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I
PAGE »—AUGUST. 1962—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
SOUTH CAROLINA
Negroes Seek Admission
To Two State Colleges
COLUMBIA
esegregation efforts in South
Carolina, centered primarily
on the public school system in the
past, were expanded during July
to include the two largest state-
supported colleges.
In rapid-fire order, the rigid all-white
policies of Clemson College and the Uni
versity of South Carolina came under
attack.
The legal issue has been joined in the
Clemson case. Harvey B. Gantt, a 20-
year-old Negro from Charleston, went
into U. S. District Court in Greenville,
seeking an injunction to restrain the
io'Iege from refusing admission to him
and “other qualified Negro residents”
because of race.
The University of South Carolina
rejected an application for admission by
Henri Monteith, 16, daughter of a
Columbia school teacher. Future legal
action was indicated. (See Maryland re
port.)
Gantt, who has completed his sopho
more year at Iowa State University with
financial assistance from the South
Carolina Regional Education Board
which pays the difference in out-of-
state tuition costs, wants to become
Clemson’s first Negro student in Sep
tember.
Denies Admission Refused
Clemson, an agricultural and
mechanical school located in northwest
South Carolina near Anderson, denied
in its answer, filed July 30, that it had
refused Gantt admission. The school
said he had not filed all the information
necessary for the consideration of his
application.
The suit, brought on behalf of Gantt
by his father, Christopher Gantt, was
filed on July 9. The youth wants to
transfer
from Iowa State,
where he has been
doing work to
ward a degree in
architectural en-
gineering ,
to Clemson’s
school of architec
ture.
Named defend
ants in the suit
were Clemson’s
Board of Trustees,
which includes former U. S. Secretary
of State James F. Byrnes, and college
registrar Kenneth N. Vickery.
Papers were also served on President
Robert C. Edwards, who was not named
in the complaint.
Gantt, who was second in his class
(I960) at Charleston’s Burke High
School, has been quoted as saying that
he plans to make South Carolina his
home and wants, therefore, to attend a
state college.
‘Up the Ladder’
He was also reported as feeling that
his suit “would be much like another
step up the ladder for first-class citizen
ship for Negroes.”
He added: “I feel I will have helped
in opening the door for other Negro
boys and girls to better educational op
portunities in South Carolina.”
On July 20, President Edwards, fol
lowing a special meeting of Clemson’s
Legal Action
Board of Trustees, announced:
“The case of Harvey Gantt, Charles
ton Negro who is suing the college and
its trustees to require his acceptance
as a Clemson student, was discussed by
the board . . . College attorneys were
directed to defend the case.”
Clemson is represented by the Ander
son firm of Watkins, Vandiver, Freeman
and Kirven.
Clemson’s Answer
In its answer to the complaint, Clem
son detailed the correspondence that
has passed between Gantt and the
school. It said the Negro first indicated
an interest in attending Clemson in a
letter dated July 19, 1959.
“He did not apply to Clemson as a
freshman nor at any time did he submit
a transcript of his high school record,”
the answer alleges.
The plaintiff sent another letter,
Clemson said, on Nov. 2, 1960. An ap
plication card was sent him and it was
returned in January, 1961. It was sent
back to Gantt with a letter and returned
by him again.
The school said the plaintiff made no
effort to furnish required information
and that he was notified on Aug. 31,
that he would not be accepted as a
student for the term beginning Sept. 8,
1961.
Appeared at Office
The answer went on to state that the
plaintiff appeared in the office of Regis
trar Vickery on June 13,1962, “allegedly
for an interview, though he knew or
ought to have known that a transcript
of his work at Iowa State University for
the year then ended had not been sub
mitted in support of his application.
“Such a transcript was mailed to
Clemson College by Iowa State Univer
sity under the date of June 13, 1962, and
received by the college a few days
thereafter,” the answer continued.
“Due to the difficulty in evaluating
the work done at the other institution,
the Dean of the School of Architecture
at ricmson Go] lcp;o in tho normal pro
cess of processing the plaintiff’s applica
tion, wrote him by letter of July 2, 1962.
