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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY I960—PAGE 7
ARKANSAS
Plaintiffs Ask Further Desegregation in Little Rock
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
N egro plaintiffs in the Little
Rock case filed a 66-page
brief arguing against the use of
the pupil assignment law and for
expansion of the desegregation
plan.
The Negro plaintiffs objected in
a written filing and an oral hear
ing to the statement of affirmative
policies filed by the Dollarway
School Board. (See “Legal Ac
tion”)
Little Rock’s three high schools
regained their accreditation with
the North Central Assn, of Sec
ondary Schools and Colleges.
(See “School Boards and School
men.”)
Hendrix College at Conway, a
Methodist institution, decided to
continue its policy of admitting
white students only. (See “School
Boards and Schoolmen.”)
Four men were in the race against
Gov. Orval E. Faubus, who is trying
for an unprecedented fourth term,
when the ticket closed April 27. It ap
pears school desegregation again will
be the main issue. (See “Political Ac
tivity.”)
In both the Little Rock and Dollar
way desegregation lawsuits in U.S. Dis
trict Court at Little Rock, there were
legal filings and other developments
during April.
In the Little Rock case (Aaron v.
Tucker), the Negro plaintiffs filed a
66-page brief with Judge John E. Mil
ler of Ft. Smith. They contended that
the Little Rock desegregation plan,
now operating on a token basis in two
high schools, should be expanded.
In the Dollarway case (Dove v. Par
ham) there was another hearing on the
effort of three Negro plaintiffs to gain
admission to the white high school.
More filings included one in which one
of the three plaintiffs, a senior about
to graduate, gave up her attempt to get
into the white school.
NEW BRIEF
The new brief in Aaron v. Tucker
was written by Wiley A. Branton of
Pine Bluff and by Thurgood Marshall
and James N. Nabrit III of New York
City, lawyers for the National Assn,
for the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple. They argued that the Little Rock
School Board, by using the 1959 Pupil
Placement Act for the 1959-60 school
year, materially altered the desegrega
tion plan submitted by the board in
1955 and approved by district court in
1956. They attacked the policies applied
to the approved desegregation plan by
the board under the pupil assignment
law.
The brief included the following
statements and arguments:
1) That the school board illegally
considered the race of all pupils in
making the 1959-60 assignment.
2) That the board, contrary to the
Supreme Court rulings, had shifted the
burden of the initiative for ending seg
regation to the Negro pupils and their
parents.
3) That the board’s claim that it had
assigned some Negro pupils to the Ne
gro high school instead of a white high
school was impotent. “The theory that
each child must establish to the board’s
satisfaction that his admission to a non-
segregated school will benefit him
would establish a unique proposition
under constitutional law.”
4) That the assignment of pupils to
schools according to the attendance
area in which the pupils live was the
core of the original, approved plan and
that by applying the pupil assignment
law the school board had “unilaterally
modified” the approved plan.
5) That the application of special
tests and qualifications to the Negro
pupils requesting admission to white
schools violates the approved desegre
gation plan; and so does the assignment
to white schools of those white pupils
living in the Horace Mann (Negro)
High School attendance area.
6) That because the board has shift
ed responsibility for taking initiative to
end segregation to the pupils and their
parents, the Negro schools will remain
all-Negro units and unless individual
white children apply for admission to
them, and that because of this, Negro
children who do apply for admission to
white schools “become conspicuous ex
ceptions to the segregated pattern and
the focus of the resentment and repris
als of elements opposing desegrega
tion.”
7) That, also, because of this pro
cedure, “agents of the state deal with
Negro students who seek admission to
non-segregated schools as if they were
‘presumptive disease-carriers’ who re
quire ‘screening’ before release from
the quarantine of ‘jim-crow’ schools.”
8) That the pupil assignment law did
not relieve the school board of the
duty to go forward under the approved
plan to reorganize the school district
on a non-segregated basis.
Judge Miller held a hearing in
March on the plaintiffs’ complaints
about the board’s use of the pupil as
signment law and then called for the
filing of briefs. This was the brief for
the Negro plaintiffs. After reading it,
attorneys for the school board will
write and file their brief.
