Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 10—MARCH I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS TEXAS Court Calls for Action in Dallas Desegregation Case DALLAS, Texas ate Justice John Minor Wisdom asked marilv hv the National A sen for Arl_ Roman „ i..„i i 1 ,• • . DALLAS, Texas A United States circuit court called upon the Dallas school board for action in its five-year- old dispute over commencing de segregation. (See “Legal Ac tion.”) Negro fathers involved in a law suit to integrate Fort Worth schools admitted they are being financed by the National Assn, for Advancement of Colored People. (See “Legal Action.”) West Texas State College was ordered by a federal judge to ad mit a Negro student. It was the first such order entered against any of six colleges administered by a state teachers’ college board. (See “In the Colleges.”) Three white women lost another court attempt to enter Texas A&M Col lege, which still bars both females and Negroes. (See “In the Colleges.”) Syracuse’s football coach said a na tional television program had “twisted” a Syracuse Negro player into saying “things he doesn’t want to say” in criti cizing the University of Texas’ team over this year’s Cotton Bowl game. (See “In the Colleges.”) The Episcopal Diocese of Texas, after an argument, backed the decision by trustees of St. Stephens Episcopal School at Austin to admit Negroes with white students starting in September 1961. The headmaster said no applica tions are pending from Negroes. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) Texas Education Agency revealed that hundreds of school boards are ap plying for federal funds under existing aid programs, although some districts reject the money. (See “School Boards and Schoolmen.”) A Negro assistant to President Eisen hower told Dallas Negroes to work for better communication with white citi zens rather than simply for racial rights. (See “What They Say.”) Two incidents of friction over Dallas Negroes moving into white neighbor hoods, or formerly white areas, were noted. (See “Miscellaneous.”) “Words without deeds are not enough,” Chief Justice Richard T. Rives of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap peals told an attorney for the Dallas school board opposing an effort to ob tain immediate desegregation (Boson v. RiVW). “We’ve been engaging in legal litera ture for five years without action,” the judge said. Attorneys for the NAACP, for a fourth time, asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to order Dallas to produce a desegregation plan by Sep tember. C. B. Bunkley Jr., NAACP lawyer, said that a “gradual, stairstep integra tion plan would be workable and ac ceptable to us. We are not asking that the whole system be desegregated, but we want a start by September.” At Dallas, Dr. Edwin L. Rippy com mented that the school board, which he heads, has a desegregation plan, which it could produce “with ease” after its legal problems are cleared up. “I don’t recall that the board has ever been asked legally to present a plan,” said Rippy. “The board . . . has felt it inappropriate (to announce a plan) in view of litigation concerning federal and state rulings.” SCHOOL CENSUS Supt. W. T. White announced late in February that Dallas is making a new study of geographical distribution of white and Negro students in the city, the first in five years. The Dallas News reported a school spokesman described the survey as “routine” but “necessary in event such data are asked for the Dallas integration case.” The school census shows that the Dallas district currently has 11,029 white and 2,841 Negro children six years old, eligible to start school next Sep tember. Dallas officials have stated that they prefer to integrate one grade a year, when segregation is abolished. In tegration would begin in the first grade, if this plan is invoked. On April 4, U.S. District Judge T. W. Davidson of Dallas will review prog ress by the board under his ruling (Borders v. Rippy) to desegregate “with deliberate speed.” At the New Orleans hearing, Associ ate Justice John Minor Wisdom asked R. H. Brin Jr., the school board attor ney: “Don’t you think the school board should come up with a plan without a court order?” Brin contended that until the dis trict’s status under state laws is clari fied, integration might throw the whole Dallas system “out of kilter.” One state law calls for withdrawal of funds from any district that desegre gates without approval of its voters. No election has been held on the subject in Dallas, and most observers believe that a referendum, if called now, would fail. This would mean a loss of two million dollars a year in state funds to Dallas, and fines up to $1,000 against its school officials, if integration