About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1963)
PAGE 18—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—JUNE, 1963 1 WEST VIRGINIA Desegregation Hikes College’s Enrollment CHARLESTON, W. VA. TIT est Virginia State College, ** organized as a Negro insti tution, has grown largely because of desegregation, its president, Dr. William J. L. Wallace, said in a review May 11 of the school’s last 10 years. He said the college has changed from a very good institution for a minority group to one accepted for all citizens. It has experienced the highest percent age growth of all colleges and universi ties in West Virginia, he added. In 1954 when the Supreme Court or dered desegregation authorities had feared there might be trouble on the campus, Dr. Wallace said, but there has been no real strife. There have been complaints on cam pus that discrimination has developed in reverse, that white enrollees have run into prejudice from the Negro on- campus majority. But there has been no all-out dis cord. And State has slowly become an institution where white and Negro stu dents attend classes together, or en gage in other campus activities with out any significant problems. Difficult Period Dr. Wallace noted in an interview that one of State’s most difficult periods came after the post World War II col lege boom. In 1947 there were 1,791 students, but by 1952 the total had dropped to 859. “I began to wonder why,” Dr. Wal lace said. “Some of the reasons were, of course, evident. West Virginia’s Ne gro population had started to decline and schools in the Southern states, from which we drew many students, were being improved.” To counteract this trend, Wallace and his staff started a program to encour age more West Virginia Negroes to at tend college, and enrollment made a slight gain the next year. When the Supreme Court ruled, and the state board endorsed its decision with a desegregation directive, there was no immediate influx of white stu dents, “but there were enough to show that the community would accept us,” Wallace said. Then the growth pattern started and the total today is 1,505. A significant factor in this growth had been the in crease in part-time students. Dr. Wallace said the college today operates with two primary objectives— excellence in racial relations and in academic programs. It is in the field of race relations that the college has received widest attention. “I think we have achieved an outstanding objective here,” said Dr. Wallace. “I can’t say race has been completely eliminated as a factor,” he went on, “but it is a minor factor in the opera tion of the college.” In addition to the student body, the staff, faculty and nearly all student ac tivities have been desegregated. Legal Action Hearing Awaited On Suit To Speed Desegregation Parties to a suit that has an increased desegregation tempo as its objective still are awaiting a decision by South ern District Federal Court as to when the suit will go to trial. Federal Judge John A. Field of Charleston has not set a date for the case of Taylor v. the Raleigh County Board of Education. The National As sociation for the Advancement of Col ored People is a party to the suit on the side of the plaintiff. The suit was brought several years ago and has been held on the inactive calendar since the Raleigh board agreed to racial desegregation of the public schools on a voluntary basis. This action grew out of a case in Greenbrier County which went to trial but was terminated after two days of testimony when the board agreed to the voluntary desegregation policy. The Raleigh County case was re opened by the NAACP last year when its county leaders decided school de segregation was not moving fast enough. Judge Field said several months ago that he would arrange the hearing for this spring. GEORGIA Desegregation on Increase Outside Atlanta MACON T he tempo of school desegre gation in districts outside Atlanta appeared to be on the increase in Georgia as activity was noted in Savannah, Macon, Columbus, Augusta and Bruns wick. Atlanta schools removed color bars in the classrooms under court order in the fall of 1961 and is the only deseg regated school district in the state. Here, in brief, is the situation: Savannah: The Chatham County Board of Education set up a commit tee to submit a grade-a-year desegre gation plan and to implement it this fall when the 1963-64 school term be gins, after being ordered to do so by the U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Ap peals. Macon: A suit to desegregate Bibb County schools’ students, faculties and administrative facilities is expected to be filed in federal court in the very near future. This move came after board of edu cation lawyers asked a superior court judge if the board had authority to operate segregated schools and an at torney for the Negroes asked the court to declare unconstitutional the segre gation section of the board’s charter. The case was taken under advise ment and lawyers given 20 days in which to file briefs. Augusta: Similar action was taken in Augusta when the Richmond County Board of Education asked a superior court to