Newspaper Page Text
"TENNESSEE
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER I960—PAGE 5
Courts Order Two More School
Systems to Desegregate
NASHVILLE, Term.
F ederal courts ordered one of
Tennessee’s largest school
l systems to desegregate in January
; 0 n an accelerated grade-a-year
basis and instructed another to
j submit a desegregation plan by
Dec. 20.
In Nashville, U. S. District
, Judge William E. Miller directed
the Davidson County board of
education to desegregate the first
I four grades midway of the pres
ent school term and then follow
the grade-a-year pattern like that
of Nashville, the county seat,
i (See “Legal Action.”)
In Chattanooga, U. S. District
Judge Leslie R. Darr ordered the
Chattanooga board of education
to present its proposals for a hear
ing to start on Jan. 9. (See “Legal
Action.”)
Trustees of the University of
Tennessee may decide at a meet
ing Nov. 18 whether to desegre
gate undergraduate classes. (See
I “In the Colleges.”)
Public schools in Davidson County
were ordered by U. S. District Court
to desegregate grades one through four
at mid-term of the current school year,
then to proceed on a grade-a-year
basis from the fifth grade next Sep
tember.
Judge William E. Miller prescribed
the four-grade beginning in order for
the county school system to operate in
conformity with the grade-a-year plan
now in its fourth year in Nashville,
the Davidson County seat.
SUBURBAN AREAS
Many of the Davidson County schools
we m suburban Nashville and a num-
of them are in an 80-square-mile
J* i roposed for annexation to the
, 7 , lh e annexation plan is being con-
est ed in the courts.
vp!h d u e Miller banded down the order
verbally on Oct. 27, immediately afte
armg final arguments that followe.
tour-day hearing on the grade-a-yea
P^a proposed by the County Board o
foiirr The board had proposed t.
in 10^7 the Plan instituted in Nashvilh
^xt fall 10 b ° gin With 1116 first S radl
wSt re W6re no immediate indication:
tifff er *u tt0rneys for 12 Negro plain-
D the lawsuit (Maxwell et al v
el V nl)° n County Board of Educatior
hoterf th W ° U i d SCek an appeal - Tbej
on th , . e court reserved judgmeni
ren e Plaintiffs’ request for “complete
^ganuation” of the school system tc
and otv, 6 rac i a i aspects as to teacher
struct- 6r P ers onnel assignments, con-
Attoti! 011 pr °grams and other phases
file e ^ s have until late November tc
0re briefs on this subject.
350 Neg ROES eligible
several lj i, rS school board met
handed j° Urs after the decision was
Un der th ° Wn and a 8 recd to proceed
Ihestion S e° Urt order without further
said al?' Superintendent J. E. Moss
eligible r 350 Negro pupils will be
^ Drp-i,- ° attend the first four grades
c °Unt v 10Usy all-white schools. The
e nrolled SyStem has about 2.400 Negroes
fivener m ad grades, which is about
N? s fi V i|, Cen i °f the total enrollment. The
groe s le system has some 12,000 Ne-
°f the about 30 per cent
them w 18 enrollment - and 159 of
white p„? re , enr °lled in predominantly
^schools this fall.
n hig of i° the stepped-up begin-
Mill er o f >avi dson’s program, Judge
'Purses ■ red . ibat special summer
llth ln two high schools for
nppe r j- 12t h grade students in the
^ despa ^ >€r cen t °f their classes, must
paired tw Sated next year - He also re-
“ed f r Parents be specifically noti-
c hildr en > e sc bool board as to their
^bools a Seho °l zones and told which
The re ava iiable to them.
he Min„ S ?7 !rin . tendent said after the
som U j7 id . hr 1 necessary to re-
®Pdes » districts for the first four
Ve ar beci 6 . Second half of the school
J ud;r .? S ln mi d-January.
? e Janu a r sa id he had prescribed
M^PleinLp y beginning rather than next
i 'Punt b f cause °f tbe “delay” by
88116 -Prirc^tu ard m considering the
he 1954 Supreme Court de
segregation decision and the 1957 or
der of his court in the Nashville case
(Kelley et al v. Board of Education).
“I know that certain problems will
arise,” he stated, “but I feel that they
can be overcome by the school board
in good faith.” He compared the Nash
ville and Davidson County situations
and said “we have in this area a plan
of gradual desegregation which, ac
cording to testimony, has worked well
for the City of Nashville . . .”
