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PAGE 12—JUNE I960—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
VIRGINIA
County Supervisors Take Steps To Aid Private Schools
RICHMOND, Va.
T he Prince Edward County
Board of Supervisors has
taken steps under new Virginia
laws to make public funds availa
ble to private schools. (See
“Community Action.”)
Headquarters of the Textile
Workers Union of America re
lieved the officers of the 2,000-
member local in Front Royal and
took over direct control to pre
vent the local from carrying out
its plan to purchase bonds to aid
construction of a private, segre
gated high school. ( See “Com
munity Action.”)
Eight Negro high school stu
dents filed suit for admission to
white schools in Grayson County
or the city of Galax. (See “Legal
Action.”)
The Prince Edward County super
visors, who last year sharply reduced
taxes when public schools were aban
doned, adopted a tentative budget rais
ing taxes in order to make funds
available to the county’s privately op
erated segregated schools.
Acting tinder laws passed by the
General Assembly this year, the super
visors propose aiding the private sys
tem in two ways:
1) By direct appropriation of $270,-
000 for “educational purposes” for
schooling in private, nonsectarian
classes (under authority of Senate Bill
284).
2) By allowing taxpayers credit, up
to 25 per cent of the total tax due, for
contributions to private nonsectarian
schools (under authority of House Bill
505).
When the supervisors decided to
abandon public schools last year, they
lowered the county property tax rate
from $3.40 per $100 assessment to $1.60.
Under the tentative budget now
adopted, the rate would go up to $4.
However, for practical purposes, the
rate would be $3 for taxpayers who
took advantage of the credit for con
tributions to private schools.
CHANGES UNLIKELY
The tentative budget, set for formal
hearing on June 7, must be finally ap
proved by June 30. It was considered
unlikely that the tentative budget
would be materially changed before
final adoption.
In addition to the county funds, un
der Senate Bill 238 each elementary
child in Prince Edward (or anywhere
else in Virginia) is eligible for $125 in
state money per year for educational
purposes, and each secondary school
child is eligible for $150. These “schol
arships” are available to any child,
white or Negro, to help pay tuition at
any public school outside his own lo
cality or to any private nonsectarian
school.
Similar tuition grants have been
used during the past school year not
only by children seeking to avoid at
tending integrated public schools, but
also by children who have chosen, for
a wide variety of reasons, not to at
tend the schools to which they nor
mally would have been assigned. (In
the Norfolk area, some white children
who normally would be attending seg
regated county public schools are us
ing the tuition money to attend Nor
folk city’s integrated public schools.)
During the current year, the Prince
Edward School Foundation has fi
nanced the operation of its private
schools for white children through
contributions. The foundation was
afraid that its legal right to operate
segregated schools might be jeopardized
if it accepted tuition grant money
which came originally from public
treasuries. However, certain changes
were made in the law by the 1960
General Assembly, and the Foundation
appears to feel now that acceptance of
grants under the revised statute would
not endanger the program.
$100 PER CHILD
Roughly, the $270,000 in county
funds proposed to be allocated for
“educational purposes” would amount
to about $100 for each of the county’s
school-age children. As of the pres
ent, however, it is doubtful that Ne
gro children will be eligible, as they
have no schools now and no prospects
for any next year. The grants go only
to children attending schools which
meet certain standards established by
the State Board of Education.
In another action, the Prince Edward
supervisors rejected the $803,700 public
school budget offered by the county
school board. The school board had
gone through the legal formality of
preparing a budget, even though there
are no public schools to be operated.
On the day prior to the supervisors’
action on the school budget, five of the
six school board members resigned.
The five issued a statement saying,
in effect, that they had been the target
of much unjustified criticism from
other county citizens. They defended
their actions as board members, and
specifically dwelt at length on their
reasons for declining to sell the coun
ty’s white high school to the private
school foundation.
They also implied that the closing of
schools last year to prevent integra
tion was unnecessary since the schools
could have continued operating, at least
for a time, on a segregated basis.
WAS ON APPEAL
They said that at the time the super
visors abandoned schools last summer,
the Prince Edward segregation case
was on appeal in the courts and that
thus no final integration order had
been entered.
Furthermore, said the resigning
board members, the supervisors knew
that “there was not a single applica
tion before the school board for the
assignment of a Negro pupil to a white
school.” Also, they added, “there was
already in the hands of the school
board a 100 per cent return of Negro
registration application for assignment
to R. R. Moton (Negro) High School
in 1959-60.”
Defending their refusal to sell the
Farmville High School to the private
school foundation, the five board mem
bers said they felt that the people of
the county as a whole should bear the
responsibility for such far-reaching
action, and that the law provides pro
cedure by which the people can bring
about a referendum on the sale of
school property.
While the resigning members de
clared they had tried in every legal
way to maintain segregation in the
schools, they also raised the question
whether the citizens of the county had
fully considered the implications of
abandoning public schools and the dif
ficulties of operating a private system
over a long period of time.
NO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
On the legal front, there are no in
dications of further moves in the
county’s desegregation suit (Allen v.
Prince Edward County School Board).