Clemson College has not yet received
the information requested therein . . .
The failure of the plaintiff to comply
with this request prevents further con
sideration of and processing of his ap
plication.”
The answer further denied that “this
is or can be properly termed a class
action in that no other person whose
situation is similar to that of the plain
tiff has applied for admission to Clem
son College.”
Entrance Conditions
Clemson said it follows “the common
practice in the field of higher educa
tion” in imposing entrance conditions
designed to eliminate students not
likely to pass its courses.
It also said that “a student doing
creditable work at an institution of
higher learning is not encouraged to
transfer to another.”
Lawyers for Gantt were listed as
Lincoln C. Jenkins and Matthew J.
Perry of Columbia, D. J. Sampson and
W. T. Smith of Greenville and Jack
Greenberg and Constance B. Motley of
New York.
Jenkins, Perry and the NAACP
Charleston Asks Court to Limit
Number of School Plaintiffs
Lawyers for School District 20 in the
city of Charleston asked Federal Judge
C. C. Wyche to remove all but one of the
13 Negro plaintiffs from the list of those
named in a desegregation suit filed
against the scSiool district in May.
In effect, the veteran jurist was re
quested to follow the ruling he laid
down during June in a similar case
from Clarendon County, S.C. He order
ed all but the first name stricken in that
action (Brunson et al v. Board, of Trus
tees of School District No. 1 of Claren
don County). He said it could not be
brought as a class action.
At the July 27 hearing on the Char
leston case, counsel for the Negro plain
tiffs argued there were technical differ
ences between the Clarendon and
Charleston cases. The Clarendon de-
cision now is being appealed.
Judge Wyche, before taking the mat
ter under advisement, asked plaintiffs’
attorneys if he would not in effect be
approving the appeal to his Clarendon
decision if he denied the Charleston
school board’s motion to limit the num
ber of plaintiffs in the action.
In the Clarendon case, Judge Wyche
ruled that the complaint failed to
demonstrate that the facts were the
same in reference to each of the 42
plaintiffs.
Negroes in both cases, as well as in
another similar case filed against a
Darlington County school board, con
tend South Carolina’s school placement
law is administered in a discriminatory
manner.
First on the list of plaintiffs in the
Charleston case (Brown et al v. School
District 20 et al) is a child of J. Arthur
Brown, state president of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People.
S. C. Highlights
South Carolina’s two largest state-
supported colleges found their all-
white policies under attack. Clemson
College is defending against a suit
brought by a Charleston Negro who
wants to enter its School of Archi
tecture. The University of South
Carolina rejected an application for
admission filed by a Negro girl in
Columbia, and legal action is indi
cated.
Federal Judge C. C. Wyche took
under advisement a motion by de
fense lawyers that all but one plain
tiff be stricken from the complaint
of a desegregation suit filed by
parents of Negro pupils in Charles
ton.
The state committee charged with
maintaining South Carolina’s as-yet-
unbreached segregation policies met
and declared that it expects the
schools to reopen in September with
out “untoward incidents.”
lawyers, Greenberg and Mrs. Motley,
are associated in several other pending
actions seeking to desegregate S.C.
schools.
Monteith Case
Mrs. R. R. Monteith, mother of the
girl who applied to the University of
South Carolina, said she is considering
whether to bring a suit to force the
university to admit her daughter. State
NAACP President J. Arthur Brown
added that his group would offer any
legal assistance required.
The girl is a graduate of St. Frances
de Sales High School, a private institu
tion in Powhatan, Va. She already has
enrolled for the fall term at the College
of Notre Dame for Women at Balti
more, Md.
Mrs. Monteith said application was
made in May and was rejected. “The
letter (from USC) simply said the uni
versity could not act favorably upon the
application,” she added.
Political Activity
Committee Expects
Schools To Reopen
Without ‘Incident’
The chief guardians of school segre
gation in South Carolina expect the
state’s public schools and colleges to
reopen in the fall “without untoward
incidents or public disorders.”
