Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—AUGUST, 1961—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Legislation During 1961
Sessions Is Summarized
FLORIDA
250 Negroes
Will Attend
Nine Schools
Negro pupil who sought
” transfer to a white school un
der the appeal procedure of the
pupil assignment law won a fa
vorable decision by the Dade
County school board. It was the
first time such a transfer had
been made in routine fashion hut
it will not change the desegrega
tion pattern in Dade County.
The school involved, Allapattah Ele
mentary, already is scheduled for de
segregation next month, other Negroes
having been assigned previously.
The Dade board passed on 41 transfer
requests. It denied 28, approved eight
and postponed decision on five. The
group included three Negroes. The two
whose appeals were denied were stu
dents who renewed applications made
unsuccessfully last year.
About 250 Negroes
Altogether, about 250 Negroes are
are expected to attend nine schools
with whites in Dade County, beginning
in the fall. A tenth school, Orchard
Villa, has been desegregated since 1959
but the last white student withdrew
last school year. The county had 28
Negroes in three other white schools
last year.
The six schools being desegregated
this year for the first time and their
Negro enrollments are: Earlington
Heights, about 200; Coconut Grove,
three tentatively; Alapattah, eight;
Vineland, two; Riverside, one; and
Gladeview, six.
The Negro enrollment at the Air
Base elementary school, which num
bered 25 last year, will depend on the
racial makeup at Homestead Air Force
Base. Fulford will have five Negro stu
dents instead of two. North Miami
Beach Junior High has been reassigned
one Negro student.
Although Negro leaders reported that
“several hundred” transfer requests
had been filed in other countries none
was likely to be approved this year.
School boards which have made their
decisions public have all denied the
requests, citing criteria listed in the as
signment law. Some of these turndowns
are expected to be used as the basis
for suits.
Jyppql Action
Escambia County
Hearing Reset
For August 7
Although Escambia County (Pensa
cola) is under federal court order to
proceed with school desegregation, the
implementation still hangs fire. A hear
ing on the next steps was postponed
from July 27 until Aug. 7 by U.S. Dis
trict Judge G. Harrold Carswell.
The school board’s desegregation plan,
as submitted to the federal court, was
to notify all parents in writing of their
rights under the assignment law to re
quest transfers to any school. The
board reserved the right to make the
final decision on criteria set in the law,
including socio-economic, scholastic
and personality factors.
The plaintiffs objected that this was
no adequate response to Judge Cars
well’s order and cited previous rulings
that the pupil assignment law is not
a desegregation plan. The August hear
ing is on these objections.
Whatever the outcome, Escambia
officials indicated they believed there
will be no mixed classes before the
fall of 1962.
Legal skirmishing continued in other
pending school suits.
★ ★ ★
In the Volusia County case, the school
board’s formal reply denied that there
was any compulsory segregation by
race.
To back this claim, the board sent
letters to every Negro parent in the
school system, outlining provisions of
the assignment law. The board said
they had the right to apply for admis
sion to any school in the county, re
gardless of its racial makeup, provided
they could qualify under the assign
ment law.
The letters to the plaintiffs, 19 adults
in behalf of 39 children, were sent by
Florida Highlights
Dade County, where the first try
at large-scale desegregation is
planned at one school, assigned an
other Negro child to a white school
in a routine action under the pupil
assignment law. In other counties,
all requests for transfer so far have
been denied.
A hearing on the federal court
order requiring desegregation of the
Escambia County schools was post
poned until Aug. 7. In two other
school suits there was activity but
no final conclusion.
A new liberal arts college, to be
fully desegregated from the start,
was announced for Florida.
registered mail.
The reply said this action was merely
an official record of policy which was
“whether the child could fit into the
school and economic patterns.”
The school board also denied that
any of the plaintiffs had ever applied
to any specific school and had been de
nied. Therefore, the reply said, there
had been no test of the law and no
proof it was being administered on a
racial basis.
Desegregation in Dade county was
cited as proof that the assignment law
is being administered to admit Negro
children to white schools. The board
denied that any school activity, includ
ing the adoption of budgets and con
struction of new facilities, was associ
ated with a system of compulsory seg
regation.
Preliminary legal maneuvering has
been under way for several months.
