Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—APRIL, 1962—PAGE 19
dent
Maryland
(Continued From Page 18)
white boys and girls who were
itially tested in the ninth grade and
tested in the tenth grade, while the
juntrol group consisted of 79 tested in
L e 10th grade and again in the 11th
jjde but who had no intervening
[jjssroom contact with Negroes.
“No over-all attitude change was
1 Land in either the experimental or
jptrol groups,” Dr. Lombardi reports,
j tfhen the two different lOth-grade
jk Uups were compared, one segregated
t jid the other integrated, again no sig-
jificant differences in attitude were
land.”
Voluntary Basis
The tests, administered by classroom
achers, were presented to students on
voluntary basis as a survey of social
>1 j. .(itudes rather than a study of deseg-
s Ration and attitudes toward Neeroes.
hitt W test consisted of 60 statements of
bref ipinion, with which students were to
hese # ee or disagree, 26 of them related
j Negroes and the remainder to more
the ieneral or “neutral” subjects. The re-
Iren Jilts demonstrate, Dr. Lombardi says,
all. that school integration had no effect
rick m the attitude of the Maryland sam-
ntly ile as a whole.”
the Among the variables investigated and
fted h^d not to be related to attitude
954 iange were sex (of pupil), socio-
s, iconnmic level, religious denomination,
ntelligence quotient, extent of class-
uom contact with Negroes, personality
raits and interests. On the other hand,
ittitude changes among students were
hund to be “significantly” related to
he educational levels of their mothers.
>. Lombardi writes:
“The higher the educational level of
he mother, the more likelihood of a
avorable attitude change on the part
if the student. The lower the educa-
ional level of the mother, the more
kelihood of an unfavorable attitude
hange on the part of the student, ft
appears that in the transmission of
acial attitudes the mother is a more
iriDortant figure than the father.”
While the IQ of a student as not
act ’elated to attitude change, if a change
er, ook place, the study found “a slight
;h- relationship” between IQ and the atti
tude scale scores. The higher the IQ,
ick he greater the tendency toward a more
by Svorable attitude toward Negroes.
10 ‘Convenient Scapegoat’
b One of Dr. Lombardi’s hypotheses at
® he outset was that the frustration as-
■ or elated with poorer grades would bring
lal ;&out “an expression of aggression in
of ’ ’
i
in
ch
o-
he form of increased prejudices against
he Negro.” Dr. Lombardi reasoned
hat students whose grades declined
::; er desegregation would find the
Presence of Negroes “a convenient
flapegoat.” Test results bore this out:
“The results showed that those stu
dents who declined in scholastic aver-
•§e tended to have an unfavorable
•ttitude change. The student whose
hlolastic averages improved or re
fined the same tended to have a fa-
|‘°rable change in attitude.
It was further observed that the
re indents who went from passing to
“ _ 5 hing showed an unfavorable change
, ttitude which was significantly dif—
brent from zero. It appears that the
Sore severe the decline in scholastic
’ -'erage and the greater the frustration,
ie
more likely is there to be an in
case in prejudice toward the Negro.
' Possible interpretation of this rela-
Jflnship between attitude change and
Mine in scholastic average is in terms
' the frustration-aggression hypothe-
V
After finding that the mean attitude
^atige of the experimental group as a
'bole was not related to desegregation,
> Lombardi investigated the relation-
. P between attitude change and the
*t e nt of classroom contact with Ne-
“ 0e s. The variables included home-
f °°m contact with Negroes, number of
'^es with Negroes, total number of
^tacts during a school day, average
"siber of Negroes in biracial classes
attendance in a class in which 15
Agroes were enrolled. The result: “All
these comparisons yielded insignifi-
^t results.”
Comparing Scores
, Comparing the attitude scale scores
° r the different grades, Dr. Lombardi
Mtes:
i It was found that the 12th graders
j a significantly higher or more
parable attitude than the ninth and
yth graders tested before integration
!* ’Well as the 10th and 11th graders
j?t e d after integration. The ninth and
ijth graders tested before integration
that their respective grades would
( integrated the next school year. The
jJ^h and 11th graders tested after fil
iation were actually in integrated
®ad es . The 12th graders, on the other
i^d, were in an integrated school but
, in integrated classes.
, Die interpretation that was given
0 ihe above findings was that the 12th
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Subcommittee Hears Charges on District
Schools; Decides Against Investigation
WASHINGTON
harges of racial discrimination
in the desegregated schools ol
• the Nation’s Capital were aired be
fore a special House Education
and Labor Subcommittee in
March.