DOLLARWAY CASE
In the Dollarway case (Dove v. Par
ham), the situation was that Judge J.
Smith Henley had ordered the board to
file a statement of “affirmative policies”
designed to bring about an end to seg
regation in the district. The board filed
the statement on March 21, saying that
it would from now on assign first grade
pupils, when possible, according to the
preference of their parents. The board
said that it opposed the transfer from
school to school of pupils in grades
above that.
The board carefully refrained from
calling this a plan and said that de
segregation “may or may not” result
from it. Early in April the Negro plain
tiffs filed a response to the statement of
policies.
They said all that the statement of
fered was “an opportunity for Negro
children in the Dollarway School Dis
trict to apply for desegregated educa
tion and be rejected under the pupil
assignment law.”
They said that the statement “does
not comply with the order of this court
directing the defendants to submit an
affirmative statement of their plans and
policies designed to bring about an end
to compulsory racial segregation in the
public schools of the district, in that
the report does not contain an affirma
tive plan or policy designed to end
compulsory racial segregation in the
Dollarway School District. The report
is void of any affirmative steps to be
taken by the defendants towards initi
ating desegregation in the Dollarway
School District. The report does not
contemplate a definite starting date,
nor a period of time for the elimination
of racial discrimination. At best the de
fendants’ report is an equivocal scheme
designed to perpetuate segregation ...”
ORAL ARGUMENTS
A few days later, Judge Henley heard
oral arguments on the statement from
the attorneys, Herschel H. Friday Jr.
of Little Rock for the Dollarway board,
and George Howard Jr. of Pine Bluff
for the Negro plaintiffs. At the hearing,
Friday said the Dollarway board would
buttonhole the parents of every incom
ing first-grader in the 1960-61 year.
They will be asked which school they
want their children to attend and an
extensive investigation will be conduct
ed on each one.
He said this would be done in May
before the end of the current school
year so that parents not satisfied with
the assignment of their children would
have plenty of time to apply for reas
signment. Judge Henley asked if pu
pils in the second and higher grades
would have a chance to apply for re
assignment. Friday said yes, though the
board discourages that and doesn’t plan
to make a survey on it. Judge Henley
said he thought die board should make
a survey, just to see, for one thing,
whether it was going to get five or 500
such requests.
NOT SATISFIED
Howard was not satisfied with this
explanation. When Judge Henley asked
him what he thought of the board’s in
tention to comply when possible with
the school preferences of first graders,
he said:
“I think the board should come out
and state specifically whether or not it
plans to start at the first grade. The as
signment law is just an aid in solving
this problem. The board should have
some plan to work with and use the
assignment law as an aid. We say this
report is not a plan and therefore the
board is not entitled to avail itself of
the assignment law.”
Howard said the board should have
a plan, such as starting in the first
grade, advancing a grade a year and
completing desegregation in 12 years.
The judge disagreed.
“The court doesn’t see that it needs
to be 12 or any number of years,” he
said. The judge spoke of an “open-end
transition period” and said there might
be desegregation in the third grade,
with none in the second grade, in the
second year, depending on the ability
of the Negro pupils to adjust. Howard
took the position that the schools were
there to teach the pupils to adjust.
LATERAL TRANSFERS
In another comment Judge Henley
saw nothing wrong in the Dollarway
board’s policy against lateral transfers
(from the Negro school to the white
school at grades two or higher), but
said it would have to be justified. He
took note that the policy would tend
to preserve segregation since a child
once enrolled in a school would have
to stay there through the 12 grades.
“Our opinion,” said Howard, “is that
the school board is using the lateral
transfer argument merely to circum
vent the Brown decision.” So far the
board has made all its assignments on
the basis of race, he said.
“What you’re saying,” Judge Henley
said, “is that on the basis of what they
have done in past they’re going to do
it to you again.”
TRANSITION PERIODS
Howard argued against the idea of a
transition period, but Henley said the
Supreme Court had authorized transi
tion periods in the same case in which
it ruled that compulsory racial segre
gation was illegal.
