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PAGE 10—APRIL 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
ARKANSAS
Appeals Court Says Assignment
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
he Little Rock school board
is using the Arkansas pupil
assignment laws illegally, the
U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Ap
peals, at St. Louis ruled on March
2. It ordered that the board ap
ply laws objectively to all the
students in the school district, not
use the laws to preserve uncon
stitutional segregation and to
speed up its plan of desegregation.
It sent the case back to Federal
District Court at Little Rock for
further proceedings. (See partial
text on this page.)
This is in the original Little Rock
case, now styled Norwood v. Tucker
instead of Aaron v. Tucker. The ruling
was on an appeal by 14 Negro high
school students based on the refusal
of the school board to admit them to
the formerly all-white high schools in
the 1959-60 school year.
Their main contention was that the
Little Rock plan of desegregation, ap
proved by the federal courts in 1956
and under which the board has been
operating ever since, provided for as
signment of students to the schools
nearest their homes and that the Board
was now using the pupil assignment
laws illegally to thwart the operation
of the plan. U.S. District Court Judge
John E. Miller of Ft. Smith, Ark., had
overruled the Negroes on every point
in his decision of Sept. 2, 1960. He gave
high praise to the school board for the
way it was carrying on its job and
declared that this ruling ended the
Little Rock case. Judge Miller was re
versed on every point by the appeals
court.
No Time Limit
No time limit or schedule was set,
but the ruling contained this sentence:
“As we approach the 1961-62 school
year, sufficient time has elapsed to
compel affirmative action ... to the
end that there may be integration in
more than a token fashion.” There was
speculation that this meant that de
segregation would have to be extended
to the junior high schools this year
and that the number of Negroes ad
mitted to the formerly all-white schools
would have to be increased. The record
of Negro admissions to the formerly
all-white high schools under the plan
so far follows:
Year
Central
High
Hall
High
1957
9
0
1958
X
X
1959
5
3
1960
7
4
x—High schools closed
in 1958.
The appeals court judges—Joseph W.
Woodrough, Martin D. Van Oosterhout
and Marion C. Mathes—made these
points in their ruling:
• The Negro students were right
in claiming that the original desegre
gation plan contemplated the assign
ment of students to the schools nearest
their homes but that this doesn’t keep
the school officials from also using
other assignment criteria. They noted
that both the 1956 and 1959 versions
of the pupil assignment laws were
adopted after the Little Rock plan had
been approved by the federal courts.
• In making assignments for the
1959-60 school year, when the school
board was reopening the four high
schools after Gov. Orval Faubus had
closed them for a year, the board clear
ly violated the constitutional rights of
the Negro students by allowing itself
to be governed by racial considerations.
• Two of the Negro students who
were assigned to the formerly all-white
high schools were assigned there partly
because the board saw them as less
Negroid and more Caucasian in facial
features and speech. Negro students
who did not show the “proper attitude”
in the presence of the board did not
get assignments to Hall or Central High
Schools. The board refused the assign
ment request of one Negro student be
cause of his attitude of sticking up for
his rights, which the board thought
would create “an unbearable problem”
from the standpoint of efficient opera
tion of the school in a difficult transi
tion period.
Repeated Injunction
The ruling concluded by repeating
the injunction under which the school
board has been operating since 1956,
which requires the board to take “af
firmative steps on its own initiative” to
do away with unconstitutional segre
gation in the schools.
The ruling was something of a jolt to
Little Rock, which after two years of
violence-tom schooling hasn’t had any
Arkansas Highlights
The Eighth Circuit Court of Ap
peals ordered Little Rock’s school
desegregation plan speeded up aft
er ruling that the school board was
using the pupil placement laws il
legally and depriving Negro students
of their constitutional rights.
The new president of the Capital
Citizens Council, Little Rock at
torney Amos Guthridge, commented
on the court ruling and said the
board was “caught in its own inte
gration trap.”
Ted Lamb, secretary of the Little
Rock school board, spoke publicly
about his disagreement with other
board members on desegregation
policy. Lamb believes more Negroes
should be admitted to the white
school before the federal courts get
tired of waiting and order whole
sale desegregation overnight.
The effects of the Little Rock
school crisis were being felt four
years later in politics as the Demo
crats, back in power in Washington,
began handing out patronage jobs.
