Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8—JUNE, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
TENNESSEE
Supreme Court Outlaws Race-Based Pupil
(Continued from Page 1)
then at their option (or that of then-
parents) choose, entirely free of any
imposed racial consideration, to re
main in the school of their zone or
transfer to another.”
“Classifications based on race for the
purpose of transfer between public
schools, as here, violate the equal pro
tection clause of the 14th Amendment,”
the court said, adding:
“The recognition of race as an abso
lute criterion for granting transfers
which operate only in the direction of
schools in which the transferee’s race
is in the majority is no less unconsti
tutional than its use for original ad
mission or subsequent assignment to
public school.
‘Equality’ Called Superficial
“The alleged equality—which we
view as only superficial—of enabling
each race to transfer from a desegre
gated to a segregated school does not
save the plan. Like arguments were
made without success in the Brown
case in support of the separate but
equal educational program. Not only
is race the factor upon which the
transfer plans operate but also the
plans lack a provision whereby a stu
dent might with equal facility transfer
from a segregated to a desegregated
school. The obvious one-way opera
tion of these two factors in combina
tion underscores the purely racial
character and purpose of the transfer
provisions. We hold that the transfer
plans promote discrimination and are
therefore invalid.
“This is not to say that appropriate
transfer provisions, upon the parents’
request consistent with sound school
administration, and not based upon
any state-imposed racial condition,
would fall. Likewise, we would have
a different case here if the transfer
provisions were unrestricted, allowing
transfers to and from any school re
gardless of the race of the majority
therein. But no official transfer plan
or provision of which racial segrega
tion is the inevitable consequence may
stand under the 14th Amendment.
“In reaching this result, we are not
unmindful of the deep-rooted prob
lems involved. Indeed, it was consid
eration for the multilarious local dif
ficulties, that ‘variety of obstacles’
which might arise in this transition,
that led this court eight years ago to
frame its mandate in the Brown case
in such language as ‘good faith com
pliance at the earliest possible date’ and
‘all deliberate speed.’
“Now, however, eight years after this
decree was rendered and over nine
years after the first Brown decision,
the context in which we must inter
pret and apply this language to plans
for desegregation has been significant
ly altered. The transfer provisions here
cannot be deemed to be reasonably de
signed to meet legitimate local prob
lems and therefore do not meet the
requires of Brown (case.)”
Effect Studied
School officials immediately began
studying the effect of the decision, the
first school desegregation ruling by the
court since the Little Rock case and
the second since the Brown case.
Nashville attorney K. Harlan Dod
son, special counsel for the Davidson
County Board of Education, said:
“As I see it, all this means is that
each transfer request will have to be
considered on its individual merits,
rather than grant a transfer on a blan
ket request.”
Dodson said that in his opinion, par
ents still may apply for transfers if
they feel their children, either Negro
or white, would suffer “psychological
ly” from attending biracial classes.
The attorney said the board of ed
ucation would be required in such
cases to consider each request individ
ually to determine whether there were
sufficient grounds for requesting the
transfers.
Had Expected Dissent
Expressing surprise at the absence
of a dissenting opinion, Dodson said:
“I certainly don’t believe the court’s
decision would prevent the school
board from exercising its right to
transfer students of either race to an
other school where it feels the stu
dent would be helped by such a trans
fer.”
Supt. J. E. Moss of the Davidson
County schools said he had no com
ment on the decision pending a con
ference with Dodson. “But I thought
our student transfer plan was most fair
Tennessee
Pupil-transfer provisions in the
desegregation plans of Davidson
County and Knoxville were ruled un
constitutional on June 3 by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Five Negro teachers were assigned
to previously all-white classrooms by
the Putnam County Board of Edu
cation, which also announced plans
to enroll an additional 105 Negroes
in biracial classes this fall.
Gov. Frank G. Clement appointed
Dr. Harold D. West of Nashville as
the first Negro ever to serve on Ten
nessee’s State Board of Education.
A Chattanooga city commissioner,
James E. Turner, recommended the
appointment of a Negro to serve on
the Chattanooga Board of Educa
tion.
