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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—MAY, 1965—PAGE 11
ARKANSAS
Little Rock Voluntarily Abandons
Use of Pupil Assignment Law
LITTLE ROCK
A cting on its own initiative, the
Little Rock School District
abandoned the use of the state
pupil assignment law (Act 461 of
1959) and took up a freedom-of-
choice plan of desegregation. It
also stated its intention to de
segregate its staff and faculty,
both in recruitment and assign
ments.
This was done in a “supplemental
report” filed April 23 by the school
board in Federal District Court at
Little Rock, in Clark v. Matson, and
released the day before in a press con
ference.
The report said the change was part
of the board’s policy to evaluate con
stantly the progress of its desegregation
program and that the progress so far
had been satisfactory enough to prompt
the change. In the light of that progress
and of developments in the governing
law, particularly the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, the board said, it had decided
to make the changes.
Little Rock submitted a desegrega
tion plan voluntarily in 1956 but was
under federal court order to proceed
by the time the plan went into use in
September, 1957, the date that marked
the beginning of a state-federal con
frontation when Gov. Orval E. Faubus
attempted unsuccessfully to keep the
court order from being carried out.
After two years of legal and political
strife, the Little Rock board, then with
an entirely new membership, adopted
the pupil assignment law as the basis
of its program, otherwise keeping the
original plan of gradual desegregation.
It now covers all 12 grades.
Assignment Law
The principal effect of the change,
apparently, will be the dropping of the
system of using the assignment law—
the testing, evaluating and pupil hear
ings before the school board. Under
that system, any Negro pupil seeking
to attend a white or previously white
school had a routine of paperwork to
go through plus a personal appearance,
with his parents, before the board to
justify his request for a change in
assignment. Some white pupils, occa
sionally, had to go through the same
thing.
Now, said the board’s attorney, Her-
Virg
ima
(Continued from Page 10)
Supt. E. W. Rushton of the Roanoke
schools said April 23 that the faculties
at two more public schools in that city
will be desegregated next term and that
pupil desegregation will increase sub
stantially.
At present, one elementary school has
a faculty of 17 white and three Negro
teachers. About 930 Negroes, approxi
mately one-fourth of the total in the
school system, are attending desegre
gated schools.
★ ★ ★
The Virginia Congress of Parents and
Teachers will urge the 1966 General
Assembly to amend the tuition grants
law to prohibit use of grants in pri
vate schools.
State P-TA headquarters reported
April 30 that 17 of the 20 P-TA district
conventions had approved this item in
the association’s proposed legislative
program.
Political Action
Candidate Calls
For More Efforts
Lt. Gov. Mills E. Godwin, Jr., Demo
cratic candidate for governor of Vir
ginia, told approximately 160 Negro
educators April 24 that while the state
has made much progress in education,
expanded efforts are imperative.
Better school equipment, larger
teaching staffs and higher salaries are
deeded, Godwin told the annual meet-
of the Virginia Teachers Associa-
ion s department of school principals
'**■ Richmond.
Inequities in the state’s schools must
e corrected, he said, adding that “all
‘rginia children are entitled to have
£>°°d and sound program of educa
tion.”
schel H. Friday Jr. of Little Rock, there
will be no more of that. He added that
the plan probably would be found
unconstitutional under the Civil Rights
Act if tested in a court.
The new plan is to allow students
entering the beginning grades of ele
mentary, junior or senior high schools
(the first, seventh and 10th grades) to
cnoose the school they wish to attend
horn a preference form on which the
schools are listed alphabetically. Every
student will get his choice unless the
school he had chosen has become
crowded. In that case, the assignments
to that school will be made nondis-
criminatonly on the basis of the pupils
living nearest it. Those who do not
get their first choice will have an
opportunity to choose a second school.
In all other grades, students will
continue in their schools as now as
signed except in “unusual circum
stances.” The board reserved the right
to make lateral transfers on its own
initiative at any time and to grant
lateral transfers in “unusual circum
stances.”
Questions Change
L. C. Bates of Little Rock, Arkansas
field secretary for the NAACP, said
“This won’t make it any easier for
Negro pupils to attend integrated
schools. The only thing that will make
it easier with this present school board
is more litigation and a holdup on
federal funds,” he said. He contended
that the crowding feature will make it
easy for the board to control desegre
gation.