The appointees who figured in the
school situation were running into
protests about their being selected
for federal positions.
For the first time since the school
crisis began in September, 1957,
Little Rock landed a major new in
dustry from outside.
The Dollarway school board filed
in federal court a third version of
its desegregation plan. The plan still
limits Negro admissions to the first
grade but now rests mainly on the
results of pre-school tests for all
pupils.
After opposition, the Arkansas
legislature adopted Gov. Orval Fau-
bus’s new segregation proposal as
one of three constitutional amend
ments to be submitted to the voters
in November, 1962. The amendment
would guarantee a segregated public
school for any student who refused
to attend a desegregated one. The
governor dropped his other pro
posed amendment for a faster way
to amend the constitution.
Negro patrons objected to the
rebuilding of a Negro elementary
school in the Negro section of Fort
Smith.
untoward incidents at the schools since
August, 1959. Everett Tucker Jr., school
board president, expressed “concern
and apprehension” over the ruling. The
Arkansas Democrat called it a setback
and said the court must have ruled
solely on the basis of constitutional
rights without considering what effect
the ruling might have on education.
The Arkansas Gazette saw it as dis
appointing and wished that the appeals
court could have upheld Judge Miller
instead of overruling him. Tucker, how
ever, found it encouraging that the
assignment laws themselves were still
standing and that no legal protest had
been filed over the assignments made
in 1960.
Wiley A Branton of Pine Bluff, Negro
attorney for the Negro plaintiffs, hailed
the ruling as another victory. He said
it upheld their contention that assign
ments should be made solely on the
basis of residence but “with some res
ervations.” He also interpreted it to
mean that the junior high schools
should be desegregated next fall.
★ ★ ★
Another Little Rock dynamiting con
viction, that of Maceo Antonio Binns
Jr., 32, Negro, was reversed by the
state Supreme Court on March 13. In
a 6 to 1 ruling, the court held that the
trial court had erred in permitting the
state to introduce confessions from
Binns at his trial because the confes
sions had not been voluntary. The court
said Binns was arrested at 5 pm. Feb.
16, 1960, and was questioned continu
ously for 57 hours before he confessed
and that this made the confessions in
voluntary. The court referred to the
questioning as an “inquisition.”
Binns and Herbert Odell Monts, 18,
Negro, have been convicted of dyna
miting the home of Carlotta Walls, then
one of the Negro students attending
Central High School, on Feb. 9, 1960.
The house was damaged but no one
was hurt. Monts has appealed his con
viction also.
The state on March 22, asked the
Supreme Court to reconsider the Binns
decision and also the wording of it.
The state asked that the court eliminate
all references to “an inquisition,” call
ing the use of the word a reflection on
law enforcement and on the prosecuting
attorney’s office. The prosecuting at
torney at the time of the Binns case
was J. Frank Holt of Little Rock. He is
now the state attorney general, who
filed the request for reconsideration.
★ ★ ★
E. A. Lauderdale Sr., 58, sentenced
to three years in prison and fined $500
for his part in dynamiting the Little
Rock School Board office in September,
1959, asked the state Supreme Court
for a rehearing of his appeal, but the
court denied it on March 20. His at
torneys, W. B. Howard and James E.
McDaniel of Jonesboro, decided against
an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On the deadline for such an appeal,
Howard appeared in Little Rock before
Circuit Judge William J. Kirby, said
that no further legal moves were
planned and asked that Lauderdale be
given until April 3 to arrange his af
fairs before surrendering and going
to prison. Judge Kirby granted the re
quest.
Lauderdale owns a building supply
firm and is a director of the Capital
Citizens Council. The courts said he
was the mastermind behind the three
dynamite explosions on Labor Day
night, 1959, which were set off as a
protest against school desegregation.
★ ★ ★
New Dollarway Plan
Would Use Two Tests
In the Dollarway School District case
(Dove v. Parham), the school board
filed March 13 in U.S. District Court
at Little Rock a revision of its de
segregation plan as ordered by Judge
J. Smith Henley of Harrison. After a
hearing Dec. 20, Judge Henley said the
plan, then already revised once, was
not sufficiently different from the old
one to comply with the “degree of ob
jectivity” required by the Eighth U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals (Southern
School News, January). He said he
wanted a plan that would last through
a few rounds of litigation.