A federal district court has ordered
the public schools desegregated but
there are no public schools to desegre
gate.
Meanwhile, on the political front,
white residents of the county have
been registering to vote in large num
bers. During one recent period, of 119
citizens who registered, 108 were white.
The drive to get white persons reg
istered follows a similar campaign con
ducted among Negroes by the NAACP
last fall.
WARREN CONTROVERSY
Like Prince Edward’s, Warren Coun
ty’s private segregated school system
was a major focus of attention in Vir
ginia last month, though for different
reasons.
Warren County was in the spotlight
due to a controversy within the Tex
tile Workers Union of America over a
TWUA local’s effort to aid in the con
struction of a new building for the
private high school.
National headquarters of the union
removed the local’s officers, appointed
an administrator and froze the local
unit’s assets. Here is the background:
When Warren County High School
was closed in the fall of 1958 under
Virginia’s now-illegal massive resist
ance laws, the private Warren County
Educational Foundation set up a school
to take care of the approximately 800
students. Later, the public high school
re-opened, but about half of the 800
students continued attending the pri
vate facility.
From the beginning, the private sys
tem has been supported by the TWUA
local at the American Viscose Corp.
plant in Front Royal, the county seat.
$1 PEE WEEK
Members originally donated $1 a
week toward support of the school,
and recently they voted to spend $8,-
000 of the union’s money to buy bonds
to help finance construction of a per
manent building for the John S. Mosby
Academy, the private high school.
The union’s national headquarters,
taking the view that this would be un
authorized non-union use of the funds,
relieved the local officers of their posi
tions.
Later, the credit union serving em
ployes at the plant announced that it
would begin collecting voluntary con
tributions from workers desiring to
support construction of the private
school.
LEGAL ACTION
Eight Negro high school students of
Grayson County in southwestern Vir
ginia filed suits for admission to white
schools either in the county or in the
city of Galax (Goins v. School Board
of Grayson County; Goins v. School
Board of City of Galax).
The eight now travel 90 to 100 miles
a day from their homes near Galax
to and from a Negro school in an ad
joining county. Grayson has no Negro
high school. White students who live
in the same general area as the Negro
petitioners attend the high school in
Galax.
Six of the eight had filed suit against
Grayson County last fall for admission
to the Galax school, but District Judge
Roby C. Thompson held that he would
not order them admitted to the Galax
school since that city was not a party
to the suit.
So the new filing brings Galax into
the picture as a defendant, and also
increases by two the number of Ne
groes seeking admission to white
schools now attended by Grayson’s
white youths.
ISSUES ORDER
Judge Thompson issued an order, ef
fective May 21, prohibiting Danville
from operating its public library on a
segregated basis. City Council closed
the library May 20.
The council voted 6 to 3 to hold an
advisory referendum June 14 on
whether the library should be kept
closed, opened on a desegregated ba
sis, operated through the use of book
mobiles only, or turned over to a pri
vate foundation.
The suit had been brought by sev
eral Negro teen-agers who were de
nied admittance to the city’s Confed
erate Memorial Library.
Hustings Court Judge Moscoe Hunt-
ley upheld lower court convictions of
(See VIRGINIA, Page 13)
qfyudc^ment ~^£ff^irrned
Text of Court of Appeals Decision in Alexandria Case
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld
the Alexandria, Va., school hoard’s refusal to ad
mit five Negro children to white schools on the
basis of residence and academic decision. The
April 20 decision follows in part:
“The application of fourteen Negro children,
through their parents, to the School Board of the
City of Alexandria, Virginia, to be transferred
from colored to white schools in the city gave rise
to this litigation. The School Board rejected all of
the applications and the plaintiffs brought this
suit, alleging that the actions of the Board had
been taken pursuant to the policy of segregating
the races in the public schools in the city and
praying that the Board be enjoined from pursuing
this policy and also for further relief. After a
hearing the District Judge ordered that nine of
the students should be admitted to the schools of
their choice at the opening of the schools on Feb
ruary 10, 1959, and refused the suggestion of the
defendants that the admissions be deferred until
the commencement of the next session of the
schools in September, 1960. The judge, however,
denied the motion of five of the applicants for
further relief on the ground that they were dis
qualified to enter the desired school because of
residence or academic deficiency. The Board did
not appeal from the order admitting the nine
children and the case comes to this court only on
the appeal of the remaining five children.
“Common to all the cases is the contention that
the action of the School Board in rejecting the
applications was based solely on racial grounds.
They complain of the formulation and enforce
ment of a resolution adopted by the School Board
on October 28, 1958, governing the assignment of
pupils applying for transfer or initial enrollment
in the public schools of the city, under which the
School Board purported to act in passing upon
the application for transfers in the suit. The gist
of the complaint is that the action of the School
Board was designed and applied in such a way
so as to continue the existing segregated school
system, thus depriving the Negro children of their
constitutional rights.