Highlights
The Memphis Board of Educa
tion’s grade-a-year desegregation plan
was accepted by U.S. District Judge
Marion S. Boyd.
Plans were announced to admit
Negroes to undergraduate courses at
George Peabody College for Teach
ers at Nashville, beginning this fall.
President Kennedy during a visit
to Nashville emphasized the respon
sibilities of educated citizens.
A 26-member Commission on Hu
man Relations was named by Metro
politan Mayor Beverly Briley at Nash
ville.
A group of white business and
civic leaders organized a committee
to seek desegregation of all public
facilities in Knoxville.
to members of both races,” he said.
Supt. Thomas N. Johnston of the
Knoxville school system said he would
have to study the district’s desegrega
tion program thoroughly before com
menting on the effect of the Supreme
Court’s decision.
Nashville attorney Avon N. Williams
Jr., one of the lawyers for Negro plain
tiffs, said he was “pleased and grati
fied” by the decision. “We have been
concerned since the Nashville desegre
gation plan was approved that the law
was designed and used to perpetuate
segregation,” he added. Williams and
Dodson agreed the decision also may
apply to the Nashville district.
Nashville Plan
A similar transfer provision was in
cluded in the Nashville plan, which
has served as a guide for desegrega
tion in many other Tennessee and
Southern cities. The U.S. Supreme
Court in 1959 refused to review an ap
peals court decision upholding the
Nashville plan. (Kelley et al v. Nash
ville Board of Education.)
The Supreme Court first agreed to
review the transfer provisions last Oct.
8 after similar plans were rejected by
appeals courts for New Orleans and
Charlottesville, Va.
During the arguments before the
high tribunal, attorneys for the school
boards contended that transfer provi
sions afforded equal protection to per
sons of all races and that voluntary
segregation was not in violation of the
14th Amendment.
Dodson and attorney S. Frank Fow
ler of Knoxville, counsel for the Knox
ville Board of Education, presented the
In the Colleges
Peabody A
George Peabody College for Teachers
at Nashville, which has conducted bi
racial classes at the graduate level since
1953, will admit Negro undergraduate
students beginning this fall, officials an
nounced on May 9.
The announcement was made by
Walter Stokes Jr., chairman of the Pea
body board of trustees, and Dr. Felix
C. Robb, Peabody president, following
a meeting of the board.
“Admission shall be based upon com
petence, character and merit,” the an
nouncement stated.
Stokes and Dr. Robb pointed out that
146 Negro graduate students have been
enrolled at Peabody since the private
institution began desegregation in 1953.
Thirty-five of the group, which in
cluded non-degree students, have re
ceived graduate degrees, they added.
Experience Cited
Their statement continued:
“Indeterminate numbers of Negroes
have attended special short-term
events. Non-Peabody affiliated students
in the University Center, including two
undergraduates, have taken courses at
Peabody. Both Scarritt (College) and
Vanderbilt (University), with which
Peabody is affiliated in the University
Center, have already adopted a policy
of desegregation at all levels. With the
successful experience of 10 years be
hind us, the Board of Trustees of
George Peabody College for Teachers
has taken action ... to broaden the
policy to a general one.”
The college has about 1,750 students.
school boards’ arguments along with
attorney Jack Petree of Memphis, rep
resenting the Memphis Board of Edu
cation.
Although they were not directly in
volved in the cases, both the Memphis
and Chattanooga school systems joined
in defending the transfer provisions.
Attorney Jack Greenberg of New
York, counsel for the National Associ
ation for the Advancement of Colored
People, assisted by Williams, present
ed arguments for Negro plaintiffs. He
contended that both the Knoxville and
Davidson County school systems
adopted the transfer provisions pri
marily to maintain as much segrega
tion as possible.
Assistant Attorney General Burke
Marshall, chief of the Justice Depart
ment’s civil rights division, told the
court that school boards could not use
race as the basis of transfer.
