the end of
the last school year. The percentage
compared to 12.7 non-promotions a year
earlier.
Hansen attributed the decrease in
student failures to the establishment of
a “junior primary” program for pupils
old enough to enter the first grade but
regarded as too immature to tackle
first-grade work.
MERIT CONTROVERSY
School board discussions of a $6 mil
lion teacher pay raise proposal stimu
lated a controversy over “merit pay”
plans and a promise from school officials
to work harder at weeding out unquali
fied teachers.
The board approved the pay raise
proposal Dec. 16 and reluctantly went
along with Hansen’s “urgent” request
not to tie in a plan for extra compen
sation for outstanding teachers. The pay
boost must still clear the District Com
missioners and Congress.
Board members made it clear that
they would continue to press for some
means of rewarding the city’s most able
teachers.
Arkansas
(Continued From Page 5)
ters to President Eisenhower and the
Little Rock school board.
Meeting Little Rock reporters in the
home of Mrs. L. C. Bates, state presi
dent of the NAACP, he told them that
he had talked to the eight Negro stu
dents who are attending Central and
Hall high schools this year and that
while things were not as bad as in the
first year of integration two years ago,
“there still exist certain problems that
are taking place on a more subtle
basis.”
He said the Negro students were
being subjected to “all manner of indig
nities,” being kicked, elbowed, spat on
and made the butt of certain epithets.
CHARGES DENTED
Supt. Terrell E. Powell and members
of the school board categorically denied
these charges. Powell said “I confer
with the principals daily. I’ve been
through the schools and the school
board members have been through the
schools. We’ve had no reports of any
incidents at all—in fact, not even any
rumors.”
At Washington a few days later, Diggs
repeated and expanded his observations.
“What impressed me most,” he said, is
that there has obviously been a pur
poseful de-emphasis of the true condi
tions in the school. It seems to be a
case of attempting to lull the rest of
America to sleep on what is going on.”
He criticized the Arkansas Democrat for
playing up the school board’s answer to
his charges, and the Arkansas Gazette
for its editorial comment on him which
included the statement that Little
Rock’s school troubles were past.
ASKS EISENHOWER VISIT
He gave out copies of letters he had
written to President Eisenhower and the
school board. He suggested that Eisen
hower, then in the Far East, try his
personal diplomacy with a tour through
the South, including Little Rock. He
asked the school board to call the white
students of Central and Hall together
and make it clear to them that “no
further nonsense” would be tolerated.
When the board got this letter its
members debated whether to ignore it,
then decided merely to acknowledge
receiving it.
Board President Everett Tucker Jr.
said the school policy was to enforce
discipline without discrimination. He
said no special instructions for handling
or “pampering” the Negro students had
been issued.
Gov. Faubus said he had not heard of
any harassment of the Negro students
this year.
FAUBUS COMMENTS
The governor waited until the Little
Rock school election was over to make
his first comment on it. Then he said
Tucker and B. Frank Mackey, “moder
ates” and incumbent members of the
board, had been cinches to win re-elec
tion and that he thought it had been
a waste of time for two women segre
gationists to oppose them.
This was the first school election since
September 1957 in which the governor
remained silent. Still, he said, it is pre
mature to think of the Little Rock
integration problem as settled.
“We have no assurance that the fed
eral courts or the NAACP will accept
the pupil placement laws,” he said. “In
fact, the NAACP has made it very plain
that it doesn’t.”
He does not think much of the way
the pupil placement laws, which were
sponsored by him, are being used.
“How are you going to say you are
going to take this Negro in and turn
that Negro down?” he asked. “That’s
more ridiculous than trying to force
integration.”
The Women’s Emergency Committee
for Public Schools, of Little Rock an
nounced that the Loretta Young Show,
a weekly national television show, had
paid $300 for the right to dramatize the
committee’s story on the air.
As soon as he heard about that, Dr.
Malcolm G. Taylor, president of the
Capital Citizens Council of Little Rock,
fired off a letter to Miss Young de
manding that she drop the idea and
threatening a boycott of her sponsor.