CITES EXPERIENCE'
Although gradual desegregation may
not be liked by “extremists on both
sides,” the judge commented, “the ef
ficiency of the school system must not
be disrupted.” He said he gave “great
weight” to testimony of school officials
and staff members because of their
“actual working experience. ... I can
not act as a school board. Generally
speaking, the responsibility rests with
such authorities. . . .”
Miller cautioned that “a certain de
gree of patience on the parts of both
races will be required in order for the
plan to be workable.”
Superintendent Moss said in his testi
mony an analysis of work done by pu
pils in Nashville’s desegregated schools
indicated that Negroes tend to fall be
hind in their work as they advance in
grades. When he commented on prog
ress of Negro fourth-graders in two
Nashville schools during the past two
months, stating they “are not doing
well, scholastically or emotionally,”
J. E. MOSS
Davidson County Superintendent
plaintiffs’ attorney Avon Williams con
tended that two months is too short a
period for observation.
The superintendent said county
schools have problems of crowding not
shared for the city system, and he
testified that a delay in beginning de
segregation until next September would
be necessary in order to arrange space.
In another year, too, students, teachers
and parents may be “better adjusted,”
Moss suggested.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys charged in their
answer to the plan that it would dis
criminate against their clients, never
allowing them to attend a desegregated
class because they will continue in
grades higher than those desegregated.
Williams and Z. Alexander Looby,
who have been attorneys for com
plainants in most Tennessee desegre
gation lawsuits, said the court should
require the board to “reorganize the
entire county school system into a
unitary nonracial school system.”
Other objections listed by the Negro
group to the grade-a-year plan:
(1) That the plan fails to take into
account the period of more than six
years since the Supreme Court de
segregation decision in Brown v. Board
of Education; (2) that requiring 12
more years to bring about complete
desegregation in the county system,
surrounding Nashville, “is not shown
to be necessary in the public interest
and consistent with good faith com
pliance”; (3) that no “substantial” ad
ministrative problems had been shown
by the county to justify slow action;
(4) That the plan used by Nashville
was “adopted . . . without reference to
the local conditions” in the county and
was “predicated on subjective and
mental fears of defendants (school
board) as to possible community hos
tility or friction among students.”
Before the county board of educa
tion adopted the grade-a-year plan, the
Tennessee Federation for Constitutional
Government, a pro-segregation organi
zation, urged the board to propose a
plan like the “salt and pepper” plan
approved by a federal district court
for Dallas, Tex. Under the Dallas plan,
now on appeal, certain schools would
be opened for voluntary desegregation
while segregation is maintained in other
schools.
Jack Kershaw, executive secretary of
the federation, told the board in a let
ter that the plan approved by U. S.
District Judge T. Whitfield Davidson
in Dallas (Borders v. Hippy) removes
“the element of socialistic force or
compulsion.”
Kershaw contended that by the Dal
las plan “each element in the com
munity is afforded the opportunity to
exercise its rights without destroying
the rights of others.” He added:
“Immediate compulsory integration
(as advocated by the NAACP) or grad
ual compulsory integration (as pro
posed by other interests) destroys the
rights of those citizens, both black and
white, who do not wish the discord
promoted by forced integration or
forced segregation.
“The vast majority of the parents
of Davidson County are not repre
sented by the view of either the ‘fast’
compulsory integrationists or the
‘slow’ compulsory integrationists.
“For this reason, we urge that you
(the school board) adopt the (Dal
las) plan. It is constitutional, prac
tical, morally just, and conforms to the
(See TENNESSEE, Page 6)
Study Shows Negroes’ Choices Under Nashville Plan
(Continued From Page 1)
with 88 Negro families having children
eligible to attend desegregated schools.
In 50 of these families, the child was
enrolled in a segregated school. These
50 represent a random sample of all
such cases. In 27 cases, the child was
currently (as of June 1960) enrolled in
a desegregated school. In 11 cases, a
child had been initially enrolled in a
desegregated school but subsequently
transferred to a segregated one. The
last two groups represent all locatable
cases of their respective types. We
estimate there are five to 10 cases we
failed to locate.