“This new plan is not acceptable to
the NAACP. This school board has been
operating under a court order for
several years and it has never fully
complied with the order. We have no
reason now to believe the board will
have a change of face,” Bates said.
But Russell H. Matson Jr., board
president ,said, “I’d imagine the plan
would speed up desegregation. And it’s
easier for Negroes because they won’t
have to appear at a reassignment hear
ing.”
Clark v. Matson was filed Nov. 4,
1964, in behalf of five Negro children,
all of whom subsequently were ad
mitted to desegregated schools. The
suit also attacked the assignment law
and segregation of teachers and asked
that ait pupil assignments be made
strictly on the basis of school attend
ance areas.
The supplemental report apparently
meets all of the demands except the
final one. On that point the Arkansas
Gazette reported, “A source close to the
board observed that in Eastern and
Midwestern states where attendance
areas are used, the schools quickly be
come segregated because of population
shifts. He speculated that under the
freedom of choice policy—which is be
ing adopted by numerous school dis
tricts both in and out of Arkansas as
evidence of compliance with federal
requirements to insure continued re
ceipt of federal funds—there would be
potentially more integration in the long
run than under the area attendance
plan. The implication was that there
would be less at Little Rock in the
immediate future.”
Little Rock has 213 Negro pupils, out
of 7,496 enrolled, attending 16 desegre
gated schools this year.
★ ★ ★
Hulbert-West Memphis
Files Plan in Court
Hulbert-West Memphis filed its de
segregation plan April 20 in the eastern
Arkansas division of federal district
court at Jonesboro, under an order
from Judge Gorden E. Young in Yar
brough v. Weaver (SSN, February and
April).
It is a freedom-of-choice plan to
cover the first six grades in September,
1965, then three more grades each year
until all 12 grades are covered in
September, 1967. The board also said it
would begin desegregating its faculty
and staff this fall and that all school
buses would be operated without racial
discrimination.
The filing said the plan was adopted
unanimously April 13 by the school
board whose members are H. E.
Weaver, president; R. O. Buck Jr., J. E.
Lalman, B. B. McCarley and C. J.
Wilson. Yarbrough v. Weaver was filed
Jan. 28 by 12 Negro children and their
parents, and Judge Gordon ordered a
desegregation plan after a one-day
hearing March 8 at which the school
district offered no defense.
The Hulbert-West Memphis enroll
ment this year is 3,195 white and 2,808
Negro.
Pupils Select Schools
The board’s plan is to let each pupil
who will enter a grade that is to be de
segregated select the school he wishes
to attend and his selection will be
approved unless that school becomes
crowded. In that case, those living
nearest the school will have preference,
and others may make a second choice.
The board said it would use this
policy in making assignments to all
nine elementary schools this year, then
to the two junior high schools next
year and the two senior high schools in
the following year.
The plan also said, “Beginning with
the 1965-66 school year, the board of
directors will undertake and complete
as expeditiously as possible the de
segregation of the teachers and pro
fessional staff, with the end in view
of recruitment and assignments without
regard to race. Dining the 1965-66
school year, faculty meetings, teachers
meetings, principals meetings and in-
service workshops will be desegregated
and conducted on a nonracial basis.”
In its report on the plan, the West
Memphis Evening Times of April 20
included: “District officials said in the
majority of cases, students likely would
be assigned to schools they would have
attended prior to the plan being
ordered. For most white students of the
district who are not expected to ask
for special school assignments, the
present zoning system would be fol
lowed.”
★ ★ ★
El Dorado filed a revised desegrega
tion plan April 12, in federal district
court at El Dorado, substituting the
freedom-of-choice system for the use
of the state pupil assignment law.
The board said the substitution was
made because the first plan, filed March
1 on orders from Federal Judge J.
Smith Henley, did not meet the re
quirements of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. The Negro plaintiffs in the lawsuit
(Kemp v. Beasley, SSN, February,
March, April) also had objected to the
earlier plan.
Kemp v. Beasley was filed by six Ne
gro high-school students and their
parents. Their request for transfer from
Washington High School to the white
El Dorado High School was denied.
★ ★ ★
The new plan will apply to the first
and second grades this year, to the
next four grades in 1966 and to the
last six grades in 1967. After that, only
-„■■■ am, ■,
Arkansas Highlights
Fifty-four school districts an
nounced in April that they would
comply with the Civil Rights Act
by desegregating. Thirty-eight of
them announced tneir plans, virtually
all freedom-of-choice, and twelve ol
plans have been approved by the
the federal government. This makes
Vu districts that have announced in
tentions in the last three months.