determine whether the board has authority to establish or operate public schools other than separately for Negro and white children, and if the board has legal authority to put Negro and white children in the same school. Columbus: The U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare asked the Muscogee County Board of Educa tion to submit a plan for educating high school students from nearby Fort Benning on a desegregated basis. No deadline for the plan was set and the board members did not dis cuss the request after receiving it at a May 13 meeting. At the same time, a group of Negro citizens warned that unless their desegregation requests are met, “outside forces” may come into the city to lead a drive. The requests included desegregation of all public facilities. Muscogee Ne groes petitioned some time ago for an end to discrimination in the schools on the basis of color. Brunswick: W. W. Law, president of the Georgia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the Glynn County Board of Education is discussing the possibility of desegregation with Negro leaders. The Savannah situation, because of the federal appellate court order and the legal arguments of defense law yers at an earlier federal district court hearing in Brunswick, attracted the most interest. U. S. District Judge Frank M. Scar lett presided at a hearing on a Savan nah school desegregation suit which was opposed by attorneys for white youths using what they described as a new technique. The action, listed on court dockets as Ralph Snell and others against the Sa~ vannah-Chatham Board of Education, was originally filed in January, 1962, by 36 Negroes seeking to enter a white school in Savannah. A group of white parents filed a mo tion to intervene in the suit, based on alleged damage to white students forced to desegregate. They asked the court to require the board to maintain seg regated schools in addition to desegre gated ones if desegregation was or dered. Judge Scarlett termed the in tervention approach “novel” and ruled on March 29 to permit the interven tion. Representing the white youths seek ing to intervene were Charles J. Bloch of Macon, R. Carter Pittman of Dalton and J. Walter Cowart of Savannah. Bloch and Pittman are veterans of many court battles over various aspects of segregation and both are strong states rights advocates. They said they were laying the foun dation for an entirely new type of ap peal to the U. S. Supreme Court by using the same type of arguments ad vanced by the NAACP in the five cases leading to the U. S. Supreme Court desegregation decisions in 1954. Mrs. Constance Baker Motley of New York, a well-known NAACP attorney, was the leading lawyer for the Negroes. Gov. George Wallace of Alabama had his legal adviser present and said prior to the hearing: “For the first time white children will appear in court seeking appropri ate protection of their educational op portunities.” Scarlett announced that the Negroes were entitled to an injunction allowing them to enter the Savannah white schools in the fall of 1963 unless: • The Negroes fail to prove to him that they would be injured by con tinuing segregation, or • The defendant school board or the intervening white students justify to him the operation of a biracial system. Dr. R. T. Osborne, professor of psy chology and director of the student guidance center at the University of Georgia, testified that a published study by him showing Negro students have lower learning capacity was made on the basis of statistics from the Savan- nah-Chatham County schools. Testimony Called Inadmissible Mrs. Motley questioned Scarlett’s admission of testimony by the psy chologist and said, “I’m sure that after the three times the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled segregation is uncon stitutional there is no basis for admis sion of this testimony.” Scarlett answered that he was de termined to permit a thorough airing of the psychological evidence which the white students’ attorneys said they in tended to introduce in great depth. Osborne said on cross-examination that his tests did not take into account any differences that may exist in the facilities or the curriculum in the Sa vannah schools. But he said the tests “indicate desirability of separate edu cational treatment of white and Negro students.” The psychologist said he set up the achievement testing program for the school system in 1954 and it has been tabulated annually since on the basis of tests administered by the teachers in both Negro and white schools. Another psychologist, Dr. Henry E. Garrett, professor emeritus of psychol ogy at Columbia University and now teaching at the University of Virginia, said that national tests proved “the Negro child does not do better when conditions are equalized.” Garrett, an avowed segregationist, further testified: . ‘Ruin White Schools’ “If you integrated massively you would ruin the white schools—it would pull the grade level down one to three grades. This would bring frustration, aggression, broken windows and mug gings which are common results where schools fail to challenge their pupils.” The