★ ★ ★
In Duval County (Jacksonville),
Federal District Judge Bryan Simpson
denied the petition of a group of white
children and parents to intervene as
codefendants in the pending school suit.
(Braxton et al. v. Board of Public In
struction of Duval County.)
The white group employed their own
attorney who told the court his clients
wished to show, by evidence and tes
timony, the adverse effect on white
students of “indiscriminate pupil as
signment.”
The rights of white children in the
matter of school desegregation have
never been precisely defined by any
court, he said.
Another representative of the group
said it was unfair to permit Negro
children and parents to file an integra
tion suit without giving white children
and parents the right to defend them
selves.
Plaintiffs objected that the interven
tion would affect the basic issue.
“You are merely being asked to cir
cumvent the decisions of the U.S. Su
preme Court,” said Earl M. Johnson,
attorney for the NAACP. He argued
there was no indication that the school
board could not adequately defend the
suit.
Judge Simpson ruled with Johnson
and turned down a plea by the white
group to amend its petition and refile.
In the College
New Private College
To Start Classes
Florida is getting a new liberal arts
college—the first in the Southeast since
1900 to be privately endowed and con
trolled. From the start it will accept
students without regard to race or
religion.
New College, as it will be named
after a college of Oxford University,
is being organized by a private group
with assistance from the Congregational
Christian churches. It will be ready for
classes by 1964, on a campus at Sara
sota on Florida’s lower West Coast.
The campus will include part of the
estate of the late Charles Ringling,
owner of the famous circus, which
wintered at Sarasota for many years.
Philip H. Hiss, widely-known archi
tectural designer and a former chair
man of the Sarasota school board, will
be chairman of the college board. Dr.
George F. Baugham, vice president and
treasurer of New York University, has
resigned to become president.
The Congregationalist Church has
been a notable contributor to higher
education, having established Harvard
and Yale, as well as Fisk and Howard
universities, pioneering in higher edu
cation for Negroes in the South. Its
connection with New College will be
nominal.
Residents of the Sarasota-Bradenton
area have pledged $4 million toward
the $16 million needed for the initial
capital outlay. The remainder will come
(Continued From Page 1)
Another Arkansas act, advocated by
the governor, provides that local school
districts shall be reimbursed from
state funds for up to half the legal
expense of fighting desegregation law
suits, and in “hardship” cases the re
imbursement may be more.
Legislative disciplining of school
boards was a subject for further action
in both Arkansas and Louisiana but
in opposite directions. While Arkansas
repealed a 1958 act which had pro
vided for recall elections on school
board members based on petitions
signed by 25 per cent of the qualified
voters, Louisiana lawmakers (1) con
tinued their fight on the Orleans Par
ish school board for its compliance
with Judge Wright’s desegregation or
der; (2) added four administration-
backed members to the East Baton
Rouge Parish board, which is under
“all deliberate speed” desegregation
orders from the courts.
The Arkansas repealer reversed the
state’s previous position that board
members, particularly when they were
carrying out desegregation, should be
subject to speedy and relatively easy
ouster by popular vote. School authori
ties called for repeal on grounds that
the law was being used unduly in local
and personal disputes unrelated to
racial questions.
Scarcely Relented
On the other hand, Louisiana’s legis
lative majority scarcely relented in its
efforts—most of them held unconsti
tutional in U.S. courts—to supercede or
block the activities of the Orleans
Parish board, indicating a similar
course toward any other local board
seeking to carry out desegregation.
However, after standing in the path
of the Orleans board’s program of fi
nancing its desegregated schools during
the 1960-61 fiscal year, the legislators
during their fiscal session included
Orleans in a $13-million increase for
public education during 1961-62. Gov.
Davis told the legislature he intended
to continue public education in Lou
isiana.
Meantime, the legislature adopted a
resolution asking the Louisiana School
Boards Association to exclude from its
membership the four members of the
Orleans board who voted to comply
with the court order for pupil place
ment desegregation. The association
did bar them, and the legislature
adopted another resolution commend
ing the organization for its action.
After creating a committee for in
vestigation of the operation of parish
school boards, the Louisiana legisla
tors enacted two short-lived measures
that would have made it illegal (1) to
offer anything to parents for sending
their children to schools in violation of
state laws or (2) to encourage a child
to attend a desegregated school, with
the fine imposed on violators to be paid
to the informant. Both laws were de
clared invalid by a three-judge federal
court in May.
