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PAGE 4—JUNE, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
OUTSIDE THE SOUTH
2 Legal Decisions Offer Different
Rulings on de Facto Segregation
wo recent legal decisions in-
volving Northern school seg
regation provided opposing rul
ings on de facto segregation re
sulting from a neighborhood
school policy and from neighbor
hood racial patterns.
U. S. District Judge George N.
Beamer refused in a Gary, Ind., (Bel!
et al v. School City of Gary) case to
order the school board to end school
segregation resulting from natural
causes. The federal judge stated the
belief that “racial balance in our public
schools is not constitutionally man
dated.”
“Furthermore,” Judge Beamer wrote,
“requiring certain students to leave
their neighborhood and friends and be
transferred to another school miles
away, while other students, similarly
situated, remained in the neighborhood
school, simply for the purpose of bal
ancing the races in the various schools
would in my opinion be indeed a vio
lation of the equal protection clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment.”
New Jersey’s commissioner of educa
tion, F. M. Raubinger, in a quasi-judi
cial decision, ordered the Orange, N. J.,
school board to adopt a plan that would
achieve what was termed a better ra
cial balance in an elementary school
with an enrollment 99 per cent Negro.
The commissioner said that such a sit
uation caused a stigma and feeling of
inferiority among the Negro children
and parents, creating “an undesirable
effect upon attitudes related to success
ful learning.”
‘Time-Tested Patterns’
On neighborhood schools, the com
missioner said:
“The practice of assigning pupils to
schools near their homes, particularly
with regard to children of elementary
school age is well established and is
attended by educational values that are
widely accepted. ... It is the Commis
sioner’s conviction, nonetheless, that
one or more solutions to the present
problem can be developed which will
mitigate the existing undesirable con
centration of Negro enrollment in the
Oakwood school and which can at the
same time preserve and protect in great
part the values of the time-tested pat
terns of pupil assignment.”
Reviewing the complaints of the
plaintiffs in the Gary suit, Judge
Beamer said that consideration of the
evidence did not show that the board
of education had gerrymandered the
school districts or deliberately segre
gated the Gary schools according to
race. “The problem in Gary is not one
of segregated schools but rather one of
segregated housing,” he said. “Either
by choice or design, the Negro popula
tion of Gary is concentrated in the so-
called central area, and as a result the
schools in that area are populated by
Negro students.”
“The fact that certain schools are
completely or predominantly Negro
does not mean that the defendant main
tains a segregated school system,”
Jud’e Beamer said.
The Negro plaintiffs cited decisions
in Brown v. Board of Education (To
peka, Kans.), Taylor v. The Board of
Education (New Rochelle, N. Y.) and
Branche v. Board of Education (Hemp
stead, N. Y.) to support the argument
that the defendant had an “affirmative
duty” to cause a racial balance in each
school.
Notes Concession
Judge Beamer stated in his decision
on Jan. 29:
“The plaintiffs concede the question
which they now urge has not been
passed upon by the Supreme Court or
by any other Court where the Question
was specifically present. They contend
however that the language ... in the
Brown case, together with the language
found in certain other cases . . . indi
cates that it is the policy of the law
that those in charge of the administra
tion of our schools are not only p-o-
bibited from segregating the races but
they also have the affirmative dutv to
integrate the races and see that there
is racial balance maintained in the
schools cited under their supervision.
“. . . it must be remembered that in
Taylor the Court was dealing with a
situation where it fonnd that the School
Board had deliberatelv segregated the
races in their school district and what
ever the Court said there was stated in
the light of the Court’s mandate to de
segregate a school which was purposely
segregated. ... In the Branche case
the Court was passing upon a motion
for summary judgment filed by the
Board of Education. The Court’s
‘Those Alabama Stories Are
Sickening. Why Can’t They
Be Like Us and Find Some
Nice, Refined Way To Keep
the Negroes Out?’
opinion was that the Board’s showing
on its motion for summary judgment
was not sufficiently convincing and that
therefore there must be a trial on the
merits. Whatever language the Court
used in this posture could not be de
cisive of the question here.”
Neighborhood Schools
Discussing neighborhood schools,
Judge Beamer wrote:
“The neighborhood school which
serves the students within a prescribed
district is a long and well established
institution in American public school
education. ... It has many social, cul
tural and administrative advantages
which are apparent without enumera
tion. With the use of the neighborhood
school districts in any school system
with a large and expanding percentage
of Negro population, it is almost in
evitable that a racial imbalance will
result in certain schools. Nevertheless,
I have seen nothing in the many cases
dealing with the segregation problem
which leads me to believe that the law
requires that a school system developed
on the neighborhood school plan, hon
estly and conscientiously constructed
with no intention or purpose to segre
gate the races, must be destroyed . . .
because the resulting effect is to have
a racial balance in certain schools
where the district is populated almost
entirely by Negroes or whites.”