Third Version
This revision—the third version of
the same plan—is like the others in
saying that any desegregation will start
in the first grade with the Negroes in
white schools continuing upward a
grade a year. That is, only on entering
the first grade will Negro pupils have
a chance of assignment to the white
schools. It differs from the first two
versions principally by making the
promise, with certain reservations, that
all pupils who make at least average
scores on pre-school tests will be as
signed to the schools of the choice of
their parents.
The previous versions, after stating
the board’s intention to assign first
graders according to the preference of
the parents, when possible, had said
that they did not know whether this
would produce desegregation. The res
ervations connected with the promise
in this version are that the preferences
will be followed “unless clearly con
trary to . . . standards and criteria of
the pupil assignment law.”
May and June Tests
The board said it would give tests
in May and June to the pupils who will
enter the first grade next September,
using the California short-form test of
mental maturity and the metropolitan
readiness test. The plan said:
“Each student registering for the first
grade who scores at least in the aver
age range on these tests under nation
ally uniform grading, consistent, of
course, with available room and teach
ing capacity . . . will be assigned to the
school for which a preference is in
dicated unless clearly contrary to ap
plicable and nondiscriminatorily ap
plied standards and criteria of the Pupil
Assignment Law and the board’s reg
ulations. Students scoring below the
average range on these tests will be
initially assigned to the school at
which, in the judgment of the board,
they will be afforded the greatest op
portunities to develop their educational
capacities.”
The attorney for the Negro plaintiffs,
George Howard of Pine Bluff, a Negro,'
had asked that the school board state
how many Negro applicants it was
willing to admit to the white schools
and in what grades. The board’s reply
didn’t give a number but it did limit
new desegregation to the first grade.
Under the earlier versions of the
plan the board admitted one Negro girl
to the first grade of the white school
last September.
Plan Is Used Illegally
Legislative Action
Legislators Pass
Faubus Proposal
But Drop Another
O pposition developed against
both of the constitutional
amendments proposed by Gov.
Orval E. Faubus, but the 63rd
General Assembly, which ad
journed March 9, approved one
of them. That one (Senate Joint
Resolution No. 1) was designed
to guarantee a segregated public
school for any child who refuses
to attend a desegregated school.
Faubus didn’t press for his other
proposal, which would have set up a
way to amend the constitution within
33 days instead of the present 20
months.
The first indication of opposition to
the proposed amendments came at a
meeting of the Joint Senate-House
Constitutional Amendments Committee
on March 6. It considered 25 proposed
amendments, gave “do pass” recom
mendations to three of them, “without
recommendation” recommendations to
two of them and “do not pass” to all
the rest. SJR No. 1 got a “do not pass”;
the governor’s quickie amendment
wasn’t considered since he had already
indicated that he was willing to drop it.
Next day, though, the Senate voted
30-0 for SJR No. 1; and on the follow
ing day it got through the House by
67 to 22. Five representatives spoke on
the floor against the Faubus amend
ment, and all eight members of the
Pulaski County (Little Rock) delega
tion voted against it.
The governor’s proposal, along with
two others—on the taxing power of
municipalities and the salaries of comi
ty officials—will go before the voters
in the November, 1962, general elec
tion.
Schoolmen
Lamb Openly Objects
To Board’s Policy
On Negro Admissions
O NE OF THE SIX MEMBERS of the
Little Rock school board, Ted
Lamb, the board secretary, has
brought into the open his long
standing disagreement with the
board policy to restrict the num
ber of Negro students admitted
to the white schools. He favors
increasing Negro admissions be
fore the federal courts lose pa
tience with Little Rock and order
wholesale desegregation over
night. Lamb publicized his dis
agreement with board policy in
a statement March 4 commenting
on the new appeals court ruling
and in a talk March 22 to the
League of Women Voters.
Lamb, owner of an advertising
agency, was elected to the board in
December, 1958,
along with Ever
ett Tucker Jr.,
now board presi
dent, and Russell
H. Matson Jr., all
three of whom
survived the
school recall elec
tion of May, 1959.
There had been
indications previ
ously that Lamb
and the other
board members did not see eye to
eye on how to handle the desegrega
tion problem.