School Supt. Carl F. Hansen said the
charges, placed before the subcommit
tee by a Negro newspaper editor, “are
not supported by the facts,” and the
subcommittee decided that no full-scale
investigation was called for.
Success of the District’s seven-year-
old desegregation program came under
discussion as the subcommittee, headed
by Rep. Dominick V. Daniels (D-N.J.),
continued its hearings on segregation in
federally-assisted education.
Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare Abraham A. Ribicoff appeared
before the subcommittee March 30 to
report a new federal policy toward
some segregated districts receiving
funds under the aid program for “fed
erally-impacted” schools. (See story on
page 1.)
The subcommittee, appointed by
Chairman Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
(D-N.Y.) of the parent House Education
and Labor Committee, is under in
struction to prepare a report to Con
gress by May 17, the eighth anniversary
of the Supreme Court’s school desegre
gation decision.
Teacher Assignments
C. Sumner Stone, editor of the Wash
ington Afro-American, appeared before
the subcommittee March 13 to charge
that the District school system had used
teacher assignment procedures to pre
serve racial segregation. He also testi
fied that many teachers and adminis
trators employed by the schools actively
discriminate against Negro students.
Stone praised Hansen as an able ad
ministrator and “a man remarkably
free from racial prejudice,” but
charged that some of the superintend
ent’s subordinates “do not share the
same intellectual and emotional com
mitment to an integrated school system
as he does.”
Stone said his newspaper had pub
lished a series of articles containing
these allegations:
• That various school officials have
publicly made anti-Negro and anti-
Semitic remarks.
• That teacher assignments have been
used to give some schools all-Negro
teaching staffs and student bodies.
• That some District schools are “ra
cial powderkegs and are capable of one
day exploding into racial violence un
less the principals are replaced with
administrators who feel more positively
graders were not faced with the threat
of an integrated 12th grade or classes.
It seems that the real or imagined
threat of attending classes with Negroes
and being in integrated classes might
have been responsible for the less fa
vorable attitudes of the groups com
pared with the 12th graders. However,
it is also possible that the difference in
attitude might be due to other factors
such as developmental change or an
academic ‘status’ difference.”
Impacted Areas
Maryland Unaffected
By Aid Withdrawal
The announced plans of the Kennedy
administration to discontinue federal
aid to segregated public schools serv
ing children living on military reser
vations is not expected to have much,
if any, impact on Maryland schools. Dr.
Thomas G. Pullen Jr., state superin
tendent of schools, described HEW
Secretary Abraham Ribicoff’s an
nouncement as “any empty gesture in
Maryland because none of the schools
is legally segregated.”
Maryand is well stocked with military
installations. State enrollment data
shows 5,794 public school pupils living
on federal reservations and another
82,839 children of government person
nel living off-post.
Much of the early pressure for school
desegregation in several Maryland
counties came from Negro parents sta
tioned at military bases in Bainbridge,
Aberdeen, Edgewood and Southern
Maryland. As a result, most of the
school districts that would be affected
by a cut-off in federal aid to impacted
areas already are in the advance stages
of their desegregation programs.
# # #
D.C. Highlights
A special House subcommittee
continuing its hearings on school
segregation heard charges that the
District of Columbia’s desegregated
schools continue to discriminate
against Negroes. School Supt. Carl
F. Hansen denied the allegations,
and the subcommittee decided no in
vestigation was warranted.
Deputy Attorney General Byron
R. White, 44, was named to suc
ceed Justice Charles E. Whittaker on
the Supreme Court.
Assistant Attorney General Burke
Marshall told a conference of civil
rights groups that the area of school
desegregation shows the deepest
“gap between the requirements ol
law and the conduct of officials.”
A broad civil rights “package”
including school desegregation leg
islation was introduced in both
houses of Congress.
about the absence of racial hatred in
their schools.”
• That many Negro teachers feel
they are denied promotions in favor of
sometimes less competent white teach
ers.
Stone called attention to statements
he said had been made by Rosa D.
Wiener, a white former District teach
er. He said Miss Wiener had resigned
in protest against anti-Negro feeling
in the school system.