should be ordered contrary to state law. SOUGHT DIRECTION The Texas Supreme Court in Febru ary made final its decision against giv ing any “declaratory judgment” inter pretation of the Dallas district’s status under the state referendum act (Dallas ISD v. Edgar). The Dallas board has at tempted unsuccessfully in two federal courts and three state courts to get court direction in its dilemma over the conflict between state law and a U.S. court order. In urging the Texas Supreme Court to advise the school board, Attorney Brin asserted that Dallas has “a pres ent and urgent problem” and not mere ly a hypothetical case. “Certainly it is the function of the courts and not of school boards to de termine legal interpretation and consti tutionality of state statutes,” he said. NAACP AID Two Negro fathers of children in volved in the lawsuit to desegregate Fort Worth public schools (Flax v. Potts) told attorneys at deposition hear ings the litigation is being financed pri marily by the National Assn, for Ad vancement of Colored People. Both said they approached Dr. G. D. Flemmings, a dentist who heads the Fort Worth NAACP branch, and requested aid. Tech. Sgt. Weirleis Max Sr., a Cars well Air Force Base finance office work er, said he did not know how much money the NAACP had spent or planned to spend on his lawsuit. Herbert C. Teal Jr., a $75-a-week aircraft company jan itor, said he paid NAACP Attorney L. Clifford Davis of Fort Worth a sum which he could not recall; signed a note for about $700; and was told the NAACP would pay the other cost of the litiga tion involving his child. Flax complained that the segregated school his daughter attends at Fort Worth is inferior to the integrated school his children attended at Wichita Falls when he was stationed at Shep pard Air Force Base. “The associations my children are used to are not there,” Flax said of the Lake Como school for Negroes at Fort Worth. The father said his daughter should be allowed to go to school with her white playmates from Carswell AFB. PLEA REFUSED At Houston, a U.S. district court re fused a plea by four Negro dentists to order immediate desegregation at Syl van Beach Park, operated by Harris County. County officials promised there would “be no delay” in acting upon the application for desegregation. Present policy is to admit whites to the beach park on certain days and Ne groes at other times. OPPOSE LEASE The Tenth State Court of Civil Ap peals at Waco heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by Protestants of Bremond, a central Texas town, to stop the school board from leasing a former Roman Catholic parochial school and employing nuns to teach in public schools (McIntyre v. Hoblinski). An attorney for Bremond’s board cited an opinion by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on the Dallas integration case. He cited the case to support his argument that the Protestants must first exhaust admin istrative remedies—through an applica tion for the Bremond board to change its leasing and employment policy—be fore getting any relief in court. The first court order to admit a Ne gro to a college administered by the Texas State Board for Teachers Col leges came at Amarillo. U.S. District Judge Joe B. Dooley told West Texas State College it could not bar John Matthew Shipp because of race (Shipp v. Frank White et al). Five other colleges are governed by the same board. Only white students have been admitted to these so far, al though most tax-supported colleges in Texas are integrated. Henry Braswell, assistant attorney general, argued that the state could establish a “salt-and-pepper” system of colleges of three dimensions: all-white, all-Negro, and integrated. A similar ar- cited an opinion by the U.S. Circuit gument was overruled several years ago when Atty. Gen. John Ben Shep- tion at Lamar State College in Beau mont. West Texas State College is located at Canyon, 20 miles from Amarillo. Pub lic schools at Amarillo are integrated, as is a public junior college there, where Sharp graduated. However, only one Negro is actually attending public school with whites at present. Others are segregated by attendance zones. Judge Dooley said he does not think the three-dimension system advanced by the attorney general “will pass mus ter under our present understanding of law.” Litigation since the U.S. Supreme Court first held that Negro children cannot be excluded from going to pub lic school with whites, Dooley said, “has settled for me the matter of barring ad mittance of students solely on grounds of color.” “The law of the country has now been decided by the Supreme Court.” A&M SEGREGATED Principal remaining segregated state colleges in Texas are Texas A&M and its branches: Prairie View A&M (all- Negro), Arlington