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PAGE 2—APRIL I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Aid to Desegregate Schools Cut From Civil Rights Measure (Continued From Page 1) to prevent nunor-mongering, to gath er scientific data on pupil perform ance and to guard against discrimina tion. (See “District Schools.”) Vice President Richard M. Nixon cited “a great deal of progress” in Washington school desegregation, and said he hoped the day would come when the Metropolitan Police Boys’ Club is desegregated. (See “District Schools.”) After 10 days of debate, the House passed a five-point civil rights bill March 24 by vote of 311 to 109. The Senate, which had been engaged in a talkathon on civil rights on and off since Feb. 15, immediately deserted its own pending six-point civil rights bill to speed the House-approved measure to committee and back to the floor by March 30. The central feature of the House- passed measure empowers federal courts to name special voting referees once a pattern of racial discrimination agarnst potential voters has been as certained. Under court guidance, the referees would take testimony and follow through to see to it that quali- fied individuals could register and vote. OTHER PROVISIONS Other provisions of the House bill would: • Impose criminal penalties for in terference with court desegregation orders. • Make it a crime to cross state lines to escape prosecutions for bomb ings, or threats or false reports of bombings. • Require preservation of local voting records for two years for pos sible federal inspection. • Provide schooling for children of military personnel when schools are closed because of desegregation dis putes in an area. TWO OMITTED Two administration recommendations omitted from the House bill would have provided statutory authority for a committee on equal job opportuni ties under government contracts and federal financial grants and technical ass stance to help communities deseg regate their schools. Both provisions are in the Senate bill, which had been under debate but which appeared like ly to be scrapped in favor of Senate action on the House measure. Liberals failed to include in either the House or Senate version the so- called “Title III” provision, which would authorize the Justice Depart ment to initiate injunction procedures in desegregation disputes. The provi sion, which had the unsuccessful backing of the administration in 1957, is opposed by the administration this year. CALLED ‘STEP FORWARD' Atty. Gen. William P. Rogers said the bill passed by the House was a “historic step forward” and would result in additional and meaningful progress in the field of civil rights.” But members of the Senate liberal bloc criticized the measure as weak and inadequate. Southern senators in dicated they might resort to the fili buster again to block it entirely. Sen. Richard B. Russell (D-Ga) said those who believe that the Senate would ac cept whatever the House passed “are in for a rude awakening.” Nonetheless, the leadership felt that even if cloture procedures had to be invoked to limit Senate debate, the measure would be acted on before the Easter recess, tentatively scheduled to start April 14. Strategy was to keep Senate action as closely in line with the House meas ure as possible to avoid delays and possible scuttling in conference com mittees. SOUTHERNERS DISSENT The Democratic Advisory Council, composed of 31 Democratic leaders drawn mostly from outside Congress, called on Congress March 15 to enact “more far-reaching” civil rights leg islation than the bills under consid eration. Southern members dissented. The council proposed a four-point program of its own, which, it said, “would do much to bring peace and progress to race relations in the United States.” It added that it would not be neces sary for Congress to go as far as the council suggested “if we had enjoyed vigorous executive leadership during the past seven years.” Dissents from the policy statement were registered by Hugh N. Clayton of Mississippi, Mrs. Benjamin Bryan Everett of North Carolina, and Mrs. Leonard Thomas of Alabama. Partial dissents were expressed by Gov. Le- Roy Collins of Florida, Sen. Estes Ke- fauver of Tennessee, and Camille F. Gravel Jr. of Louisiana. The Advisory Council said Congress should: • “Demand conscientious enforce ment of existing criminal laws and use of congressionally-granted civil pow ers.” 0 “Place the national legislative branch squarely on record as opposed to racial segregation in public schools on the firm grounds that such segrega tion is a clear violation of the Consti tution and laws of the United States.” 0 “Recognize the right of a person in federal or state custody to protec tion by federal authorities from physi cal injury or death.” 0 “Enact additional laws to protect, through simple expeditious administra tive machinery consistent with the re cent recommendations of the Civil Rights Commission, rights of Ameri cans to register and vote free of dis crimination based on race, color, re ligion or national origin.” PARTIAL DISSENTS Gov. Collins said the Council’s ref erences to school desegregation were “entirely too generalized and unreal istic. It is workable, practical solutions that are needed. . . Kefauver said he thought Congress should limit its civil rights efforts this year to “trying to assure qualified citi zens the right to vote . . . ‘anti-bomb’ legislation . . . and legislation pro viding schools for service personnel on military reservations in states where the public schools may be closed.” Gravel commented, “Wisely, the United States district courts (under the Supreme Court decisions) are per mitted, I believe, to enforce or delay integration as required by local condi tions ... I am of the opinion that any attempt to integrate our public schools in Louisiana and in most other parts of the South at this time will prove disastrous and dangerous.” PRESS CONFERENCE At a March 16 press conference, President Eisenhower urged white and Negro leaders in southern communi ties to meet together to work out prob lems such as those spotlighted by the spreading lunch counter demonstra tions. Asked if he thought that the inci dents throughout the South showed the need for a White House conference on racial problems, the President said: “I think there ought