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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MARCH, 1962—PAGE 15
Subcommittee Hears HEW Secretary Testify
(Continued from Page 1)
Ling racial segregation in public
^00Is but is not willing to obey the
uostitution of the United States
jjch forbids such separation. It is a
jry commentary that our Govern-
:i „t can get a man around the earth
, a space capsule but cannot get
^und Jim Crow laws affecting public
bools even when the United States
.preme Court has clearly pointed the
al”
jJAACP Executive Secretary Roy
filkins wired Ribicoff the following
jy; “Under your interpretation, 2,-
10,000 Megro children in 2,000 school
-jtricts remain legally segregated and
g remain so until court orders are
aided down in each of these districts.
f e would appreciate clarification of
jur views inasmuch as your assertions
■e being quoted gleefully by segrega-
onists.”
>ERS Executive Director
Jives Enrollment Data
Another witness at the House sub-
jnmittee’s opening session was Reed
irratt, executive director of Southern
jucation Reporting Service. Stressing
ie factual and objective nature of
JRS, Sarratt presented a statistical
immary of desegregation develop -
lents in the Southern and border states
me the Supreme Court decision.
“Of the 14 states that now have both
(egroes and whites enrolled in their
nblic colleges, six—and the District
i Columbia—may be said to have com-
iied with the Supreme Court ruling
11954 that ‘separate educational fa-
ilities are inherently unequal,’ ” Sar-
att said. “In the remaining eight states
ie degree of college desegregation
aries, but in none of them is it sub-
antial relative to total enrollments.”
According to SERS records, Sarratt
sitfied, the 17 Southern and border
tates and the District now have 137
irmerly all-white tax-supported insti-
ations of higher education that are
desegregated in practice or principle,
ither by court order or by voluntary
ttion.”
Virginia
(Continued from Page 14)
Commonwealth’s Attorney Frank N.
fatkins told the supervisors that a
deral court order prohibited payment
>ithe bifi.
District Judge Oren R. Lewis last
hgust banned the use of state and
nunty tuition grants for Prince Ed-
students as long as the county’s
tublic schools remain closed. (Allen v.
■rince Edward School Board.) The
Aools were closed by the supervisors
*1959 to prevent desegregation.
seal Action
Desegregation Suit
' Brought Against
Chesterfield County
Virginia’s newest desegregation suit
I® filed Feb. 28 against Chesterfield
;°Unty, which adjoins the city of
**mond.
jVhe suit was filed on behalf of 15
'^o children who contend that they
denied admission to the all-white
“Wick elementary school in January.
McLeod v. Chesterfield County School
“Ottrd.)
★ ★ ★
*06 Alexandria school desegregation
filed in 1958, was dismissed from
® docket by federal District Judge
4 . etl R. Lewis on Feb. 13 (Jones v.
jtandria School Board.)
j Oder the suit, a permanent injunc-
•?0 had been issued in 1959 to pro-
the school board from discrimi-
0°n against Negroes in school
foments.
^ly in February, opposing attor-
•Ki
argued the question of whether
su it should remain on the docket.
Ir ^eys for Negro students argued
r* 1 if the case were closed, various
1Elions of fact determined in it would
j^ e to be relitigated.
announcing his decision Feb. 13,
.■idge -
*>di,
Lewis said counsel, “having
a there are no issues remaining
5^ ?e adjudicated and the court so
it is ordered that this case be
j^anssed.” He said anyone who felt
^ ri ghts were denied could have re-
hy filing a petition under the
p s of the injunction,
l^tty-five different Negro pupils
in ^_heen admitted to white schools
y 6 j ex andria during the past three
according to Supt. T. C. Wil-
About 1,800 of the city’s 15,000
e nts are Negroes. # # #
D.C. Highlights
A special House Education Sub
committee began public hearings in
its investigation of compliance with
the Supreme Court’s 1954 school de
segregation decision. Initial testi
mony centered on grants to segre
gated school districts under the pro
gram of aid for federally impacted
areas, and brought suggestions from
some congressmen that the funds be
cut off.
The Supreme Court held unconsti
tutional a Louisiana local option law
permitting subdivisions to close all
public schools rather than submit to
desegregation.