“If you’re going to have a transition
period you’re going to have a tolerance
of some degree of illegality,” the judge
added. “It boils down in the local sit
uation to how much illegality will be
accepted.”
Judge Henley took the statement of
policy under advisement and planned
to announce a ruling by the end of
April.
Later the Negro plaintiffs filed a new
appeal with the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals at St. Louis, asking again that
the appeals court overrule the district
court and order the Negro plaintiffs ad
mitted immediately to the white Dol
larway school. The appeal made this
request for only two of the three
plaintiffs.
It explained that the third, Ernestine
Dove, whose name is part of the title
of the case, is in the 12th grade and
will be graduated in May and no rul
ing by the court could come in time to
be of any merit to her. The other two
plaintiffs are Corliss Smith, a ninth
grader, and James E. Warfield, in the
10th grade.
FILE APPEAL
Three of the four men convicted of
the 1959 Labor Day dynamitings at
Little Rock have appealed to the State
Supreme Court. They are Jesse Ray
mond Perry, sentenced to three years;
E. A. Lauderdale Sr., three years and
a $500 fine; and John Taylor Coggins,
three years and $500.
The fourth man, J. D. Sims, pleaded
guilty and a fifth has not been tried.
The targets were the school board
office, the mayor’s office and the fire
chief’s city-owned car.
DAMAGE SUITS
The nine civil damage suits totaling
$500,000 and pending against Little
Rock Police Chief Eugene G. Smith
when he shot himself to death in
March, will be prosecuted, Amis
Guthridge, attorney for the plaintiffs
said. He said he would file to make
either Smith’s estate or his successor
as police chief the substitute defend
ant.
Two persons filed the suits alleging
violation of their civil rights by the
manner in which Smith and policemen
and firemen broke up a segregationist
march on Central High on Aug. 12,
1959, or by the way they were arrested
after the Labor Day dynamitings.
The North Central Assn, of Secon
dary Schools and Colleges re-accredited
the three Little Rock high schools—
Central, Hall and Horace Mann.
They had lost their accreditation dur
ing the 1958-59 school year when closed
by Gov. Faubus to prevent a second
year of desegregation at Central.
TO CONTINUE POLICY
After a one-year study by its ex
ecutive committee, the board of trus
tees of Hendrix College at Conway
voted to continue its policy of admit
ting white students only. Hendrix is
owned and operated by the two Meth
odist conferences in Arkansas.
The board said it was certain that a
majority of the Methodists in the state
did not want the policy changed. The
board announced its decision only a
month after an Arkansas Methodist
Student Movement resolution called for
desegregation at Hendrix.
JOB APPLICANTS
The Little Rock School District is
receiving job applications from teach
ers at a rate of about five a day, Supt.
Terrell E. Powell said. About 300 quali
fied applications are on hand.
The district has 808 teachers with a
normal turnover of about 80 a year, but
it lost 280 during the year the high
schools were closed.
The American Assn, of University
Professors presented its Alexander
Meiklejohn Award for Academic Free
dom to Guerdon D. Nichols, dean of
the college of arts and sciences at the
University of Arkansas, in recognition
of his opposition to Act 10 of 1958.
Act 10 requires all employes of pub
lic schools and colleges to file affidavits
listing the organizations they have been
members of or contributed to in the
previous five years. It was aimed at
exposing members of the NAACP in
the public schools.
ATTACKS PROPOSAL
Another official of the Arkansas Edu
cation Assn, attacked the constitutional
amendment proposed by Gov. Faubus
under which school districts could
abandon their school systems to avoid
court-ordered desegregation.
Eugene R. Warren of Little Rock,
counsel to the AEA, in a speech at a
district AEA meeting, called the
amendment “most destructive, most vi
cious and dastardly.” It’s a “wolf in
wolf’s clothing,” he said.
The amendment will be voted on at
the general election in November.
From all indications the overriding
issue in the gubernatorial campaign
this summer will be, for the third
straight election, school desegregation.