Methods Revised
In Georgia, methods were revised for
parents of pupils to appeal from deci
sions of local boards on pupil place
ment, and the procedure now is being
followed as to assignments in the de
segregated Atlanta school system. Nine
other states that have specific pupil
placement (assignment) laws left them
undisturbed this year. The laws list
factors other than race for guiding ad
ministrative decisions on which school
a child shall attend. Leaders of deseg
regation movements have indicated re
cently they will seek further court
tests of such laws, although two of
them have been held “not unconsti
tutional” on their face and a third
“constitutional” on the same basis.
Disorders as a result of desegrega
tion movements in schools and other
public facilities led to legislative ac
tion in two states this year. Arkansas
stiffened its penalties for bombing or
from foundations and from private
sources.
Options have been obtained on land
needed for a campus, and plans are be
ing drawn for buildings to house an
initial student body of 1,200 The trus
tees have dedicated the institution to
freedom from church government con
trols.
New college, say its sponsors, is not
just a new institution but a new idea
in higher education. Dr. Baugham said
the curriculum will “throw out out
worn hangovers from the 19th Century
that are slowing American education
today.” # # #
dynamiting property, a result of five
blasts and an attempted dynamiting at
Little Rock in connection with school
desegregation. Florida further extended
its governor’s power to deal with vio
lence that might develop at any school
desegregated by court order. Up to
this year, Florida has had no court-
ordered school desegregation.
No action whatever pertaining to
school racial matters has emerged this
year from the assemblies of Alabama,
Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee or
Texas. Although the Alabama and
Texas legislatures were back in ses
sion last month, they were expected to
concentrate on financial matters. There
was talk of a fourth extraordinary ses
sion in Louisiana, but if held it would
be expected to deal largely with money
problems.
Little Discussion
South Carolina legislators did not
alter their segregation statutes in any
particular, and there was little discus
sion of the subject, except for resolu
tions critical of persons advocating in
tegration. The lawmakers did omit
from their general appropriations act
the provision that funds were “for ra
cially segregated schools only.” The
change was described as one of term
inology and not of policy because a
1955 law was considered adequate to
bring closures of schools ordered by
courts to desegregate.
Delaware’s legislature, still in ses
sion during July, was considering—
amid considerable opposition—an ex
tensive revision of the state’s school
laws to eliminate, in effect, all-Negro
school districts. By reducing the num
ber of school districts about two-thirds,
the law would require mergers of
existing Negro and white districts. The
state already is under court order to
eliminate all compulsory segregation,
but U. S. District Judge Caleb Wright
suggested that legislative action could
bring “the most orderly process” of
desegregation with “the least adverse
effects upon all students.”
In Maryland, the legislature passed
The Region
(Continued From Page 1)
Completion of a new school in Car
rollton, Ky., will enable it to desegre
gate for the first time, involving about
25 Negroes. Jefferson County, already
desegregated, is closing one of its three
remaining Negro schools and transfer
ring 32 Negroes to white schools. Knox
County has a federal court order to
end its limited desegregation program
and to open all schools to Negroes.
Escambia County (Pensacola) in the
Florida panhandle has agreed to a fed
eral court order to desegregate when
the school term begins. It would be
the state’s second desegregated dis
trict. The school board has notified all
parents of their rights under the state
pupil assignment law but the outcome
of this move is in doubt. Attorneys for
the Negroes contest the law and have
advised their clients not to apply for
transfer under it.
Mixed Neighborhood
Dade County (Miami) will increase
its desegregated schools from four to
10, raising the number of Negroes in
biracial schools from 28 last year to
about 250. The District is planning
large-scale desegregation at one school
serving a mixed neighborhood, Earling
ton Heights, where the enrollment is
expected to include about 200 Ne
groes.
Several more Delaware districts are
expected to desegregate this year as
the result of the state’s agreement to
a federal court order to end grade-
a-year desegregation and open all
grades in all schools to Negroes. The
exact number is not known but the
state probably will have about 300
more Negroes in biracial schools, com
pared to 6,738 last year.