Judge Beamer concluded that “the
administrative problem of choosing
those who would be transferred and
those who would not in a rapidly grow
ing school system where the racial
complexion of the various neighbor
hoods is constantly changing would be
almost impossible to solve.”
In his Gary decision, Judge Beamer
noted that Dr. Max Wolff, a sociology
professor testifying for the plaintiffs,
had “defined a segregated school as any
school where the percentage of Negro
to white students was one-third greater
or one-third less than the percentage
of Negro students to white students in
the entire system.” The judge con
tinued:
“Dr. Wolff cited no authority for his
definition of segregated schools other
than himself. Dr. Wolff’s definition of
a segregated school may be a good so
ciological definition, but the Court can
find no authority which would indicate
that it is a good legal definition. The
Court is of the opinion that a simple
definition of a segregated school, within
the context in which we are dealing, is
a school which a given student would
be otherwise eligible to attend, except
for his race or color or, a school which
a student is compelled to attend be
cause of his race or color.”
Ratios Altered
The New Jersey commissioner of ed
ucation, Raubinger, ruled on Fisher et
al v. The Board of Education of the
City of Orange on May 15, 1963. The
city had initiated a plan in September,
1962, that resulted in altering the racial
ratios in se’’e~al schoo’s, but Oakwood
School had remained 99 per cent Negro.
Commissioner Raubinger wrote:
“The first question to be answered is:
Have the Orange school authorities, by
intent or design, segregated or at-
temoted to segregate the Negro pupils?
“No evidence has been presented to
establish such a charge. Although pe
titioners make this general allegation
they advance no proof of deliberate and
purposeful action to maintain racially
segregated schools or to discriminate
between pupils on the basis of race.
“The pivotal question in this case is:
Does the existence of the Oakwood
School as virtually an all Negro school,
constitute such an educational handi
cap to the pupils assigned to it, that
the board of education is duty bound
to eliminate its racial imbalance or re
duce it within the limits of reasonable
ness and practicability consistent with
sound educational practice?
Negro-Populated
“The area adjacent to the Oakwood
School is densely populated by Negro
families almost exclusively. . . . The
boundary lines are regular and the
Commissioner finds no evidence that
they have been drawn with deliberate
intent to make Oakwood an all Negro
school. That its enrollment is 99 per
cent Negro results obviously from the
housing pattern.
“It is clear that the ultimate solu
tion lies in the free choice of residence
and the elimination of segregated hous
ing which lie beyond the control of the
board of education or the Commis
sioner. Nevertheless, the Commissioner
is of the opinion that in the minds of
Negro pupils and parents a stigma is
attached to attending a school whose
enrollment is completely or almost ex
clusively Negro, and that this sense of
stigma and resulting feeling of inferi
ority have an undesirable effect upon
attitudes related to successful learning.
Reasoning from this premise and rec
ognizing the right of every child to
equal educational opportunity, the
Commissioner is convinced that in de
veloping its pupil assignment policies
and in planning for new school build
ings, a board of education must take
into account the continued existence or
potential creation of a school populated
entirely, or nearly so, by Negro pupils.”
The commissioner ordered the Orange
school board to submit a plan by July
1 to reduce the imbalance in the Oak-
wood school.
The NAACP’s executive secretary,
Roy Wilkins, called the New Jersey
ruling “a guide for every community
in the nation.” Miss June Shagaloff,
NAACP special assistant for educa
tion, said the decision would intensify
the organization’s desegregation de
mands in other New Jersey communi
ties—Paterson, Franklin Township, New
Brunswick and Jersey City.
The NAACP also decided after the
Orange ruling to re-emphasize its drive
against Northern and Western school
segregation based on housing patterns.
Robert L. Carter, general counsel of the
NAACP, said the drive would involve
about 25 states and will seek to achieve
its aims through other state commis
sioners of education.
The states include all those in New
England, the Middle West and the Pa
cific Coast, NAACP officials said May
18. Presumably, such states as North
and South Dakota and Wyoming will
be omitted because they have small
Negro populations.
According to Carter, a survey will be
made to determine whether the laws of
each state afford a basis for cases such
as that in Orange. Efforts will be made
to persuade state education commis
sioners to establish statewide policies
against unracial schools, but where
commissioners believe they lack the
authority, the NAACP will file cases in
in the federal courts.
Puplic schools in New York State
and New York City came under special
criticism by the NAACP in May. Miss
Shagaloff urged the New York state
commissioner of education, Dr. James
E. Allen, to implement the 1961 policy
of the State Board of Regents declaring
de facto segregation educationally un
desirable. She said “that although the
commissioner last July reported exten
sive segregation-in-fact throughout the
state not a single school system has
desegregated and up to this day, the
commissioner has not taken any action
to bring local practices in line with the
stated policy.”