“The interviews were conducted with
the mother in all but a handful of
cases. While it would have been desir
able to include fathers, difficulty in
arranging to contact both parents to
gether led to the decision to accept the
mother as the chief source of informa
tion. The interviewer was Negro and
female, two characteristics felt to be
important for establishing good sup
port with the sample mothers. I might
point out that there were no cases in
which a parent refused to cooperate
with the study. . . .
“And now for some of the findings.
One of the questions of concern was
what kinds of people, in terms of their
background characteristics, make what
choice. For purposes of statistical
analysis, the 38 families who had ever
decided to send their child to a deseg
regated school were grouped together
as cases in which desegregation was
chosen, and were compared with 50
cases in which the opposite choice was
made. One of the major differences be
tween the two groups was in the edu
cation of the parents. Approximately 60
percent of the desegregated parents
were high school graduates or above.
In contrast, two-thirds of the segre
gated mothers and almost 80 percent
of the segregated fathers had less than
a twelfth grade education. However,
when comparing the occupations of
fathers in the two groups, little differ
ence was found. . . .
EDUCATION RELATED
“I should remark at this point that
the educational difference between the
groups is a factor which must be kept
in mind when considering some of the
study’s other findings. Education is re
lated to many attitudinal and behavi
oral areas so that some of the differ
ences noted may be mere reflections of
the educational gap between the groups.
“One difference which is a possible
reflection of education, is the higher
incidence of incomplete families in the
segregated group. Over a third of the
segregated families have one or both
parents missing in contrast with less
than one fifth of the desegregated
families. Similarly, education is an im
portant aspect of socio-economic status
which in turn is related to skin color
among Negroes; lighter skin being cor
related somewhat with higher status.
On the basis of the interviewer’s rat
ing of each mother, we find that the
desegregated group is, on the average,
lighter than the segregated.
“A second question of interest to the
study was how certain attitudes and
perspectives were related to the deci
sion the family made. The areas cov
ered ranged from general outlook on
life to ideas concerning specific effects
of desegregation on the child. On the
general side, it was found that the
groups differed in alienation, i.e. feel
ings of estrangement from society. On
the average, there was a greater tend
ency on the part of segregated families
to view society as threatening and
chaotic.
LITTLE DIFFERENCE
“With the exception of one item,
there was little difference between the
groups in their attitudes toward edu
cation; responses in both were uni
formly positive. The desegregated
group more frequently disagreed with
the item, ‘A good education doesn’t
mean much if it doesn’t help you get
ahead in the world.’ Education for them
oftener has value beyond purely utili
tarian considerations.
“Four of the items in the interview
dealt with what might be termed atti
tudes toward ‘pioneering.’ Clear differ
ences between the two groups were
found. With one exception, the atti
tudes of the desegregated group were
strongly positive regarding pioneering.
A majority of the segregated group also
were favorable. . . .
“Turning to attitudes and conceptions
dealing specifically with school deseg
regation several important differences
between the groups turn up and some
interesting similarities as well. The
largest difference was in the extent to
which desegregation was seen as an
issue which was personally relevant.
In all but two of the desegregated cases,
the issue was felt to be one which af
fected them personally, while seventy
percent of the segregated cases felt it
did not affect them. . . .
GENERAL PATTERN
“I think we can see a general pattern
emerging at this point in our findings.
A factor which seems to be an import
ant one accounting for the differences
in choice is the higher incidence of
apathy in the segregated group. They
are less interested in segregation, tend
not to see it as personally important
and are less optomistie about its future.
Their attitudes toward pioneering are
more frequently lukewarm to openly
hostile. The higher degree of aliena
tion in this group suggests that the
apathy may not be restricted to the
desgregation issue hut is a reflection
of a more general way of looking at
the world.
“Several questions were directed at
the parents’ conceptions of the possible
effects on the child of going to a de
segregated school. The groups were
similar in their ideas about whether it
made any difference to the child if his
teacher was white or Negro. There were
only nine cases in which it was felt
this would make a difference. Six of
the nine were in the segregated group
and felt that it was better for the child
to have a Negro teacher. Concerning
grades, only eight parents definitely
thought that going to a desegregated
school would have any effects on the
child’s grades, and in seven of these,
it was thought that they would be bet
ter.