“The District Judge also found, as to the chil
dren who were refused admission to white schools
on the basis of overcrowding, that the ratio of
enrollment to capacity in the schools applied to
was not so great as to justify any exclusion for
the proposed slight increase. Of the five appel
lants, whom the judge found disqualified . . . two
were denied transfer on the basis of their mental
capacity and attainment and three because they
resided closer to the Negro high school they had
been attending than to the white school to which
they sought enrollment. Therefore, it is only the
scholarship and residence criteria with which we
are concerned in this appeal.
Not Contended
“It is not contended by the appellants that resi
dence and intelligence or scholarship attainment
tests may never be properly applied in determin
ing the particular schools that children shall at
tend ... In the absence of a showing that these
factors are used in such a way as to deprive indi
viduals of their constitutional rights, they are, of
course, not objectionable on constitutional grounds
. . . The objection in the instant case is that the
criteria were applied in such a way as to circum
vent the constitutional requirement that a state
shall not maintain its school system on a racially
segregated basis. If this were true, it would be
dispositive of the case and completely justify the
appeal. However, the peculiar facts shown by this
record do not sustain the charge. When the reso
lution was adopted the administrative officials of
the public schools of Virginia were confronted
with an extremely difficult situation and the
School Board of Alexandria did not immediately
place the resolution or the criterion into effect. To
have done so would have occasioned the seizure
and closure of each school to which biracial as
signments were made. Virginia’s ‘Massive Resist
ance Laws’ had not then been declared unconsti
tutional. They required Virginia’s Governor to
seize and close any school to which biracial as
signments were made, and this he had done in
Norfolk. It was only after those laws were de
clared unconstitutional by Virginia’s Supreme
Court of Appeals and by a federal three-judge
district court that the school board had the power
to operate schools administered on a racially non-
discriminatory basis . . .
“The testimony shows that these fourteen were
the only applications for transfer or enrollment
to come up during the week which elapsed be
tween January 23, 1959, and the final hearing in
this case on January 30, 1959. While it appears
that there were some transfers and enrollments
after October 28, to which the criteria of the plan
were not applied, all of those were processed prior
to the activation of the plan on January 23, 1959.
Since its activation, a selective exemption from
the criteria of some applications for transfer, or
of some initial enrollments in the public schools,
is not shown on this record. If this were shown,
then we would be faced with a different case than
is now before us.
“Schools officials testified that when the plan
was activated it applied prospectively to all pupils.
The resolution provides for its prospective use in
connection with all applications for ‘transfer, en
rollment or placement.’ School principals were
informed by a directive that henceforth the plan
applied to all ‘transfers,’ and we do not under
stand that the omission of the words ‘enrollment
or placement’ was intended to restrict the appli
cation of the criteria to narrower limits than
specified in the resolution. We cannot say on this
record it will not be applied to enrollments as well
as transfers, and to white as well as transfers,
and to white as well as Negro. The fact that the
plan was first applied, within three days after the
clarifying decisions, to the applications of these
fourteen Negro pupils creates no constitutional
objection. Every plan and every change in plans
must have an initial application. The first pupil
or group of pupils to which it is applied has not
been thought exempt from its operation.
Dual Attendance Areas
“Obviously the maintenance of a dual system
of attendance areas based on race offends the
constitutional rights of the plaintiffs and others
similarly situated and cannot be tolerated. It is
not mentioned in the plan of the Alexandria
School Board, and we may assume, in the absence
of more evidence than the activation of the plan
in the present record affords us, that the continu
ance of the dual system is not contemplated. In
order that there may be no doubt about the mat
ter, the enforced maintenance of such a dual sys
tem is here specifically condemned. However, it
does not follow that there must be an immediate
and complete reassignment of all the pupils in the
public schools of Alexandria . . .
Two Criteria
“The two criteria of residence and academic
prep-redness, applied to pupils seeking enroll
ment and transfers, could be properly used as a
plan to bring about racial desegregation in ac
cordance with the Supreme Court’s directive. The
record in this case is insufficient in demonstrating
that the criteria were not so applied. On the other
hand, these criteria could be used in such a way
as to be a vehicle for frustrating the constitution
al requirement laid down by the Supreme Court.
If this is later shown to be the case, then the ac
tion of the School Board would not escape the
condemnation of the courts. If the criteria should
be applied only to Negroes seeking transfers or
enrollment in particular schools and not to white
children, then the use of the criteria could not
be sustained. Or, if the criteria are, in the future,
applied only to applications for transfer and not
to application for initial enrollment by children
not previously attending the city’s school system,
then such actions would also be subject to attack
on constitutional grounds, for by reason of the
existing segregation pattern it will be Negro chil
dren, primarily, who seek transfers.
“The appellants’ contentions are based, not so
much upon what is shown to have happened, as
upon what they fear will happen. We are mindful
that in judging the action taken by the Board in
these cases, so soon after the restoration of its
control over the school system, we are afforded
no context in which to test the Board’s purposes.
In these circumstances we are permitted to accept
at full face value its disavowal of any discrimina
tory motivations. Should the record in a future
case supply evidence that the Board has in fact
employed the criteria for racial discriminations,
its actions would be open to attack upon constitu
tional grounds. In the present instance the judg
ment is affirmed.”