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PAGE 16—MARCH, 1964—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS SOUTH CAROLINA Desegregation Requests Made in Three Districts COLUMBIA tree South Carolina school boards were faced during February with preliminary ac tions seeking desegregation. In industrial Greenville, counsel for the schools refused a request by the Negro plaintiff in a desegregation suit brought last August that it stipulate four facts related to the case. In Rock Hill near the North Caro lina border, 14 Negroes requested transfer to all-white schools. And in low-country Orangeburg, be lief was expressed that a desegregation suit was imminent following similar requests for transfers. In the meantime, rumors persisted that at least two school boards in the state—and perhaps more—were laying the groundwork quietly for voluntary desegregation next September. Legal Skirmish In the first legal skirmishing since the Greenville case (Whittenberg v. School District of Greenville County et al.) was filed Aug. 19, Negro attorneys sought four specific admissions from the school board. They were: • “That the defendants herein are operating the public schools of Green ville County, South Carolina, on a raci ally segregated basis. • “That the defendants operate 77 schools which are limited to attendance by white students only and which are staffed by white teachers, principals and other white professional personnel. • “That the defendants operate 17 schools which are limited to attend ance by Negro students only and which are staffed by Negro . . . per sonnel. • “That the assignment of profes sional personnel in the School District . . . is determined solely by the race and color of the children attending the particular school and the race and color of the personnel to be assigned.” Request Refused The request, filed by a battery of lawyers that included four who have been associated with many desegrega tion efforts in this area, asked for an swers in ten days. It was served Feb. 12. School Board Attorney E. P. (Ted) Riley, retiring state chairman of the Democratic Party, waited only five days. In each case he refused to make the admission requested on the ground that it was “irrelevant to the issues raised in the pleadings.” The reply also stated that “the de fendants submit that the only school in issue in this action is the school covered by the plaintiff’s application for admission.” Transfer Sought The suit was brought in the name of Elaine Whittenberg, then 11, by her father, a Greenville service—station operator. She seeks to transfer from all-Negro Gower School to all-white Anderson Street School. Although she was the only listed plaintiff, four other Negro youngsters sought transfers about the same time. Intervention motions were subsequent ly filed. The Greenville district is the state’s largest in population. Its ratio of Ne groes to whites is relatively low. On February 25 Supt. W. C. Sullivan of Rock Hill School District 3 acknowl edged that ten Negro parents, repre senting 14 minors, had applied for transfer from Negro to white schools. ‘Normal Procedure’ The school trustees immediately an nounced they would follow “normal procedure” on the requests and take no action until 30 or 60 days before the opening of the new school year in Sep tember. Ten of the children want to leave Emmett Scott High School (Negro) in favor of Rock Hill High School (white). The other four want to move from Edgewood Elementary School to Sylvia Circle School. One of the students is teenager Kathleen Knox, daughter of the Rev. W. B. Knox, president of the Rock Hill branch of the NAACP. Other Negro parents making the re quests were Lizzie M. Good, Ida Cun ningham, Iday Watson, Mary A. Young, Ruth E. Young, Melissa D. Murdock, Lewis Knox, Elizabeth Hope and the Rev. Robert G. Toatley. Rock Hill is a manufacturing center of 29,400 located 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C. ★ ★ ★ The status of segregation in Orange burg, county seat of a downstate agri cultural and industrial county with a heavy Negro population, was presented to the State School (Segregation) Com mittee Feb. 27. Representatives of the Orangeburg school system appeared before the committee, headed by State Sen. L. Marion Gressette o f neighboring Calhoun County, during a meeting of the 15-member group at the State House in Colum bia. They expressed belief that there is a “probability” of desegregation suits being filed against the school system because they have several re quests for transfers to white schools from Negro students. Sen. Gressette released no other information on the closed discussion. He said his committee will soon make a report “relating ... to the field of public education.” Legislative Action Bill Would Give Local Authorities Broadened Power On the calendar and ready for action in the House of Representatives as February ended was a bill that would broaden the powers of local school boards in segregation issues and enable them to counter-attack if federal im- South Carolina Highlights Three South Carolina school boards were faced with preliminary desegregation actions. A General Assembly bill would empower local school boards to charge fees to servicemen’s children if the U.S. government cuts off its impacted-area aid because of segre gation practices and would addition ally give the school trustees greater powers in the area of pupil assign ment. Two of the first Negroes to enter the University of South Carolina in this century said indifferences and a lack of communications were the chief annoyances during their first semester at the school. Students at all-Negro South Caro lina State College asked changes in law that would allow whites to at tend and teach at the school. pacted-area funds are cut off. The House Education and Public Works Committee, which reported out the bill on Feb. 27, amended a previ ously passed Senate version to increase school board authority even more than the original bill had. If the federal government should cut off funds it pays schools in impacted areas, this measure would permit local school trustees to charge children of servicemen