“According to Miss Wiener,” Stone
told the subcommittee, “Walter E. Horn,
assistant principal of Western High
School, publicly refers to Negroes as
‘coons.’ has termed the NAACP ‘that
organization which wants to put us all
in chains,’ and on many public occa
sions called Jews ‘kikes.’ ”
Horn later denied Stone’s charges,
saying: “His facts are not facts—just
guesses and unsubstantiated state
ments.”
In his testimony, Stone characterized
Anacostia High School as a “hotbed of
racism” where Negro students had been
threatened repeatedly by white stu
dents. He said Eugene Griffith, Ana
costia principal, told the Afro-Ameri
can: “I take a relaxed attitude toward
this sort of thing.”
Explains Quote
Griffith said later that the quote at
tributed to him was incomplete and
used out of context. His intent in using
the word “relaxed,” Griffith said, was
to point out that he was “working
quietly behind the scenes to leam who
had been making the threats.”
Stone also charged in his testimony
that Erna R. Chapman, a supervisory
teacher, interrupted a virtually all-
Negro class at Roosevelt High School
which Miss Wiener was teaching to
ask the class if it didn’t believe that
“we were better off when the public
schools were segregated.”
Mrs. Chapman said the incident ap
parently referred to occurred at least
three years ago—“much too long ago
for me to be able to recall the context
in which I may have asked her (Miss
Wiener’s) class such a question.”
Hansen’s Probe
In a prepared statement submitted to
the subcommittee March 14, Hansen
said he had checked the complaints
with the officials named and, through
the District Commissioners’ Council on
Human Relations, with Miss Wiener.
The superintendent said it was his
judgment that the allegations “are not
supported by the facts. In the main
they seem to be based on impressions
and subjective judgment.”
“While no one should become com
placent about the quality of human re
lations in this school system,” Hansen
said, “. . . the unfortunate residue of
Miss Wiener’s charges is damage to the
spirit and enthusiasm of the particular
persons named and the increase of fears
and anxieties among the entire staff,
pupils and community.”
Hansen’s 19-page statement to the
subcommittee said, in effect, that the
city’s schools still have problems, but
have made great strides toward better
education since desegregation began in
1954.
The schools’ progress, he said, “can
be statistically documented in such
matters as curriculum revision, reduc
tion in class sizes, increases in classes
for slow learners and the physically and
mentally handicapped, improved psy
chological and counseling services, and
an improvement of library services for
the schools.
“While there is no statistical basis
on which to compare the quality of be
havior, there is clear indication that
there is nothing in the desegregation
process which has fundamentally in
creased the number of racial problems.”
Hansen said there is “clear evidence
that a stronger attack upon these social
problems has been possible because of
school unification than could possibly
have been launched under the separate
ness doctrine prevailing before 1954.”
The superintendent’s statement listed
four major areas which continue to pre
sent the schools with difficulties:
• Human Relations—“While the em
phasis in the school system has been
upon the quality of education, experi
ence shows that continuous attention
must also be given to planning which
will improve the relationships between
the races,” Hansen noted.
• Changes in Residential Patterns—
“Perhaps the most difficult problem is
the continuing change and shift in pop
ulation . . . resulting in a recurrence of
many of the same adjustment problems
that came to fight in 1954,” he said.
Some white parents, Hansen noted,
“are fearful of the effect of the in
creased number of Negro pupils in
schools that were formerly all-white.
This anxiety results from fear of aca
demic loss and from generally exag
gerated concern about moral and phys
ical safety of pupils in a changing
school.
Residential Change
“While the schools are not responsi
ble for residential change—and to as
sume that this occurs because of de
segregation is too easy an explanation
of social and economic forces at work
—they must be aware of the problems
which accompany such changes.”
• Job Discrimination—“Because all
employment doors are not fully opened
as yet, Negro youths sometimes become
embittered, disillusioned and in a sense
discouraged from doing their best work
in school and out of school,” Hansen
said.
• Cultural and Economic Lag—Dis
trict schools, Hansen noted, must find
ways to overcome educational retard
ation caused by poverty, crowding, lim
ited cultural experience, broken homes
and constant moving from school to
school.
Evaluating the District’s desegrega
tion record, Hansen said that for teach
ers not accustomed to working with de
prived pupils, the new experience has
often “proved to be shocking.” On the
other hand, he continued, “the stereo
type of the Negro pupils as difficult and
different and irresponsible has also dis
appeared.”
Tennessee
(Continued From Page 12)
called that the board had issued a
statement at the time the Chattanooga
school desegregation suit was filed not
ing that both the city and the county
systems would have to desegregate on
approximately the same schedule in
order to avoid dislocations through
mass transfers from one system to the
other.