“More segregated parents thought the
child would feel alone or left out of
things at a desegregated school. In 13
cases there was a definite feeling that
this might happen, while in an addi
tional 14 cases the parent was not sure
one way or the other. In the families
for whom this is not a hypothetical
question but one for which they have
experience, only three such instances
were reported.
HALF UNSURE
“Over half of the segregated cases
were unsure of whether going to a de
segregated school might affect how
quickly the child learns. In another
fourth of the cases, it was felt that
there would be no difference. In con
trast, almost half of the desegregated
cases felt that the child would learn
faster in the desegregated school. Bet
ter equipment, and better materials
were the chief reasons given.
“How the decisions were made is a
third question which the study ad
dressed. In this connection an attempt
was made to assess the influence of
persons and groups outside the family
upon the decision-making process.
Each parent was asked how she thought
her friends, relatives, and her minister
would feel about her sending her child
to a desegregated school. The propor
tions of cases who felt friends would
approve, disapprove, or didn’t know
were not strikingly different between
the two groups. What is surprising is
the relative lack of perceived support
from friends for a decision to desegre
gate. In only six of the 38 desegregated
cases was it felt that friends would
clearly approve of their decision.
“Relatives, on the other hand are
seen more frequently as approving of
sending the child to a desegregated
school. Nearly 60 percent of the deseg
regated cases reported their kin would
approve of their decision. While nearly
half of the segregated cases don’t
know how their kin would feel, in the
cases where they know, approval is
more frequent than disapproval.
“Ministers were clearly seen as ap
proving a decision to desegregate. In
only four cases was it indicated that a
minister would disapprove. In 32 cases,
25 of which were in the segregated
group, the minister’s attitude was not
known. One cannot tell the extent to
which this is due to his not making it
public or to the parent’s not having
the contact to find it out.
OUTSIDE PRESSURES
“Two questions were concerned with
outside pressures on the family against
a decision to desegregate. The first of
these asked for an estimate of the like
lihood that the husband could lose his
job because he sent his child to a de
segregated school. In only five cases
was this seen as a likely possibility.
| Since the desegregated group already
know whether this occurred, they most
| frequently reported this as not possible.
1 Half of the segregated cases thought
j the same. Most of the remaining cases
saw this as unlikely although possible.
‘Liberal’ employers and active union
support were the two chief reasons for
feeling that the husband’s job would
not be lost.
“The parents were also asked about
persons or groups who they thought
might be out to make trouble for them
if they decided to desegregate. Eight
families who enrolled during the first
year spoke of difficulties such as threat
ening phone calls and strange cars
driving up and down in front of their
! homes during the tension of the first
few weeks after enrollment. In only
four segregated cases, was any outside
trouble anticipated. When the findings
for jobs and outside groups are com
bined, there is a startlingly small inci
dence of concern with economic or
social threat. There are only 16 out of
88 cases and eight of the 16 are simply
reporting what did occur three years
ago and not their perceptions of pres
ent possibilities. I think it is safe to
conclude for the Nashville situation,
that fears of reprisals of one kind or
another are now at best a minor factor
in the decision making process.
“The actual process by which the
family made its decision was investi
gated. Based on the responses from
complete families only, it was found
that decision by default was unusual;
the issue of which school to send the
child was discussed between the par
ents in over 90 percent of all the cases.
While other family members sometimes
were included, the child was rarely a
party to these discussions. In both
groups, the decision was made by both
parents together most of the time. Gen
erally both parents agreed about what
should be done, there being only eleven
cases of parental disagreement out of
the 64 complete families. The amount of
time spent in discussing the issue was
greater in the desegregated group. This
may be a reflection of their greater in
volvement and interest in desegrega
tion. It also may reflect that continua
tion of the status quo often requires
less discussion and planning than at
tempts at change.
REASONS GIVEN
“The final question of concern to the
study was what reasons were given for
the decision. The desegregated group
(not including the 11 families whose
children transferred to segregated
schools) gave the following reasons
(multiple answers included):
Desegregated school is closer to home,
18; desire for child to have a desegre
gated experience, 7; help to support the
Supreme Court decision, 3; overcoming
initial fear of sending the child, 3;
other, 7.
“It is interesting to note that two-
thirds of the desegregated cases gave
the closeness of the school, implying
convenience, as their prime reason for
(See STUDY, Page 6)