The statement was embodied in a
July 27 report of the state School Com
mittee, a joint committee formed in
1956 and composed of representatives
of the state Senate, House of Repre
sentatives and private citizens appointed
by the governor.
The group, commonly known as the
Gressette Committee after its chair
man, Sen. L. Marion Gressette of Cal
houn County, reviewed the desegrega
tion situation in the wake of four suits
filed against South Carolina’s public
schools and colleges.
Attorney General Daniel R. McLeod
attended the meeting of the group in
Columbia.
Issues Statement
At its conclusion, Sen. Gressette is
sued a statement that said: “It is the
consensus of the committee and the legal
staff that the public schools and institu
tions of higher education would be
able to reopen for the fall session with
out untoward incidents and public dis
order.”
The statement noted the progress
made by the schools of the state in the
past decade and particularly praised the
program of industrial education “being
developed entirely under local sponsor
ship. .
South Carolina law requires that state
funds be cut off from any school to
which and from which a student is
transferred under court order.
South Carolina is one of the three
remaining states which has no integra
tion at any level of its educational sys
tem.
Another Record
In the meantime, state attendance su
pervisor S. Guerry Stukes announced
that the public school system set an
other new record with 630,628 students
during the 1961-62 session. This repre
sented an increase of 9,209 over the
previous year.
The enrollment included 365,340 white
students and 265,288 Negro students.
The largest white enrollment was in
upstate Greenville County (40,264) and
the largest Negro enrollment in coastal
Charleston (25,253). # # #
MISSOURI 3
St. Louis Promotes Four P
Negro School Officials ^
E ight St.
officials,
ST. LOUIS
Louis public school
including four Ne
groes, have been named assistant
superintendents by Superintend
ent of Instruction Philip J. Hickey,
it was announced July 5. The four
Negroes are the first to be named
assistant superintendents in the
history of the St. Louis school
system.
Negroes who were appointed assistant
superintendents were Samuel Shepard
Jr., director of the Banneker Group of
elementary schools; William T. Smith,
acting director of the Turner Branch
Group; James A. Scott, director of the
Turner Branch Group, who has been on
| special assignment in the last year; and
! Miss Ruth Harris, a former director
! also now on special assignment.
Shepard has been mentioned in
Southern School News (September,
1961) for his work in upgrading the
achievement levels of Banneker Group
j children, as measured at the eighth
grade. The Banneker Group consists of
some 23 elementary schools of the poor
est of the five geographical districts
into which the city’s elementary schools
are grouped. The Banneker schools are
| he most heavily Negro in population,
! as well as the poorest from the stand-
j point of economic status and cultural
j background.
Scott’s Turner Branch Group is the
ither heavily Negro group of elemen
tary schools. It also has made substan
tial academic progress in the last few
years, as indicated by achievement
ests. Last October Scott was appointed
by Superintendent Hickey to be chair-
nan of the St. Louis Board of Educa
tion’s committee on desegregation prac
tices and procedures. This was a new,
full-time post to which Scott was in-
tructed to devote full time. Scott and
his committee recently made a 43-pagc
j report (SSN, July) on bus transporta -
! tion of children in the St. Louis district.
Two Negroes
Shepard and Scott were two Negroes
among five directors of elementary
school groups who received promotions.
Baker will succeed R. M. Inbody as
assistant superintendent in charge of
secondary education. Inbody, who has
served 41 years with the public schools,
is resigning to become executive direc
tor of the Educational Council for Re
sponsible Citizenship, an organization of
public, private and parochial schools
in the St. Louis area.
Superintendent Hickey said the di
rectors of the five elementary school
groups had been elevated to assistant
superintendent rank to reflect increased
responsibilities that had been given
them. Miss Harris is a former group di
rector who now is working in the per
sonnel division on problems of teacher
certification.
The population of the St. Louis pub
lic schools is now close to 50 per cent
Negro. The Negro proportion has been
increasing steadily, and this is reflected
to some extent in the time spent by
the Board of Education in dealing with
problems and challenges relating to
school desegregation.