to be bi-racial conferences in every city and every community of the South.” This would be better, he added, than trying to “direct every single thing from Wash ington. I am one of these people that believes there is too much interfer ence in our private affairs . . . al ready.” OPINION ASKED Eisenhower was asked what he thought of the sit-down demonstrations and student marches by Negroes in the South. “I am deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights, the . . . equality that they are guaran teed by the Constitution,” he said. “I do not believe that violence in any ‘I See The Distinguished Senator Has Yielded’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch form furthers that aspiration, and I de plore any violence that is exercised to prevent them (from) enjoying those rights.” ‘DRAMATIC EVIDENCE’ Leaders of the civil rights movement were told here March 24 that the sit- down protests are dramatic evidence that Negro southerners are no longer willing to accept a second-class role. Harold C. Fleming, director of the bi-racial Southern Regional Council, said that while the college students are doing most of the demonstrating, they have widespread support among their elders. The demonstrations have fired the imaginations of the Negro group and there is “no sign that the movement will fizzle out, panty-raid style, as so many complacent people assumed at the beginning,” he declared. Fleming, whose office is in Atlanta, told the Civil Liberties Clearing House conference that the most important ef fect of the sit-downs may not be the number of lunch counters opened to Negroes but the persuasion of southern white people that Negroes are deter mined to achieve equal rights. Fleming warned that civil rights proponents should not let themselves be lulled into a sense of complacency by token desegregation. He said he feared that a “bored and disgusted na tion might leave the South to handle the race problem in its own way.” LAWYERS AGREED A conference of southern civil rights lawyers here asserted March 19 that Negroes have a right to eat at store lunch counters and agreed to defend all arrested demonstrators who request help. Their statements, after a two-day meeting, indicated that the recent ar rests of Negro students will set off a new round of racial litigation, aimed not only at the right to eat at lunch counters but also at the entire deseg regation front. Thurgood Marshall of the National Assn, for the Advancement of Colored People, who called the meeting at Howard University of 60 lawyers from all southern states, said: “This is more a general protest than a desire to eat at five and dime lunch counters. This is the young people tell ing the world that in their opinion no one is moving fast enough. They have made us re-examine our sights and our horizons. The least we can do is sup port them.” WILL DEFEND ALL At a press conference, Marshall sa ; d the lawyers decided the students were asserting constitutional rights when they staged protest parades and tried to be served at store lunch counters. Marshall said they agreed to defend every arrested person who sought help and to take “affirmative action to get judicial protection of the right as serted.” Marshall anounced that the NAACP defense fund has earmarked “an initial” $40,000 to defend the cases, and each will be taken to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Local college students picketed the White House several times during the month in support of southern Negro demonstrations and to demand enact ment of civil rights legislation. Some local stores of variety chains also were picketed to protest segregation prac tices in the South, though Washington lunch counters serve all persons re gardless of race. SAYS NOT FIRED A 22-year-old Negro college student said March 16 that he was not fired by the Civil Rights Commission be cause he planned to marry a white girl, but added that he would have been asked to resign if he hadn’t quit. Fred D. Allen, a student at District Teachers College, told a reporter that he resigned to enroll at school and knew he would even before he took a clerical job with the commission in the spring of 1959. Allen became the center of a con troversy in mid-March between Gor don M. Tiffany, staff director of the commission, and John T. R. Godlewski, a former commission attorney. God lewski charged at a press conference that Tiffany fired Allen because the youth planned to marry a white girl he had met in Germany while sta tioned there with the Air Force. Godlewski also said Tiffany and the commission were guilty of “numerous instances” of discrimination in the hir ing of staff personnel. Allen said he found no discrimina tion at the Civil Rights Commission and disputed Godlewski’s charges. But Allen added that Tiffany told him “that in view of the marriage it was a good thing I was leaving because repercussions would come from this (the marriage).” I ItSISKEj SJi DISTRICT SCHOOLS School Supt. Carl F. Hansen made it clear that he would regard it as a mis take for District schools to give up at this time their annual racial census of pupils and teachers. Early this year, a Negro member of the school board, Wesley S. Williams, asked Hansen whether Washington schools, desegregated since 1954, were not “at the point, if not long past it,” where a racial count served no useful purpose. In a letter released March 14 by Wil liams, Hansen said he hoped “the time will come in the history of our school system when the racial characteristics of pupils and personnel will not be so much at issue as the nature and char acteristics of their educational needs as people.” GIVES REASONS But Hansen gave these four reasons for continuing the racial count at this time: 0 “The change from segregation is much too recent for the school system to escape the national spotlight on this issue. To seek to eliminate reports of pupils and personnel by race will be interpreted by many as a device for secreting significant facts about the schools. 0 “Without official recording, esti mates and guesswork will be substi tuted. The flood of rumors and counter-rumors, mostly negative in na ture, and the persistent probing for facts on this issue will, I believe, be harmful to the stability of the school organization. 