New York City
On the same day, May 21, Miss Shag
aloff made similar charges against the
New York City Board of Education:
“A tremendous gap continues to ex
ist between the official policy and the
actual practices of the New York City
school system. Top school officials and
the board itself have simply failed to
implement their own policy with a
sense of urgency or clearly defined
commitment.”
Miss Shagaloff insisted that first-
graders frequently were grouped ac
cording to race. The NAACP planned
to meet with Dr. Calvin E. Gross, the
new superintendent of schools, as a first
step in a new campaign in the city.
About 14,000 New York City students
Southern School News
Southern School News is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by Southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate, unbiased
information to school administrators, public officials and interested lay citizens
on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme Court opinion of
May 17, 1954, declaring compulsory segregation in the public schools unconstitu
tional. SERS is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor anti-segregation,
but simply reports the facts as it finds them, state-by-state.
Published monthly by Southern Education Reporting Service at 1109 19th Ave.,
S., Nashville, Tennessee.
Second class postage paid at Nashville, Tennessee.
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Reed Sarratt Executive Director
Tom Flake, Director of Publications
Jim Leeson, Director of Information and Research
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Frank R. Ahlgren, Editor, The Com
mercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
Luther H. Foster, President, Tuskegee
Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Ala.
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bilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
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Observer, Charlotte, N.C.
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ville Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
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body College, Nashville, Tenn.
Reed Sarratt, Executive Director,
Southern Education Reporting Serv
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Miami, Fla.
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and Courier, Charleston, S.C.
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Schools, Richmond, Va.
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University, Nashville, Tenn.
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are expected to attend different schools
next year under a special bus transpor
tation program to relieve overcrowding
in racially unbalanced schools.
‘Racial Imbalance’
A special three-man committee ap
pointed by the New York education
commissioner to study complaints of
school segregation in Malveme, N.Y.,
reported it found “racial imbalance” in
the school district. The committee con
sisted of Dr. John Fischer, president of
Teachers College, Columbia University;
Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, professor of psy
chology at City College of New York;
and Rabbi Judah Cahn.
The committee found that if “racial
differences were not a fact of fife in
this community, the attendance areas
as defined could be cited as an excel
lent example of administrative plan
ning.” The committee also reported
observing “no evidence of different
educational standards in the schools or
“any deliberate action by the Board to
create artificial school zones to contain
the Negro school population.”
But the committee reported to the
education commissioner:
“In contemporary America, race or
color is unfortunately associated with
status distinctions among groups of
human beings. The public schools re
flect this larger social fact in that the
proportion of Negroes and whites in a
given school is often associated with the
status of the school...”
‘Cardinal Principle’
“A cardinal principle, therefore, in
the effective desegregation of a public
school system is that all of the schools
which compromise that system should
have an equitable distribution of the
various ethnic and cultural groups in
the municipality or the school district.”
“A ‘neighborhood school’ offers im
portant educational values which should
not be overlooked,” the committee said,
but added: “When a ‘neighborhood
school’ becomes improperly exclusive
in fact or in spirit, when it is viewed as
being reserved for certain community
groups, or when its effect is to cr eat ‘
or continue a ghetto type situation i
does not serve the purposes of dem°
cratic education.”
Four proposals for changing the raw-
imbalance in the schools were made .
the committee but it suggested that
“Princeton Plan” would do most to s 3
isfy current complaints.
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Secret Meeting
J. S. Attorney General Robert ^
nnedy met secretly with a
iminent Negroes in New York .
y 24 and reportedly had a he
cussion on methods of solving R°
i segregation problems.
Lfter the meeting, several of t* 1 ®.
>es attending expressed disaPP*^
nt about the session and sai ^
1 been unable to communicate ^
isident’s brother the seriousn _
: racial situation. The at *® r ? the
1 has not commented publicly
c
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sis
de;
Ke
PO!
er
ly
mes Baldwin, the Negro writer^
;ed for the meeting at V Cea tfi-
r family apartment at 24 ^
: South after a breakfast ^
re with the attorney g ea ®
;e Marshall, chief of t o* :
,*ts Division of the Depa , r^r.
tice, at Kennedy’s home at M
bout a - ~
nded the second meeting, ,
ers Lena Horne and Harry.'
e, playwright Lorraine
\CP official June Shagaio"- ^
nded in an unofficial capac? ?h ^
; B. Jones, counsel to M art ^
g’s Gandhi Society, a™ 3 V eSSO r *
z Clark, psychology P
• College of New York. j{a ,
aldwin told a press con {^ce '
jarticipants of the co " ke( j a t ^
nedy “were a little ,f h n0 t P*£
nt of his naivete. l a™ No <h£
:d to say it was a failu P
afford to look on it as ^
got to be looked at a ^
r Of a dialogue,” the writer sa
dozen Negroes and lu( jiM ^
ie second meeting, i:: _-Is- . 3
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