and other federally con nected personnel tuition fees equal to the per-pupil cost of education in the area. The second portion of the bill gives local boards the power to transfer any pupils from one public school to an other within the district “so as to pro mote the best interests of education” and gives them the right to determine what school any pupil may enter. Approximately 30 South Carolina school districts receive about $4 million a year in federal impacted-area funds. ★ ★ ★ A fund totaling $250,000 is expected to be available to start the tuition- grants plan for private schools during the fiscal year beginning in July. The plan, designed as a “safety valve” against wholesale desegregation of the public schools, was enacted last year. But the first appropriation to get it started was included in the current money bill, which was in a conference committee to iron out differences in the House and Senate versions as Feb ruary ended. Although Rep. Clary H. Smith of Spartanburg attemped to re-channel the $250,000 for grants into teacher- pay increases, the allocation remained in both versions. Gov. Donald S. Russell had asked $1 million to start the program last year. Each grant will be deducted from the amount the participating school district receives in state aid. One reason for the quarter-million-dollar fund is to take care of grants requests from pupils already attending private schools. One state official said the figure was “pulled out of the air.” No applications have been received by the State Department of Education to date and only four school districts— three in Charleston County alone— have indicated a willingness to partici pate in the plan. But Charleston’s School District 20 now has some desegregation and is under a federal-court order to deseg regate fully next September. Segrega tion policies of a number of other districts are under attack in the courts. In the Colleges Two USC Negroes Discuss Attitudes Two of the University of South Caro lina’s four Negro students said Feb. 17 that indifference toward them by white student and a lack of communications were the biggest annoyances they en countered during their first semester at the previously all-white school. The two, political science major Rob ert G. Anderson of Greenville and biology major Henri Monteith of Co lumbia, appeared on a panel before the biracial Columbia Council on Human Relations. With them on the panel were two white USC students—Jean Derrick of Columbia and Mary Carleton O’Neal of Columbus, Ga. Miss Montieth said, “The university has been formally integrated, but that’s all.” She agreed with Anderson that “a lack of communications exists” and that “too many students are indifferent.” Anderson, who is a member of the university’s highly successful debate team, added that there are still days when he sees portions of the USC cam pus (in downtown Columbia) for the first time. “But I’m proud to say,” he added, “I’ve met students who believe in my sincere efforts to get an education at the university.” He also expressed surprise that most of the friendships he has developed at the university are with Southerners. Anderson, who previously attended Clark College in Atlanta, was, along with two other Negro men, admitted voluntarily to the 7,000-student state university last September after Miss Monteith successfully went to court to effect her transfer from the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore to USC. They were the first Negro students at the institution since Reconstruction. Derrick, a sociology major, told the meeting he had sensed “a quiet, deep resentment” among some students prior to the Negroes’ entry. He said he thought the Negroes’ range of friends in the student body was widening. Miss O’Neal disclosed that a student committee had heen formed to help ease desegregation. She added that much good had been done by the of ficials of the school in preparation for the event. In the fall, the university suggested that, in the interest of safety, the Ne groes not attend athletic events. But Miss Montieth disclosed that she and Lucinda Brawley, Negro co-ed at Clemson College, the state’s second largest school, had attended an athletic event shortly before the end of the semester. She said she now believes she can attend all USC events. Anderson, who told the group he sought entrance into the university primarily because he is a South Caro linian, said, “I now realize that South Carolina can be as good as I can help make it.” ★ ★ ★ Certain students at South Carolina State at Orangeburg, the state’s only government-supported Negro college, OUTSIDE THE SOUTH New York Board Ordered To End Racial Imbalance A federal court has held for the first time that a school board violates the equal protec tion clause of the 14th Amend ment by continuing de facto seg regation — or racial imbalance — through a neighborhood schools policy. U.S. District Judge Joseph C. Zavatt on Jan. 24 ordered the Manhassett, N.Y., school board, on Long Island, to submit a plan by April 6 for ending the de facto segregation in the elementary grades by next September. The National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People, which has fought de facto segregation in sev eral lawsuits, called Zavatt’s ruling a landmark decision. Robert L. Carter, the NAACP’s general counsel, said the 59-page opinion would “carry more weight” than any other decision on the issue. Two State Supreme Court Justices in New York state, ruling in other cases, have held that school officials could not consider race in redrawing school zones, even if the intent was to end de facto segregation. State Su preme Court Justice Edward G. Baker, in his ruling last September, stopped a New York City plan to end racial imbalance in transferring white stu dents from their neighborhood junior high (Balaban et al. v. Rubin et al., SSN November, 1963). On Jan. 10, State Supreme Court Justice Isadore Bookstein ruled that Malverne, N.Y., could not consider race in drawing school zones, as ordered by State Com missioner of Education James E. Allen Jr. Principal Issue Racial imbalance resulting from nat ural causes, such as a neighborhood