The Davidson County system was or
dered by Federal Court to desegregate
the first four grades in 1961, with a
grade a year thereafter. It enrolled 185
Negroes in biracial classes during the
past year and will desegregate the sev
enth grade in September, keeping pace
with the adjacent Nashville district.
Both the Davidson County and Nash
ville systems now are being operated
under a transitional school board lead
ing to consolidation in July, 1964, un
der Nashville’s new metropolitan gov
ernment.
Knoxville was ordered by the fed
eral court to desegregate in 1960 and
during the past year enrolled about 86
Negroes in biracial classes in the first
four grades.
dopts New
Another highlight of the board meet
ing was an announcement that Pea
body had been awarded a $115,000
grant for a study of biracial higher ed
ucation in the South.
The grant, made by the General Edu
cational Board, a Rockefeller-endowed
philanthropy, will be used to finance
a two-year study which will get under
way this fall.
“We will attempt to cover as many
facets of biracial education as we can,”
Dr. Robb said, including all-white and
all-Negro colleges as well as those
which have desegregated.
“I have felt this (the study) is
needed and we want to produce a
statesmanlike study with a published
report which can be distributed for the
fuller development of the South. . . .
We think it can help institutions which
do not know which way to go.”
★ ★ ★
Vanderbilt Turns Down
Negroes; Grades Cited
Four Negro students who sought ad
mission to undergraduate classes at
Vanderbilt University at Nashville have
been rejected for academic reasons,
Dean of Admissions T. D. Young said
on May 10.
“The acceptance committee will han
dle all applications alike, but to enter
Vanderbilt the student must be quali
fied,” Young said.
Names of the students were not an
nounced. Officials said, however, they
Schoolmen
Negroes To Teach
Biracial Classes
In Putnam County
The Putnam County Board of Edu
cation at Cookeville on May 10 volun
tarily assigned five Negro teachers to
previously all-white classrooms, effec
tive this fall, and announced plans for
the admission of an additional 105 Ne
groes to biracial classes in all grades.
Except for the Oak Ridge school sys
tem which was desegregated in 1955
while under federal control, the board’s
action is the first in Tennessee in which
Negro teachers have been assigned
positions in predominantly white
schools.
Assignment of the teachers as well
as the plans to admit the Negro stu
dents to formerly all-white classes fol
lowed a decision by the board not to
rebuild Darwin School, destroyed by
fire in January. The teachers and stu
dents had been assigned to the Negro
school.
Since the fire occurred, three Negro
students previously enrolled at Darwin
have been attending the county’s first
biracial classes at Central High School
in Cookeville, the Putnam County seat
located about 80 miles east of Nash
ville. Another Negro student was en
rolled at formerly all-white Algood
High School.
The remainder of Darwin’s students,
including 31 high school and 78 ele
mentary pupils, have been attending
temporary classes in church buildings.
State Tenure Law
School Supt. E. H. Watson said the
board was required to employ the
teachers under provisions of the state
teacher tenure law.
“The board had no choice,” Watson
said, “we have only one other Negro
school.”
Watson said the
teachers, assigned
to five different
schools, “are all
under tenure law
and are certified
teachers. I have
talked with State
Department of
Education officials
and they have no
better suggestion
as to what to do
with these teach
ers who have been previously em
ployed at Darwin.”
State Education Commissioner J.
Howard Warf earlier had rejected a
plan that the school system build a
three-room Negro school to take care
of the students who had attended Dar-
Policy
were not residents of Tennessee.
The Vanderbilt Board of Trust voted
last year to accept qualified Negro stu
dents at the undergraduate level. No
Negroes were enrolled last fall because
classes already had been filled at the
time the Board of Trust adopted the
new policy.
Vanderbilt’s graduate divisions are
open to Negroes in classes “not other
wise available” to them in Nashville.
Some Negro graduate students are at
tending classes in undergraduate
courses.
The four applications were the only
ones which had been returned by Ne
gro students in response to information
and admission forms mailed to several
applicants, officials said.
★ ★ ★
The University of Tennessee Athletic
Council at Knoxville on May 4 decided
to await action by the Southeastern
Conference before taking steps toward
biracial sports events.