Under Survey
Survey Indicates
Kinloch District
Ranks Lowest
Kinloch School District, with an av
erage daily attendance of 1,257 chil
dren, is St. Louis County’s only all-
Negro school district. It was organized
some years ago to serve a Negro resi
dential enclave in the north central part
of the county. Kinloch schools have
been in financial difficulties, and a re
cent survey indicated the system is the
worst in the county, by various criteria.
The situation in Kinloch and in the
county’s 25 other regular school dis
tricts was analyzed in a study of St.
Louis County’s school district organi
zation made public in July. The study
was made for the Cooperating School
Districts of the St. Louis Suburban
District by the Education Field Serv
ices of the University of Chicago’s
Graduate School of Education. The
study took more than two years to fin
ish and cost about $43,000.
Last April the Kinloch Board of Ed
ucation’s vice president announced that
it had requested federal assistance aft-
Missouri Highlights
St. Louis Superintendent of In-
struction Philip J. Hickey announced
July 5 that he had appointed eight
officials of the St. Louis public
schools system to be assistant su
perintendents. The eight included
four Negroes who were the first in
the history of the system to be
named assistant superintendents.
A report of the University of Chi-
cago’s completed study of school
district organization in St. Louis
County, made public in mid-July, in
dicated that the all-Negro Kinloch
District ranks lowest in many re
spects among the county’s 26 reg
ular districts. The report showed
Kinloch spends only $248 annually
for each pupil, while the highest
ranking district, Clayton, spends
$907.
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the board it owed $38,699 in delinquen
federal income taxes.
A University of Chicago survey stall
headed by Conrad Briner, director o
Education Field Services, evaluated th
county school districts from the stand
point of their ability of support educa-
tion and their performance in support
ing it. In addition to measuring wha
the districts were putting into educa
tion, the survey took into consideratioi
such output factors as the college at
tendance rate, scores in achievemen
tests, and ability to keep students ii
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Rated First
A summary table indicated that th
prosperous suburb of Clayton, with av
erage daily attendance of 1931 children
rated first among the 26 districts am
Kinloch placed last. Fifteen of thi
county’s districts, including Kinloch o:
course, were rated “inadequate” ii
terms of criteria set up by the study
Kinloch has a large percentage of th
county’s Negro school children, esti
mated at about 5,000 in a total popula-
| tion of some 120,000.
The survey called attention to strik
ng disparities in the ability of count)
school districts to support an educa
tional program. Individual tables com
pared the districts in terms of tax valu
ation per pupil, attendance, expenditun
per pupil, teacher training and salary
| the size of classes, and by other meas
ures. In most instances Clayton place!
! first, and Kinloch last.
Clayton’s assessed tax valuation «
$23,230 per pupil compared with $2,50
for Kinloch; Clayton’s expenditure pe
pupil was $907 to Kinloch’s $248; Clay
ton’s average salary was $7,298 to Kir
loch’s $4,617. In terms of teacher train
ing, measured by semester hours in col
lege, Clayton scored first and Kinlod
seventeenth.
Clayton’s high school classes average!
about 18 students, Kinloch’s 37. Clay
ton’s elementary classes averaged 1>
Kinloch’s 34. In both cases Clayton:
pupil-teacher ratio was the most favor
able in the county; Kinloch’s the leaS
favorable.
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Countywide District
To equalize educational opportunitj
in the county, without putting a ceilin!
on excellence, the University of Chi'
cago urged the establishment of *
countywide Special Coordinating School
District with the power to levy taxd
on a countywide basis and apportio 1
the money in such a way as to gi v ' f
special help to poor districts.
It also suggested that five new school
districts be formed from 11 existing
ones, thus reducing the total numbd
of districts from 26 to 21. It was sUa
gested that Kinloch be consolidate
with the neighboring Berkeley District
which ranked fourteenth in the su*1
vey’s summary but was thought to haV (
good potential.
Implementation of the University *
Chicago recommendations will requih
action by the state legislature and W
voters. The organization of count?
school districts, which sponsored th £
survey in cooperation with the Whi* £
House Conference on Education afl 3
the county’s Board of Education, b 3 ’
not acted on the plan but is expect^®
to consider it this fall. # # l
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