schools policy, has been the principal issue of recent suits in the Northern and Western states. In New Rochelle, N.Y., (Taylor et al v. Board of Edu cation et al, SSN, January, 1962), the federal courts ordered the school board to permit Negro students to transfer to schools outside the district because the board at one time had created a racially segregated school and therefore was under constitutionally imposed duty to end segregation. A federal district court, in refusing to dismiss the Hempstead, L.I., school suit (Branche et al v. Board of Educa tion et al, SSN, May, 1962), held that a school board cannot ignore segrega tion resulting from compulsory attend ance in a neighborhood school. This decision lacked the weight of the recent Manhassett one since a full hearing on the merits of the earlier case had not been held and the judge was con sidering only a motion for a summary judgment. The first case expected to present the issue of de facto segregation squarely to the U.S. Supreme Court is that involving the Gary, Ind., school board (Bell et al v. School City of Gary et al, SSN, June, 1963). Both federal, district and circuit courts have held in this case that the school board is not obligated to correct any racial im balance caused by neighborhood schools. “Racial balance in our public schools is not constitutionally man dated,” U.S. District Judge George N. on Campus have informally petitioned the General Assembly to permit whites to enroll or teach at their school. The petition, found on the college’s bulletin board, asked the legislature to amend two sections of the South Caro lina code of laws so as to eliminate restrictive clauses. The first section says the school is for the “higher education of the colored youth of the state.” The next says that the faculty and the president shall be “of the Negro race.” The unsigned notice expressed fear that South Carolina State will be de nied its pro-rata share of federal grants if such racial clauses are retained. The petition also deplored the legis lature’s practice of electing only whites to the board of trustees and called for the election of non-whites this year. South Carolina State, with 2,400 stu dents, is the state’s third-largest insti tution of high learning. Beamer ruled on Jan. 29, 1963. Because of the complexity 0 f t}, t issue in de facto segregation and tl e number of conflicting court decision on the subject, Judge Zavatt concluded his decision in the Manhassett case with a statement of “precisely vvha- today’s opinion has and has not de cided.” He continued: “The court does not hold that the neighborhood school policy per se is unconstitutional; it does hold that this policy is not immutable. It does not hold that racial imbalance and segrega. tion are synonymous or that racial imbalance, not tantamount to segre- i gation, is violative of the Constitution It does hold that, by maintaining and perpetuating a segregated school sys tem, the defendant Board has trans- i gressed the prohibitions of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court does not hold that the Constitution requires a com pulsive distribution of school children on the basis of race in order to achieve a proportional representation of whites and Negro children in each elementary school within a school district. There is no authority to support this claim of the plaintiffs. There is not repre sented here the question as to whether or not such compulsive distribution, though not required, may be permitted under the Constitution or by state law. ... I “This decision makes unnecessary a determination as to whether the seg regation found to exist is violative of other clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment or of the Civil Rights Act’ 99.2 Per Cent Segregated Manhassett has three elementary schools—two of them all-white schools ! and one, Valley Elementary, with an enrollment of 94 per cent Negro. Judge Zavatt said that the “separation of 100 per cent of the Negro children from 99.2 per cent of the white children ap proximates closely the total separation condemned in Brown. The fact that 100 per cent of the Negro children are not separated from eight-tenths of one per cent of the white children does not divest it of its segregated character. The decision stated: “. . . the separation of the Negro elementary school children is segrega tion. It is segregation by law—the lav of the School Board. In the light of the existing facts, the continuance of the defendant Board’s impenetrable attend ance lines amounts to nothing less than state imposed segregation. ... j “In a publicly supported, mandator; state educational system, the plain tins have the civil right not to be segre gated, not to be compelled to atten a school in which all of the Negro c dren are educated separate and apa from over 99 per cent of their w contemporaries.” Injury by Segregation to whether the plaintiffs ^ injured by segregation, the co . despite the infirmities -tainties of presently ay s of measuring estimated wten potential and scholastic a , the evidence in this case of establishing a causal re ^ sen the scholastic achieyemem _ /alley children and their se jTj, e from practically all of their mporaries. ^ re denial of the right not ^ gated cannot be assauag ^ jrted by evidence indica s ^ rachievement in the three ^ ue in whole or in pa 1 0 r economic level, home in ijjje ured intelligence quotien of public education in ° ur “ J eI nk is not limited to these a ^ e r icts. It encompasses a j* nation for participation stream of our society. .ream ui uui , • are dealing with Leaves l ge 5 to 11. They see the ^ in an almost entirely Neg tending a school of £in ; . „ ^o- If they emerge beyond tn ^ if the Valley area into « ^ it large, they enter a inhabited only by white rjp are not so mature an‘ tb c as to distinguish bet Z aI ^ t eparation of all Negros St 2 "’ mandatory or pemnssi ^ based on race and tn ^ al situation prevailing you district. The Valley +V>/-V CQTYIP feElinS ® * e *5 aisiiiu. ■ e es the same feeling ° to their status w‘ g up i*f as was found by ** Brown to flow l Brown to flow T 0 pefi’ r similar segregation F Rtnt.p law.”