An NAACP executive said the or
ganization is opening an all-out drive
against school segregation in the
North as well as in the South.
School officials in New Rochelle,
N.Y., began a study of the district’s
“Amidon Plan” as a possible answer
to their desegregation problems.
Judges of the Federal District
Court in Washington denied that
race is a factor in selecting mem
bers of the District School Board.
He said these desegregated institu
tions represent 58.5 per cent of the 234
predominantly white public junior and
senior colleges and universities in the
area.
Geographical Lines
As for public elementary and secon
dary schools in the region, Sarratt said,
compliance with the Supreme Court
decision has tended to follow geogra
phical lines: “The Northern tier, or
border, states have most nearly com
plied. In the next ring of states, com
pliance has been technical and without
any real enthusiasm. At the center are
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisi
ana and South Carolina, the hard core
of resistance, or even defiance.”
This year, Sarratt said, the region has
6,373 school districts, of which 2,804 are
biracial and 910 desegregated. Of the
3,210,724 Negro school children in the
South, 233,509—or 7.3 per cent—are at
tending desegregated schools.
Sarratt noted, however, that of the
Negro pupils in desegregated schools,
97 per cent are in the District of Co
lumbia and in the six border states of
Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Mis
souri, Oklahoma and West Virginia,
while three states—Alabama, Missis
sippi and South Carolina—have deseg
regated no public schools.
“From this it is clear enough,” Sar
ratt concluded, “that in the eighth year
after the Supreme Court decision, de
segregation of the public schools has
proceeded relatively rapidly and sub
stantially in some states, slowly in oth
ers and not at all in still others.”
Suggests Court Test
At the subcommittee’s hearing Feb.
28, Rep. Zelenko suggested that the
Federal Government seek a court test
Rives
(Continued from Page 13“»
he refuses to categorize his views as
either liberal or conservative. He was
nominated by President Truman in
April, 1951, to succeed Judge Leon
McCord (also of Montgomery) on the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Rives
took office May 7.
He spends about half the year either
at his home in Montgomery or at his
place at Mary Esther, Fla., where he
maintains a backyard office with phone
and library. When in Montgomery or
Mary Esther, he is usually occupied
with reading briefs and preparing
opinions—the fishing has had to wait.
Sometimes Devastating
On the bench Rives handles lawyers
with tact and the utmost courtesy and
restraint. He asks few questions, though
as one local attorney put it, these are
always incisive and sometimes deva
stating. Rives holds to the theory that
if a lawyer wants to make a fool of
himself in the brief time allotted for
argument, that’s his privilege.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
is reputed to have one of the heaviest
dockets in the nation. For this reason,
Rives usually works on Saturdays, tries
to keep Sundays open. He spends about
six weeks a year on the circuit out
side New Orleans.
Of all the cases he has ruled on prior
to the New Orleans cases, Rives says
he has been most criticized for the
Goldsby decision. In that case the court
ruled that Negroes cannot be convicted
of crime in counties that bar them
from jury sendee. # # #
of its right to withhold impacted area
aid funds from segregated school dis
tricts.
His comment came during testimony
by U.S. Commissioner of Education
Sterling M. McMurrin, who conceded
that “there is no question that some of
the impacted areas money has been
used to construct segregated schools.”
“I think that is a violation of the law
right there,” Zelenko declared. “It flies
in the face of the Supreme Court deci
sion. If federal funds are being used
illegally, the Office of Education has a
right to refuse to allocate the money.”
In response to Zelenko’s suggestion
that the Federal Government initiate a
test court case on the issue, McMurrin
said he regarded it as the responsibility
of Congress to change the impacted
areas law if it wants funds withheld
from segregated school districts.
The subcommittee did not indicate
what further hearings might be held
before it submits its report in May.
Tribunal Rules Out
Louisiana School
Closing Measure
The Supreme Court ruled Fep. 19
that a Louisiana local option law per
mitting subdivisions to close all puplic
schools rather than submit to desegre
gation orders is unconstitutional.
The decision (No. 586, St. Helena
School Board et al v. Hall et al) came
in a simple order saying that “the mo
tion to affirm is granted and the judg
ment is affirmed.”