State, and Tarleton State. Also segregated is Texas Techno logical College in Lubbock. Most of Texas A&M’s litigation has concerned efforts of women to enroll at the all-male school. District Judge W. T. McDonald in February rejected a petition by three Bryan women for per mission to enroll (Allred v. Heaton). In a previous case, McDonald had ruled against exclusion of women from the military school. This was overruled by appellate courts of Texas and by the U. S. Supreme Court, which ignored the ladies’ plea that segregation by sexes is as unconstitutional as segregation by race. GAME OVER, NOT FORGOTTEN Repercussions continued over charges of dirty playing” and epithets between white and Negro football players at the Syracuse-University of Texas Cotton (See TEXAS, Page 11) KENTUCKY Steps Toward Higher Expenditures Are Approved T nTTTQTnr t tp t «« LOUISVILLE, Ky. r I' 1 HE NEW ADMINISTRATION of Democratic Gov. Bert Combs won legislative approval of a con stitutional convention designed to raise school and other salary limits and to exclude such matters as school integration from its agenda. The governor also received court approval of his “limited” constitutional-revision proposal, insuring its submission to a refer endum of the state’s voters next November. Gov. Combs won legislative approval of a three-per-cent sales tax, much of which would go to improving the state’s public schools, and of a “tight” veterans bonus bill, approved by voters last No vember along with a sales tax to finance it. (See “Legislative Action.”) better day.” The bonus bill, though passed by an overwhelming majority of the most overwhelming Democratic Legislature in this century, brought criticism from Kentuckians now living in other states who were excluded from its benefits of $300 to $500 (maximum). Litigation im pended not only on this angle but on the federal constitutional question of whether any state (and not the federal government) could legally pay a bonus to its veterans. The sales tax tie-in with the bonus, although submitted to popular vote by action of a Chandler Legislature, also brought a blast from former Gov. A. B. Chandler. He called a sales tax “the worst form of taxation yet devised,” ac cused the Combs administration of using the bonus “as a device to fool people and get the three per cent tax,” and said it might lead him to seek a third term as governor in 1963 with a sales tax repeal program. The tax, which goes into effect July 1, is accompanied by an income tax reduction, overall, of about 40 percent. The series of legislative triumphs for the new administration led political ob servers to believe that the governor would have no trouble in winning ap proval of a record biennial budget. It includes 271 million dollars for public education in 1960-62, a 62 per cent in crease of 102.7 million dollars over the 1958-60 budget. Almost half the in crease—about 51 million dollars—will go directly for salaries of classroom teachers, principals, and supervisors, with individual increases ranging from $300 to $900 a year. Another 25 million dollars will go to school districts for current expenses, transporting pupils, and construction of new school buildings. Some 16 million dollars will go to the University of Ken tucky and other state institutions of col legiate level, 5.6 million dollars to raise benefits for retired teachers, 3.1 million for an expanded program of free text books, and 2 million to expanded voca tional-education programs. A NEW DAY Combs called the state’s first billion- dollar budget (to be exact, $1,024,025,- 723) “a means of lifting Kentucky from her old depressing place at the bottom of the ladder . . . the program of im provement and progress that it makes possible makes a drastic break with the depressing patterns of the past and, I think, embarks Kentucky on a new and schools; only 16 states in the nation contributed a larger proportionate share of school costs. Kentucky has 546 school-age children per 1,000 adults aged 21 to 64, compared with the national average of 455 children per 1,000 adults. Since 1953-54, when the minimum foundation law was enacted, school at tendance in Kentucky has climbed seven per cent, the number of teacher 14.4 per cent. The number of qualified teachers increased from 57.4 per cent in 1954-55 to 66.2 per cent in 1958-59. Legislators indicated they would probe further into a question suggested by the survey—that under the present minimum foundation formula there is an “inequitable” distribution of state funds to some school districts. Earlier, Supt. Butler countered some legislative criticism of “the education lobby” by saying his use of the catch- phrase “one per cent for soldier boy and two per cent for sonny boy” (in refer ence to the sales tax) did