That’s the issue on which Gov. Fau
bus rode to a third term in 1958 and on
which he apparently is relying chiefly
in his appeal for an unprecedented
fourth term. His opponents, all segre
gationists, want to make the fourth
term itself the main issue.
Three more candidates got into the
field with Faubus and Atty. Gen.
(See ARKNSAS, Page 8)
School Group
By WILLIAM T. SHELTON
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
he Little Rock Private School Corp. is still in
existence after all and will continue so, accord
ing to its president, Dr. T. J. Raney.
When the corporation abruptly closed its school—
T. J. Raney Private High School—last August,
Raney said the corporation would be dissolved, but
six months later he disclosed that some of the board
members wanted it kept active.
It is now in the process of disposing of its assets.
It has sold its equipment, consisting of 1,175 student desks,
500 lockers, some office furniture and drinking fountains, to
the Pulaski County (rural) School District, for $10,000,
and donated its library of about 4,000 books to the same
district. It has listed for sale at $72,500 the 20-acre tract
on the west edge of Little Rock, which it bought for that
price with the intention of building a new school building
there. The corporation paid $12,500 down on that site and
still owes $60,000.
It has joined with Vance Thompson of McCrory in listing
for sale the city block of land and the buildings on it which
were used by T. J. Raney High School during its singla
year of operation in 1958-59. Thompson bought the property
for $50,900 in September 1958 and leased it to the corpora
tion for $400 a month. Before the 1958-59 school year was
over, the corporation began the construction of extra class
rooms on the block but the building was never finished.
HOPES TO GET $50,000
Raney said the corporation had spent about $98,000 on
the property and hoped to get back about $50,000 from the
sale. He said Thompson wanted only to get his purchase
price back. That would make the sale price of the block
about $100,900.
If both pieces of property are sold at the listed prices, the
corporation will realize $62,500. With the $10,000 from’ the
sale of equipment to the county school district, Raney said,
all this will be added to the corporation’s escrow account,
which had $6,511 when an audit was made last October.
This money, which could total $79,011, will be held for
possible donation to any other segregated school “in a like
position,” Raney said.
The corporation was formed Sept. 17, 1958, with the bless
ing of Gov. Orval Faubus, anticipating that the governor’s
Will Continue
order closing the Little Rock high schools under Act 4 of
1958 would be approved by the voters of the school district
in a special referendum on Sept. 27.
The voters did approve and the Private School Corp.
proceeded on election night to negotiate with the public
school board for the lease of the public high school buildings.
The federal courts immediately nullified that lease, which
led to the posting of signs, reading “This School Closed by
the Federal Government,” on the school grounds by a man
who said he had been hired by the Private School Corp.
After a short delay, Vance Thompson bought the block
containing a former orphanage and leased it to the corpora
tion for use as a school building.
OPENED IN OCTOBER 1958
Raney is a member of one of Little Rock’s wealthiest
families. All six members of the board were prominent
Little Rock residents, including one member of the state
Legislature, Mrs. Gordon P. Oates. They got their school
open in October 1958, for whites only and with no tuition.
They and Gov. Faubus appealed to the public for financial
support.
Through the school year the corporation received a total
of $300,000 in gifts from all over the country. Its other main
source of money was the state government, which under
Act 5 of 1958 was withholding from the Little Rock School
District state aid equalling $172 per high school student, and
was paying it in monthly installments of $24.50 per student
to whatever accredited school the former Little Rock stu
dents were attending. About 800 students attended Raney
High and before Acts 4 and 5 were nullified by the federal
courts, the school had received $71,907.50 from the state.
The Private School Corp. was formed with the intention
of becoming a permanent institution, but the situation in
August 1959 differed from that of September 1958. The flow
of cash donations had dwindled and the state aid was cut
off.
Then the Little Rock Public School Board announced that
it would reopen the public high schools. On the same day
the Private School Corp. announced that it would not operate
any longer because it was broke.
There had been no warning that this development was
coming. Up to then Raney High had registered 1,226 students
for the 1959-60 year and its faculty and staff were going
through the routine of getting ready to start classes. But
Raney said the corporation couldn’t foresee a way to finanre
another year of school. m. jl jl