U. S. Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr- of
Detroit (D-Mich), after his visit to
Little Rock (see “Political Activity”),
said that Mrs. L. C. Bates of Little Rock,
state president of the NAACP, and her
husband were “living under duress
calculated to drive them out of Little
Rock” and were without commercial in
come since their weekly newspaper, the
Arkansas State Press, ceased publica
tion on Oct. 30 (Southern School News,
December 1959).
He said Mrs. Bates was writing a book
to be called “The Daisy Bates Story”
and that “Dollars for Daisy” campaigns
had been started at Kansas City and
Philadelphia.
DRIVES TO RAISE MONEY
He said it was very important that
the Bateses be kept in Little Rock and
that money-raising campaigns for their
benefit would be started in other cities
after the holidays.
City Manager Dean I. Dauley re
sponded to the comment that the Bateses
were living “under duress.” He said
they were getting adequate police pro
tection. He said Negro detectives travel
ing in an unmarked police car check
by the Bates home nearly every night
and that they have never found any
trouble.
The Bates home shows the marks and
scars of bombs, bullets and rocks (SSN,
August 1959), and the only arrests that
have been made were those of two of
the Bates’ private guards, for carrying
weapons.
COUNCIL RE-ELECTS PRESIDENT
The Capital Citizens Council, the
leading segregationist organization at
Little Rock, held its annual election of
officers in December and, for the first
time, refused to say who they were
except that Dr. Malcolm G. Taylor, an
osteopath, had been re-elected presi
dent.
Neither Dr. Taylor nor the Rev. Wes
ley Pruden, chaplain of the council this
year and former president of it, would
say why the names were being with
held.
Both were asked if E. A. Lauderdale
Sr., convicted in November of bombing
the Little Rock school board office, had
been re-elected to the council’s board
of directors, but they wouldn’t say.
About 35 persons attended the coun
cil meeting at a downtown hotel.
The Hall School class of 1959, whose
members attended other schools scat
tered across the nation because their
school was closed that year, presented
to the school a walnut plaque contain
ing 40 gold plates on which the names
of senior class presidents are to be en
graved. The plaque is inscribed, “Dedi
cated to the spirit which has kept our
divided class united.”
For the first time since the Little Rock
school crisis of 1957, Gov. Faubus and
Mrs. L. C. Bates, state NAACP presi
dent, met face to face. They exchanged
friendly greetings and shook hands in
his office.
Mrs. Bates was the Little Rock host
to William A. Richardson, federal in
formation officer of the Government of
the West Indies, and accompanied him
by pre-arrangement to call on Faubus
at the Capitol.
CLAIMS SHE WAS FIRED
Mrs. Sarah E. Smith, whose daughter
Corliss is one of the three plaintiffs in
the Dollarway integration lawsuit, testi
fied during the hearing in December
that the Dollarway school board had
fired her in September from her job as
chief cook at the Townsend Park
(Negro) High School.
Lee Parham, president of the board,
said she wasn’t fired; that she just was
not rehired for the current school year.
He said the board thought it best to
replace her after the integration lawsuit
was filed.
The state Supreme Court unani
mously upheld the voluntary man
slaughter conviction of Willie Bob
Brown of Little Rock. He is the father
of Minnijean Brown, one of the nine
Negro students who attended Little
Rock Central High in 1957-58. He was
convicted for the shooting of another
Negro in June 1958.
Arkansas leaders of the American
Legion and the 40 & 8 said they in
tended to go along just as they always
have despite the order from the na
tional Legion commander that the Le
gion must sever connections with the
40 & 8 because the 40 & 8 has refused
to admit Negro veterans.
IN THE
Four University of Arkansas faculty
members lost their jobs last summer
for refusing to sign the oaths required
by Act 10 of 1958, listing the organi
zations they have contributed to or
been members of in the last five years.
Two of them have other jobs—John
L. McKenney at Hampden-Sydney
College in Virginia and Dr. Frederick
G. Friedman at Wells College in New
York. Miss Thelma W. Taylor is doing
graduate work at Columbia University
in New York City. The fourth, Max F.
Carr, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit
against Act 10 and has remained at
Fayetteville, site of the university, un
employed. His suit is on appeal to the
state Supreme Court. # # #