In the Colleges
Vanderbilt Graduate
Council Advocates
End to Restrictions
Vanderbilt University’s graduate stu
dent council voted unanimously March
16 to ask Chancellor Harvie Branscomb
to recommend that the board of trust
adopt an admissions policy for the
graduate school “which contains no re
strictions based on race.”
The council also asked that all facili
ties open to graduate students—in
cluding dormitories—be available with
out racial restriction.
Just a month earlier, undergraduates
at the Nashville institution had voted
down a similiar proposal to desegre
gate the undergraduate divisions (SSN,
March).
Vanderbilt already has a few Ne
groes in its graduate and professional
schools. The board’s policy has been
to admit qualified Negro applicants
if there are no comparable facilities
available to members of their race in
Nashville. # # #
The District is still encountering
problems in recruiting teachers, Hansen
told the subcommittee.
“To be realistic,” he said, “many
white teachers are fearful of coming
into the central part of the city to teach
in predominantly Negro schools.”
But he noted that “school behavior
in the main is excellent,” social activi
ties and interscholastic athletics have
continued without restriction since de
segregation, and academic achievement,
as measured by standardized citywide
tests, has improved steadily since 1954.
Hansen appeared before the subcom
mittee March 15 to amplify his pre
pared statement and repeated his denial
of Stone’s charges.
‘Continuing Problem’
“I would hope we could be given the
opportunity to do the job without the
intrusion of claims and charges that
lack substance,” he said. “We do have
a continuing problem in maintaining
stability.”
Hansen told the subcommittee that “it
would be naive to assume that every
thing is at the best possible level with
respect to human relations.” Some racial
bias may persist among some school
staff members, he said, “but to claim
that discrimination is rampant in the
school system is irresponsible. . . .”
Rep. Peter Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), a
member of the subcommittee, com
mented after Hansen’s appearance that
any House probe into Stone’s charges
would “exaggerate the allegations be
yond their actual importance.”
“I hope we will not pursue this any
further,” Frelinghuysen said.
Chairman Daniels agreed, though he
said he would permit any school official
to testify further if he so chooses.
Other Witnesses
Other witnesses who testified before
the Daniels subcommittee at hearings
during March included:
• Paul Cooke, national vice chairman
of the American Veterans Committee,
who told the subcommittee March 7
that Congress should enact legislation
“that would prohibit federal aid or as
sistance to any educational institution
or program organized on the basis of
race or denying admission to a person
on account of his race.”
Cooke made specific reference to col
lege housing loans by the Community
Facilities Administration and the Hous
ing and Home Finance Administration;
the student loan program under the
National Defense Education Act; the
4-H Club movement, and aid for fed
erally-impacted areas.
• Herman Edelsberg, Washington
representative of the B’nai B’rith Anti-
Defamation League, who appeared
March 7 to urge enactment of the Civil
Rights Commission’s proposals to re
quire segregated school districts to file
desegregation plans, authorize the At
torney General to act in cases of non-
compliance and provide technical and
financial assistace to desegregating dis
tricts.
• Mrs. Barrington D. Parker of the
American Council on Human Rights,
who told the subcommittee March 13
that Congress should cut off all federal
aid to segregated institutions.
• Harold Schiff of the Public Educa
tion Association of New York City, who
testified March 13 that some New York
principals and teachers “seem to be
dragging their feet” in implementing
the school system’s integration policy.
‘Must Be Strengthened’
Schiff said efforts in the schools “must
be strengthened and supported by a
well-planned program that will pro
hibit any type of exclusion, whether in
public or private housing, based on
race, color or creed.”
• Samuel M. Brownell, superintend
ent of schools in Detroit and former
U.S. Commissioner of Education, told
the subcommittee March 15 that “our
problems of education in Detroit are
not that we have 150,000 white and
140,000 Negro pupils but that we have
290,000 pupils to educate.”
Brownell said he believed that “there
are many common and few, if any,
unique problems of pupils because of
their race; the unique problems related
to race are the ones which we make
as adults.”
• Ralph F. Fuchs, president of the
American Association of University
Professors, who appeared March 29 to
recount disputes involving students’ and
professors rights with regard to segre
gated institutions.
• Will Maslow, executive director of
the American Jewish Congress, who
charged March 29 that predominantly
Negro schools in desegregated systems
(See D. C., Page 20)