Although the university has been de
segregated since 1952, when Negroes
were admitted to graduate classes, Ne
groes have not participated in varsity
sports. The Volunteers have competed
with desegregated teams away from
home but not at Knoxville.
The first Tennessee institution of
higher learning to desegregate, the uni
versity’s undergraduate classes were
first opened to students of both races
in January, 1961. A total of 114 Negro
students were enrolled among the uni
versity’s 11,038 students last fall.
Transfers
win. Warf advised county officials thy
a school must include at least five
teachers before it could be approve;
by the state.
Teachers assigned to previously al-
white schools include Isaac Bohanon
principal at Darwin for about 15 yean
who will teach at Cookeville Centra!
High; his wife, Mrs. Amanda Bohanoa
assigned to Sycamore Elementary
School; Mrs. Edna T. Beasley, who was
given a position at Park View Ele
mentary School; Mrs. Agnes Baylor,
assigned to Capshaw Elementary
School, and Mrs. Easter Mays, placed
on the faculty at Jere Whitson Ele
mentary School.
Bohanon said he and the other four
teachers “expect to do just as good a
job as we possibly can.”
All Have Degrees
All of the Negro teachers hold a!
least a bachelor’s degree and Bohanon
has a master’s degree. Mrs. Mays is a
vocational home economics teacher.
Watson said most of the schools to
which the Negroes were assigned have
rotating teaching systems, in which the
same group of students spends about
an hour each day with each teacher.
All of the schools are located in the
Cookeville area and all of them except
Jere Whitson likely will have Negro
students, Watson said.
If no Negroes are enrolled at one or
more of the schools, it would mark the
first time in Tennessee that Negro
teachers have been assigned positions
in all-white schools.
The Negro teachers were assigned by
the board as it placed other teachers
in the system for the next school year,
The board of education planned a
survey to determine which schools the
former Darwin students would attend.
Putnam County Court voted to con
struct temporary classrooms at ele
mentary schools where the admission
of Negroes would cause overcrowding
of existing facilities.
Sought New Building
Magistrate H. M. Judd was among a
six-man delegation which asked Com
missioner Warf on April 19 to allow
the construction of the small Negro
school to replace the burned facilities
Asserting that the Putnam County sit
uation was unique, Judd said:
“The majority of the white people
want to go on and integrate the ele
mentary school as they did the high
school but the Negroes want their own
school.”
Watson said the Negro students who
are expected to be assigned to biracial
schools are all of the pupils of tha.
race in the entire system, except •»
Negroes who now attend the fust S®
grades at a Negro school at Algoo"
Total enrollment throughout the sys" ■
tern, both white and Negro, is about |
6,700.
The superintendent said there is *
possibility that the Algood Negro scb®”
will be expanded to include eig“
grades and that some of the 105 Negf 0
students could be enrolled there.
★ ★ ★
Governor Appoints Negro
To State Education Board
Dr. Harold D. West, president of Me
harry Medical College at Nashvilte,
May 7 was appointed to the State B
of Education, becoming the first NfP
ever to serve on the policy-ma*®^
body of Tennessee’s public school sy
tern. , w
His appointment was announcea •
Gov. Frank G. Clement, who a -
days earlier had named another NCs a
Willard Bowden of Nashville, ,
member of the State Pardons
Paroles Board. of
Dr. West was named to fill
three new positions on the board, ' u
the 1963 General Assembly mcr ^
from 6 0^
members.
named by ^
ment were 1°^
State Re P obi0 r.
Glover of ^ j
and T. R- Ke>' s
Erwin. - 0 (
The g° ver V
named
Finney of ^
bia t° , s
j. Howard «
now state ^ jj, t
tion commissioner, as a mem e ^pt-
board and J. Frank Taylo^o^ of
ingdon to replace W. R-
Trenton. „, . inn
The State Board of
as the regulatory and po of . !
body for grades 1 throl ^V gover^
public schools and is .
agency for four special sc ^
(See SUPREME COURT, P
WEST
1