0 “In the transitional stages of this historical development, racial counts furnish the basis for establishing scientifically the fact that Negro pu pils, properly taught and in improving economic and social situations, can re spond and will achieve eventually at the same level and pattern as the white pupils. 0 “As has been said by a nationally- known expert in human relations when we put the question to him in a recent conference, the failure to report racial distribution of pupils and personnel can be and is now far too often used as a shield for discriminatory prac tices.” ANNUAL CENSUS The annual “peak enrollment” census of District schools, conducted in Octo ber, includes a breakdown by race. An annual count is also made of Negro and white teachers. Hansen told Williams he is “not pre pared to recommend a change” in a 1925 statute, which requires a racial tally of District pupils. But he noted that elimination of the requirement was proposed by the school administra tion in 1954 and endorsed by the school board. There was no further action on the proposal. In a reply to Hansen, Williams indi cated that he was still opposed to the racial count. At a March 16 school board meeting, Williams asked for an explanation from the District commis sioners of their failure to act on the school board’s six-year-old request for legislation eliminating the racial census requirement. VOICED HOPE Vice President Richard M. Nixon cited “a great deal of progress” in Washington school desegregation and voiced the hope that the Metropolitan Police Boys Club would ultimately be desegregated too. Nixon was presented a gold mem bership card by white and Negro club members March 25 and became the first adult member in the 1960 club membership drive. Asked how he felt about the con tinued segregation of young white and Negro children in the club, the vice president said he “was not aware that it was” segregated. Nixon, an honorary member since 1953, added, “Washington has made a great deal of progress in its public schools and restaurants and other pub lic facilities in this regard, and I have great hopes that the same progress will be made in this.” “It is only logical,” Nixon said, “that progress will be made in this area (the Boys Club) too.” In an “action program” prepared for submission to its annual convention in May, the Board of Managers of the District Congress of Parents and Teachers voted to back “the principle of free public education for any child living in the District with persons who are basically financially responsible for his or her care and custody.” This was in support of the present practice and in opposition to a bill sponsored by Rep. Joel T. Broyhill (R- Va), which would require non-resi dent tuition payments from pupils liv ing here with persons who are not their parents or legal guardians. In sponsoring the measure, Broyhill charged that many southern Negro families were sending their children to Washington to live with friends or relatives and attend desegregated schools. The Broyhill bill has passed the House, but there has been no ac tion in the Senate. The P-TA Board reaffirmed a resolu tion it passed in February voicing concern that enforcement of non resident tuition requirements “not re sult in injustice to children whose families are already facing difficult problems of population mobility.” Some local P-TA units had com plained that the resolution should not have been adopted without consulting the individual P-TAs, but the board reaffirmed its action by 17 to 10 vote. JUNIOR COLLEGE In another action, the board voted to urge the House District Committee to act in this session on pending legis lation authorizing establishment of a junior college division at District Teachers College. The junior college bill passed the Senate last year, but has been bottled up in the House since a subcommittee headed by Rep. D. R. (Billy) Mat thews (D-Fla) held hearings last sum mer. School board action on the junior college bill followed an appeal from the District Congress of Parents and Teachers, the Federation of Citizens Assn., the Federation of Civic Assns., the League of Women Voters and the Urban League. RIGOROUS INSTRUCTION The board approved a plan by Han sen to establish the new Amidon Ele mentary School in southwest Washing ton as an experimental center to de termine whether modem pupils can profit from old-fashioned emphasis on rigorous instruction in the fundamental subjects. Hansen predicted the school would “improve the accomplishments of our students” and perhaps become a model for the District school system. The new school will serve the south west urban renewal area, which is largely unpopulated now. Until it can reach its capacity of 806 pupils with neighborhood youngsters, it will accept pupils from all parts of the city whose parents are willing to transport them to and from school. Hansen said Amidon would offer “an educational program centering on basic subjects,” including “direct and sys tematic instruction in reading, writing, grammar, speech, mathematics, science, history and geography.” In a reversal of modem educational practice, teaching will focus primarily on direct instruction and will assign a secondary role to “projects” and “ex perience units” which are designed to let youngsters learn without knowing they are learning. BALANCED STUDENT BODY Hansen stressed that the experi mental school would not be only for bright youngsters, but would have as balanced a student body as possible. Admission of pupils from outside the Amidon area will be on the basis of applications from parents, with specific admission criteria still to be worked out. The superintendent said he hoped the school would be well-balanced acad emically and racially, and would be come “attractive for community build ing in the southwest area.” In a report to the school board on the three-track program of ability grouping set up in elementary schools this year, Hansen said the program is working well, though some problems need further attention. The superintendent said teachers have found that they can do a better job when pupils of similar ability are grouped together in honors, general or remedial basic classes. But he said there must be further efforts to insure flexibility in the track placement of pupils, better training of basic track teachers and promotion of parental understanding of the track system. # # #