This upheld a three-judge Federal
Court in Baton Rouge which declared
last Aug. 30 (See Louisiana report.)
New Rochelle Gives
Attention To Plan
Used In Washington
School officials in New Rochelle,
N.Y., are examining the District of Co
lumbia’s experimental Amidon School
as a possible solution to school deseg
regation problems in the New York
City suburb.
New Rochelle educators plan to visit
Washington this spring to determine
whether the “Amidon Plan” for rigor
ous instruction in basic subjects would
be “glamorous” enough to attract a bi
racial enrollment to a school located
in a predominantly Negro neighborhood.
New Rochelle last fall became the first
Northern community to be placed un
der federal court order to desegregate
a school. The case involved the Lincoln
Elementary School which, under local
school zoning, served a predominantly
Negro neighborhood.
In a decision upheld by the Supreme
Court Dec. 11 (Southern School News,
January), the courts ruled that school
officials are obligated to seek a racial
“balance” in a school if ever in the past
they have deliberately created an “im
balance” by choice of school sites or
attendance areas.
Problem of Location
New Rochelle is now at the beginning
of a multi-million-dollar building pro
gram which includes a replacement for
the Lincoln School. The school board
is confronted with the problem of
where to locate the new building.
Parents of about 200 Negro pupils
living in the Lincoln area have told the
school board they would like a school
located in their neighborhood. But the
court decision apparently stands in the
way of a new school which would serve
a predominantly Negro enrollment.
To solve the problem, School Supt.
Herbert C. Clish is considering replac
ing Lincoln on its present site with a
new school that would, like Amidon in
the urban renewal area of Southwest
Washington, enroll students of all races
from all parts of the city.
Clish believes many parents in the
fashionable Westchester County com
munity would be interested in sending
their children to a school offering a
“tough” program in the basic subjects.
Under District School Supt. Carl F.
Hansen’s “Amidon Plan,” teachers fol
low a prescribed curriculum stressing
composition, spelling, handwriting,
arithmetic, grammar, science, geogra
phy and history—all taught directly as
separate subjects. Reading instruction,
using the phonetic method, begins in
kindergarten.
Hansen Says Issues
Require Perspective
District School Supt. Carl F. Hansen
told a Negro audience Feb. 20 that
problems arising from desegregation
“seem at points to still exist in our
school system” but must be “reduced
to proper proportions.”
There is a tendency to blame racial
factors when conflicts occur, Hansen
told members of the Central-Northwest
Citizens Association. Some acts, he
Negroes Extend Drive
Into Northern States
N egro groups fighting school
segregation have extended
their campaign into the North—
filing school suits, petitioning
school boards and staging protests
in northern communities during
F ebruary.
Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of
the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, an
nounced, “We have now turned our
attention to the North.” NAACP
branches, he said, were surveying com
munities outside the South to uncover
discrimination in the public schools.
The Congress of Racial Equality,
which concerned itself principally with
“freedom rides” in the South during the
past year, reportedly has selected north
ern school segregation as a major target
this year.
Zuber Leaves NAACP
Paul Zuber, an attorney in the im
portant New Rochelle case with the
NAACP, has left that organization and
filed other school suits in northern
cities.
“The South has now arrived at the
stage where integration is recognized
by law,” Zuber said. “Unless we fight
in the North, the South is merely going
to adopt the methods used by the
North to perpetuate segregation.”
The segregation problem under at
tack in the North differs from that in
the South. The southern suits generally
have aimed at achieving initial desegre
gation and permitting Negroes to attend
the schools nearest their homes.
Outside the South, the Negroes have
demanded they be allowed to transfer
from overcrowded and inferior neigh
borhood schools to other schools that
are either all-white or predominantly
white. The Negro groups contend
northern segregation is maintained by
deliberate gerrymandering of school
districts, different transfer policies for
Negroes and whites, and separate pupil
assignment policies.
New Rochelle Decision
The NAACP’s Wilkins stated that the
New Rochelle decision had “positive
implications for other school cases in
northern cities.” New Rochelle had bi
racial schools but the plaintiffs argued
that school districts had been main
tained to put most Negroes in one
school under the “neighborhood school”
policy.