Negro ranks low in “abstract in telligence,” Garrett said, and called that the reason “there hasn’t been a civili zation in Africa for 5,000 years.” George S. Leonard, Washington, D. C., lawyer brought in to assist in the presentation of the case of the white students, said his purpose was to prove that differences among white and Ne gro students require different educa tional treatment for their own welfare, calling for separate schools. Mrs. Motley said all the attorneys for the Negroes have to prove is that Sa vannah’s schools are segregated to win their case, and no efforts would be made to rebut the testimony for the intervenors. Leonard said this was essentially the same position which segregationists took in 1954. At that time, he said, psychological evidence was offered by Negroes seeking desegregation, but the defendants made no effort to rebut it “because they thought they had the law on their side.” ‘Fraud’ Against Court Charged Lawyers for the white youths argued the 1954 psychological testimony repre sented “a fraud” against the Supreme Court. Dr. Clairette Armstrong, a former chief psychologist at New York’s Belle vue Hospital, testified that in dealing with juvenile delinquents she found that on the average Negroes were less intelligent than whites. She said a study showed a third of Negro truants in New York ran away because of classroom problems, and added they might have stayed in school if they “had been in a har monious group progressing at a rate they could understand.” She said she thought it was very detrimental to a Negro child to attend a desegregated school. Dr. Ernest Van den Haag, professor of psychology and sociology at New York University and the New School for Social Research, said, “Psychologi cal injury from segregation is far less than forced integration to both white and colored races.” He cited to the court one of his pub lished articles titled, “Prejudice About Prejudice,” and said some authorities often ignore scientific evidence in favor of moral opinions on the subject. Van den Haag criticized authorities cited in the 1954 Supreme Court de segregation ruling and said one refer ence in the decree actually found ex actly the opposite to what the court indicated. He said other statutes cited in the decision were unsound. The Dutch-bom, European-educated sociologist said he knew of no study on the effects on Negro children from en tering a hostile white school, but he said one study showed that the crime rate rose as the amount of contact be tween racial groups increased. He testified one study showed aware ness of race began at the age of three or four years, and said members of groups, including racial groups, tend to identify with other group members and prefer to associate with members of their own group. Favors Individual Choice On cross examination by Negro at torneys, Van den Haag said he would favor racial association by individual choice. Dr. Wesley C. George, professor emeritus of embryology and histology at the University of North Carolina, said, “No educational program could be devised suited to both races.” He cited studies which he said showed that the brain of the Negro is smaller than that of the average white person, and his own studies which he said showed that the relative weight of the brain determines learning ca pacity. On the average, Negro brains are about eight per cent smaller than those of whites, George said. George, who wrote “The Biology of the Race Problem” while employed by the State of Alabama, said desegre gated schools would not eliminate any hereditary traits of “intelligence or behavior.” Mrs. Motley and Derrick Bell of New York, another NAACP lawyer, left the courtroom in mid-aftemoon of May 10 to go to Jackson, Miss. They turned the case over to B. Clarence Mayfield, a Negro attorney from Savannah. Dr. Robert Gayre, a Scottish educa tor and editor of “Mankind Quarterly,” a scientific publication dealing largely with racial matters, was to have been the first witness for the white students on May 13. But Judge Scarlett, under a Court of Appeals order to decide the case on that date, did so. A few hours after Leonard said fur ther testimony would be repetitious and the hearings ended, Judge Scarlett de nied the injunction to desegregate schools in the City of Savannah and Chatham County. Judge’s Conclusions In a 10-page statement of findings, he concluded: • “White and Negro school children have equivalent rights before this court and are equally entitled to be consid ered in the scope and content of con stitutional rights. • “A reasonable classification within the meaning of the equal protection clause of the Constitution would be one which secures the maximum results in the educational process for all students and the minimum injury to any. • “The classification of children in the Savannah-Chatham County schools by division on the basis of coherent groups having distinguishable educa bility capabilities is such a reasonable classification.” The Negroes’ efforts to obtain an in junction ordering desegregation in Sa vannah moved to the Fifth U. S. Cir cuit Court of Appeals. The State of