Two Arkansas districts, Little Rock
and Dollarway, have accepted addi
tional Negroes in predominantly white
schools. Little Rock will expand its
desegregation program into the junior
high schools. Altogether, the junior
and senior high schools will have 49
Negroes in mixed classes, compared to
11 last year. Dollarway District will
have two Negro second graders in a
predominantly white school, compared
to one Negro first grader last year.
Missouri, Maryland, Oklahoma and
District of Columbia, which have had
considerable desegregation, are ex
pected to have a normal increase in
the number of Negroes attending
schools with whites. # # #
one of six bills introduced to (w
school laws into conformity with
preme Court school decisions. *
measure enacted changed the name*
a school in a scholarship law from ft'
University of Maryland’s College s,
Negroes at Princess Anne to the (jJ
versity of Maryland’s State College -
Princess Anne. It usually is
Maryland State College.
References to “white females”
deleted from a Maryland law dealj.
with state aid to two Catholic trainim
schools for delinquent girls, dearie
the legal barrier to desegregation^
the institutions. This grew out of.'
court ruling that a boys’ reformat^
was legally a school and thus subj^
to the ban on compulsory segregate
Allowed To Die
Oklahoma’s assembly continued j
session after allowing to die in con.
mittee a proposal that an unenforce
“separate school” provision be deleted
from the state school code. This was
part of a 10-bill package advocated fo
the National Association for the Ad.
vancement of Colored People to wi»
out all mention of race from state
laws. Five of the bills failed to get
through committees, and the others
still were pending. Oklahoma legisla-
tors have been reluctant to open the
school code for any changes because
of possibilities it would raise other
highly controversial issues.
The Oklahoma legislature was con
sidering, with passage considered
doubtful, proposals to raise minimum
high school attendance standards to
qualify for state aid—an action that
probably would cause more schools to
be biracial. After a move was launched
to close for economy reasons the state)
only Negro institution of higher educa
tion, Langston University, backers of
the school successfully supported a
resolution calling for its continuation
as “an integral part” of the state)
program.
West Virginia’s only legislative ac
tion related to racial attendance at
schools was to pass a watered-down
bill creating a Human Rights Com
mission, with $15,000 a year provided
for its operation.
Only states in the area whose legis
latures did not convene this year were |
Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia.
# # -
Governors
(Continued From Page 1)
A decision was deferred until an
other meeting is held within 60 das’!
at Montgomery, Ala. Leaders of the
discussion at the Jackson meeting said
they hoped to enlist additional sup
port by that time.
The program was outlined behind
closed doors at the Neidelberg Hotel
and its details were not made public
Gov. Barnett said in a preliminaR
statement that “there are many area-'
in which we could all be doing
much to strike at the enemies of t» e
South who seem so numerous.”
The objectives were similar to tho#
stated by representatives of 28 cities
in 10 states who met last month > n
Baton Rouge, La., to form the South
wide Municipal Conference (Louisian
report.) Both groups discussed m eaI1 j
of influencing Southern members 0
Congress to support more conserv*
tive legislation.
As the state group convened, **
Negro pickets were arrested outs*
the hotel on their refusal to
on.” They were Richard Haley of ^
cago, field secretary for the
of Racial Equality, and Miss He
Jean O’Neal of Clarksdale, Miss-*
had just withdrawn from Jackson S
College.
Others Present
Among others present from Alaba®^
were State Attorney General
aid Gallion, Highway Director ^
Englehardt, Robert P. Bradley-
advisor to Gov. Patterson, and
members of the governor’s staff,
■ (Jll^
In addition to Cook, the G® 0 --
Cook, Bob Harper and Tommy
In addition to Cook, the L- f
delegation included Assistant Atto
riAnpral TT 1 ronman T jivprpft. and .
Van-
General Freeman Leverett and
H. Allen, aide to Gov. Ernest
diver. .
Mississippi officials attending
“ At iii>
dition to Gov. Barnett were
pai
General Joe Patterson, Lt. Gov-
Johnson, Secretary of State
Ladner, House Speaker Walter Hi ^
Agricultural and Industrial D®'
ment Board Director Fred jjjlph
two gubernatorial assistants,
Ford and Gene Wilkinson.
W. J. Simmons, national co-o .j,
tor of the Citizens Councils of ^ ( ; V e
ica, and Richard Morphew,
director of the American
Council Forum, occupied a sui
jacent to the conference room o
not participate in the discussion ■ $