not mean that he believed in earmarking all the extra revenue for education but that he did believe “people want a large share of the two per cent to go for the dire needs of education.” Although the legislators seemed cer tain to approve a budget that devotes nearly a third of its billion dollars to public education—as against 25 per cent in the last two years—they decided they wanted to know more about how the 271 million dollars would be spent. A special House committee to investi gate the Department of Education was established, and held two hearings in February. Questions at these hearings, address ed to State Supt. of Public Instruction Wendell P. Butler and his top aides, were highly general in nature: “How do you propose to improve the quality of instruction? If teachers’ salaries are to improve, don’t you think there ought to be an improvement in teachers? Are not your teachers overtrained in how to teach, and under-trained in what to teach? How, in view of the tenure law, can you ever get rid of bad teachers?” Such questions received generalized answers, though the last one brought agreement that “possibly the law now needs some loosening to make it easier to drop poor teachers.” Much more specific were these figures submitted to the committee from a 1959 survey ordered by the 1958 General Assembly: In 1958-59, Kentucky was paying for 48.6 per cent of the costs of its public On Feb. 10 William W. Beckett, only Negro member of Louisville’s Board of Aldermen, introduced an ordinance that would make it illegal for Louisville hotels, theaters, and restaurants, but not bars or taverns, to refuse to serve Ne groes. On Feb. 23, by voice vote, the Board of Aldermen rejected the ordinance. They did so after hearing this opinion from the City Law Department: Under its Charter, the legislative au thority of the City of Louisville is limit ed to matters that pertain to public health, public welfare, public morals, and general police powers. It has no control over private property rights, nor can it pass any laws in conflict with constitutional guarantees of private property rights.” PRAISES BECKETT Alderman Clifford J. Haury, who read the opinion, praised Beckett, ex pressed sympathy for the problems posed for Negroes by the segregation policies of most of the city’s theaters, restaurants, and hotels. But he added: “I sincerely believe and hope that the good people of Louisville will iron out this problem voluntarily.” Beckett told his fellow aldermen that removal of racial bars would not come voluntarily, but that “this (the ordin ance) will work—it has worked in other cities.” Beckett later disclosed that he had asked State Atty. Gen. John B. Breckin ridge for a ruling on the matter, and had been promised one. He said he did not know what he would do should Breckinridge disagree with the Louis ville Law Department opinion. COMMITTEE REVIVED A week before Beckett introduced his ordinance, Mayor Bruce Hoblitzell, after several weeks of renewed de mands for opening theaters, restaurants and hotels to Negroes, re-assembled his long-dormant Mayor’s Committee on Human Relations. The committee heard appeals for action from representatives of the National Assn, for the Advance ment of Colored People and from Uni tarians for Social Action. It decided to start meeting again on a monthly basis, but took no other action except to ask representatives of the businesses affect ed to be ready to answer whether they would be willing to voluntarily remove racial barriers when the committee meets late in April. After the defeat of Beckett’s bill the Courier-Journal commented: “The issue was not squarely met . . . the issue of further integration in Louisville is for the moment at a stand still. It could now move forward again, by voluntary choice of the community, or it could slip tragically backward. All will depend on the responsible attitude of both white and Negro citizens, and especially of their respected leaders. . . “The legal issue on further integra tion is for the moment set aside, but the moral question is just as strong as ever. It is a constant challenge to white church leaders and to all who like to think of themselves as bound by moral laws. “An enlightened public opinion could resolve the problem of the downtown businessmen, many of whom say they have no strong feelings of their own about integration, but are afraid of hurting business. Louisville will not stand still on this issue. White citizens who want to see it move forward along mature, peaceful lines can greatly strengthen the hands of Negroes who want to lead their people in the same direction. “But people have to stand up and be counted. This is not a situation in which mere good will, passive and unexpress ed, can be of any help.” # # #