Georgia, not a party to the case but lending legal assistance to Savannah- Chatham school board, asked the court to deny the motion for the injunction. Attorney General Eugene Cook ar gued: The board had “already made a good start toward implementing the decisions of the Supreme Court . . . dealing with desegregation of the public schools” at the time the suit was filed in January, 1962. The board had appointed a com mittee to study desegregation and it was holding public hearings. Evidence presented by white inter venors in the case “presented for the first time substantial issues” not previ ously brought before the Supreme Court or any other court. This in cluded testimony by psychologists that “enforced integration inflicts far greater injury upon personality development and education processes than any ills heretofore thought to flow from en forced separation.” On May 24, the appellate court ruled that all segregation in the Savannah- Chatham County schools must be ended with at least one grade fully desegre gated by September, 1963. The order further stated that a pljj of desegregation must be submitted l- July 1, and the court rebuked Judgi Scarlett for not issuing a preliminary injunction. Judge Scarlett’s order denying th ( petition for a preliminary injunction providing for desegregation was called “a clear abuse of its (the district court’s) discretion.” Scarlett was or- dered to make the appellate courts judgment his order, and to issue an in. junction to that effect as the ruling 0 f the Southern District of Georgia. The appellate court said the plan or- dered must include a statement that the maintenance of separate schools for white and Negro children of Savannah shall be completely ended with respeq to one grade during the school year commencing September, 1963, and with respect to at least one additional grade each school year thereafter. The Fifth Circuit’s unanimous opinion was handed down by Chief Judge H- bert P. Tuttle and Judge Griffin B. Bell of Atlanta, and Judge Richard T. Rives of Montgomery, following a 90-minute hearing. The court said that the 1954 Supreme Court decision that segregated schools are a violation of the 14th Amendment should have ended the matter for the district court, and the district court should have done what the Supreme j Court directed, that is to require that the defendants make a prompt and reasonable start toward complete de segregation of schools. “Instead of doing this,” the appellate court said, “the trial court permitted an intervention by parties whose sole purpose was to adduce proof as a fac tual basis for an effort to ask the Su preme Court to reverse its decision in Brown v. Topeka.” Continuing, the order said: “The district court for the Southern District of Georgia is bound by the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court as are we, until that court overrules its decisions ... no trial court may upon finding evidence of a segregated system, refrain from acting as required by the Supreme Court merely because such district court may conclude that the Supreme Court erred either as to its facts or as to the law.” The appellate court noted that “since it has now been more than nine yean since the Supreme Court made it pl ai: what the duties of boards of education are under such circumstances,” ar ‘ L further delay might prevent the b e ; groes from enjoying “their clear rights next fall, “we must determine what re lief should be granted.” Leonard argued during the hearW? that the Savannah school system not segregated but merely maintaine- separate schools for white and N eSr y children on the basis of their diff erir ' educational qualifications. ‘Pettifoggery’ Chaiged “That is pettifoggery,” Judge said, noting that Judge Scarlett already found the system was se? 1 * Leonard said studies have been to show that desegregated schools o side the South are more harmful beneficial to Negroes. “I can understand your argum ient ho* Judge Bell said, “but I dont see rClfi a lower court can overrule the S->P Court.” o ra »-. Three days later. Dr. Darnell ner, president of the Chatham t „ School Board, named a commit * , work out a desegregation $- headed by Julian Halligan, an ance man. at tor- Cowart said he and two °tn er . p neys for the white parents plan 11 ★ ★ ★ In the Colleges Georgia University Conduets First Biracial Graduation . the Uni'' er Graduation exercises at tne ^ c . sity of Georgia ma ked school in Athens for Hamilto and Charlayne Hunter. , j eI its “ The two, the first Negro stu ^ ^ attend a public biracial sc en tei^ educational level in Georg l%i un^ the university in January, ’ federal court order. Dnosellt f* U. S. Sen. Richard B. R L® dressing the first desegrega ating class, said: oU r “Much of the stability of pec^y ernment has come from oU gn d 0 the choice of the majon > . ^ , abiding by this choice, even ^ have to accept^the verdict vprsp maioritV.” i l i i 1 ( ( i c a f I 1 c t ( t f: r A o E b tl Ci o: P 0] tr w o] it R A va nc Pi sh fo: Cc sei Pr W< th< of me an, fu] be] mi yoi ex< wil Pet 695 in tier « spe trej Edv wil] tty Pro; iPri thej Meg T} Pain r ais< spon fam St Or Sa