Lamb made that clear in a statement
on the Appeals Court ruling, which
began, “The recent decision of the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals con
firms my long-held conviction that the
present policy of the school board is
leading Little Rock down the road to
further strife and economic uncertain
ty. Our town must come to realize that
the courts mean business in insisting
that our school system be totally non-
discriminatory both in theory and in
practice by 1963. Up ’til now the Tuck
er-dominated school board has insisted
that by some devious means we could
out-trick, out-maneuver and defy the
federal government. Such a policy is
as foolish as it is disastrous. I have op
posed the present policy of the school
board from both a practical and a moral
LAMB
position . . . The school board has n^.
seriously sought to rally the forces’
Christianity and good will in our to,
to enter in compliance with the <*,’
on a moral basis. The board seen^
pay more attention to a handful of
ots and racists than to those who ^
for justice and righteousness in „
city.”
Deny Charges
Matson, B. Frank Mackey and IV
McDonald said Lamb’s statement f.
regrettable and uncalled for. They ^
the board was not dominated by TinJ
er or anyone else nor was it listed
to bigots and racists. Tucker and g
other member, J. H. Cottrell Jr, 4
dined to comment.
Lamb appeared before the Leaf,
of Women Voters on March 22 a-
questioned whether the board
complying in good faith with the fe.
eral court orders. When the numb,
of Negro students admitted to Centr.
High declines from nine to seven ove
a four-year period, he said, he double
whether that was good faith comp!
ance. He said the board would ha P
to make substantial progress and quid
ly toward desegregation, or the conn
would take away the board’s desegn-
gation plan and the pupil assigrunet
laws and order total desegregation.
He said that the board and its at
torneys had tried to out-fox the federi
courts by claiming that they did m
rely on school attendance areas i
making pupil assignments. “Why even
map we have shows the attendans
areas for each school on it,” he said
Couldn’t Agree
“I think there is some feeling ot
the school board and in the community
that if we turn our backs the this;
will go away,” he said, but he couldr.
agree with that.
He said that his earlier statemet
about bigots and racists had been mis
construed to mean avid segregationist
“We lost that crowd when the fa
Negro student crossed the threshholc
of Central High. I think we ought ti
go ahead and work with the rest 0
the community,” he said.
Lamb did not question the integrity
of the other board members. They be
lieve they are representing the bes
interests of the community and fa
they are doing the right thing, he said
But he said he believed in govenunat
by leadership, not by poll.
He said he had been telling the boan
these things for two years and bat
gotten nowhere so he decided to te£
everybody.
NAACP Objects
It became known that the Little Kod
school board was planning to chai#
Rightsell Elementary School, now f*
white pupils only, to a school f° :
Negro pupils only starting in Septe*'
her. The Little Rock Chapter of •“*
National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People objected ar; ‘
said this was simply an attempt *
circumvent the Supreme Court
segregation ruling.
Rightsell is in south central
Rock, an older section of town "h
mixed white and Negro residences &
with the number of Negro homes £
creasing. It is two and a half bfa®
from Dunbar Junior High School,
only Negro junior high, and five bfa*
from Gibbs Elementary School,
is for Negroes only. Dunbar J 1 ® 1 ’
High is overcrowded. The board w®
to transfer the Negro elementary P.
pils from the Old Gibbs School, w®
is on the Dunbar grounds, to mSV
sell two and a half blocks away
use the Old Gibbs School for f
UT- ;:
high classes.
Rev. J. C. Crenchaw, president
the Little Rock NAACP, obje^^
i
:ted ®
a letter to the school board on
tbe
24. There is plenty of room 1® ^
junior high schools now used °"\jA
white pupils to relieve the cr° g ;
condition at Dunbar, he wrote-
urged the board to assign all ele® ^
ary and junior high pupils next-,
on the basis of residence and ie ^/j
less of race. He also objected to, ^
school being designated “white
“colored.”
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★ ★ ★
At Fort Smith, some Negro P®^;
have objected to the school b ^
plans to rebuild Dunbar ^ eia ^ e gl c
School, for Negro pupils, in a
section of town. Some of
patrons believe the money for
should be spent instead on jje-
ments at Lincoln High School
groes. Others, represented by s t-
A. Branton of Pine Bluff, jf
tomey, call the Dunbar rebuild®* ;;
attempt to perpetuate segregate £
the Fort Smith schools. GW
(See ARKANSAS, Page
Sr ^ *3?