U. S. District Judge Irving R. Kauf
man approved the Negroes’ request to
be allowed to transfer to other schools
and the U. S. Second Circuit Court
of Appeals upheld him. The U. S. Su
preme Court let the decision stand by
refusing to review the case.
In the first stage of its new campaign
outside the South, the NAACP called
upon New Jersey Gov. Richard D.
Hughes to adopt a firm and positive
policy to end de facto segregation in
public school. The organization initiated
individual suits or protests in such
communities as Orange and Maplewood,
N.J.; Cleveland, Ohio; Nassau and Suf
folk counties, N.Y.; Detroit, Mich.; and
Hempstead, L.I.
Zuber has cases underway in Engle
wood, N.J., and Chicago, and has an
nounced he would go to the West Coast
to investigate anti-segregation moves in
such cities as Los Angeles, San Fran
cisco and Portland, Ore. Zuber split
with the NAACP over the tactics to be
used in the Hempstead, Long Island,
case and has filed a separate suit there
to stop a referendum that would pro
vide money to expand two predomi
nantly Negro schools. # # #
said, are “falsely interpreted as being
discriminatory.”
He listed major problems confronting
the District school system as:
• A high dropout rate among stu
dents.
• Less than satisfactory “interper
sonal relationships” between school
authorities and the public, in which
personal prejudice may interfere with
the job of teaching.
• Insufficient operating funds from
Congress.
Hansen said academic standards in
the schools are on the upgrade despite
problems stemming from “the new eco
nomic and social ghetto, based not only
upon race . . . but upon economic han
dicaps.”
Keating Says Negro
Servicemen Still
Face Discrimination
Sen. Kenneth B. Keating (R-N.Y.)
said Feb. 20 that Congress must act to
protect Negro soldiers and National
Guardsmen from the “harrassment” of
segregation.
Keating opened
a Senate inquiry
into the constitu
tional rights of
servicemen by ask
ing Chairman Sam
J. Ervin (D-N.C.)
to give priority
attention to re
ported discrimina
tion against Ne
groes.
keating Despite former
President Truman’s 1948 order direct
ing equal treatment of all servicemen,
Negroes must use segregated facilities
near military installations in some
Southern states, Keating declared.
“If there is not a federally operated
school on the base,” he said, “they must
send their children to segregated
schools in the neighborhood.
“In the field of education, this segre
gation is all the more objectionable and
reprehensible because the schools which
take children from military bases are
to a large extent subsidized by the Fed
eral Government under the terms of
Public Law 815 and 874 (aid to Fed
erally impacted areas).
“It is shocking that under these laws
federal funds are often the mainstay
and support of schools which operate
in defiance of federal court orders. This
is an area, of course, in which the De
fense Department and the military
service are not to blame. It is, never
theless, a national responsibility to in
sure that Negro draftees and Negro re
servists who are called into uniform to
serve their country in time of need are
not denied their constitutional rights
to equality of opportunity and treat
ment and are not subject to segregation
and harrassment while they are wear
ing the uniform of the armed services
of the United States.”
Amendment Against
Segregation Loses
The House Commerce Committee re
jected on Feb. 28 an anti-segregation
amendment to President Kennedy’s
$932 million program for aid to med
ical and dental education.
The amendment, offered by Rep. Ab
ner W. Sibal (R-Conn.), would have
denied scholarship and construction
funds to colleges and universities
practicing segregation. It was turned
down by 13-to-ll vote in executive
session.
Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare Abraham A. Ribicoff said in
testimony before the committee several
weeks ago that the Administration was
opposed to the amendment because it
would endanger the bill’s chances of
passage.
Judges Say Race
Is Not a Factor
Two judges of the Federal District
Court advised the Central-Northwest
Citizens Association that the race of
candidates for appointment to the Dis
trict School Board is not a factor in
their selection.
The judges’ letters, made public Feb.
8, were prompted by a resolution
adopted by the association which sug
gested that bias might account for the
fact that Negro membership has for
decades been limited to three of the
nine board positions. About 80 per cent
(See D. C., Page 16)