Little Rock abandoned the use of
the state pupil assignment act and
switched to a Ireedom-of-choice plan.
Ll Dorado said its plan hied in fed
eral court using the assignment act
had not been approved by the l).S.
Office of Education and it filed a
revised plan, using the freedom-of-
choice system.
Pine Bluff announced that its two-
students entering the first, seventh and
tenth grades will have a choice, thus
eliminating lateral transfers.
Judge Henley approved the plan.
Both he and Herschel H. Friday Jr.,
of Little Rock, attorney for the school
board, seemed to think that it would
pass the U. S. Office of Education al
though it does not come up to the
minimum requirements. Friday said
he was confident that the plan would
be routinely approved by the office, be
cause it is under a court order. Judge
Henley referred to this indirectly in
his ruling approving the plan:
The court thinks it quite probable
that if and when the board brings itself
into compliance with the (Civil Rights)
Act and the regulations promulgated
thereunder, the problem of staff and
faculty desegregation will take care of
itself. In any event, the court is not
inclined to order the board at this
time to take any steps in that area.
Judge Henley called the plan a
prompt and reasonable start, even
though the students now in high school
would have to finish school in segre
gated facilities. “The court does not
say that the denial to certain students
in the El Dorado district of any op
portunity to express a preferential
choice of school assignment is not dis
crimination. But, in the circumstances,
the court finds the discrimination in
volved is tolerable.”
Political Action
Commission Asks
U. S. for Answers
State Education Commissioner A. W.
Ford has gone to the federal govern
ment for help in answering a question
put to him by the legislature.
In a resolution the General Assembly
asked Ford to answer three questions
about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, one of
which was whether the state could be
required to withhold state funds from
a district that does not comply with the
act.
Ford wrote to U.S. Commissioner
Francis G. Keppel for the answer.
grade-a-year plan, using pupil as
signments, hau neeu uisappioveu,
ana it drew up a new and faster
uesegregation plan under the Iree-
dom-ol-cuoice method. North Little
Rock, which had been using the
assignment law in its voluntary plan,
dropped it and took up lreedom-ot-
cnoice and a faster plan.
Hulbert-West Memphis filed its
desegregation plan in federal court
as ordered by the judge.
A consultant to the (J.S. Office ol
Education, Richard E. Day ol Ohio
■state University, discussed in an
interview some of the attitudes and
policies of the Office.
Hearing was set for May 6 on a
lawsuit seeking stepped-up desegre
gation at the University of Arkansas.
★ ★ ★
On a television program April 12,
Gov. Orval E. Faubus was asked
whether he was going to desegregate
the state schools for the Negro and
white blind and deaf at Little Rock. He
replied that if their training is good, he
sees no point in it. He said he would
not put them together “just for a social
theory” but would put them together if
he thought it would improve their
work.
★ ★ ★
After the University of Arkansas
Student Senate endorsed 11 of 14 stu
dent complaints to the administration,
one being against segregation of varsity
athletics, Gov. Faubus was asked April
2 for his attitude. He said he had no
policy on the desegregation of varsity
teams. In 1963, he said he was against
letting Negroes play on the varsity
groups.
Schoolmen
44 More Districts
Announce Intention
To Comply with Act
Fifty-four more biracial school dis
tricts in Arkansas anounced in April
their intention to comply with the 1964
Civil Rights Act by desegregating.
Coupled with 16 that had announced
previously, this makes the total 70. Two
more are under court order to desegre
gate in September, making the total 72.
With 24 districts already desegre
gated, this leaves 127 of the 220 biracial
districts still segregated and no an
nouncements made. (The number of
biracial districts had been placed at
212 for several years, but the school
census of the spring of 1964, released
in April, showed that there are 220.)
Twelve of the desegregation plans
announced by Arkansas districts have
been approved by the U.S. Office of
(See LITTLE ROCK, Page 12)
Federal Consultant Speaks on Act
Richard E. Day, professor of law at
Ohio State University and part-time
consultant to the U.S. Office of Educa
tion on the Civil Rights Act, went to
Monticello April 16 at the invitation
of the Hermitage School District to talk
to Southeast Arkansas schoolmen about
the act.
Their experience was about like the
one they had April 1 at Little Rock
when Dr. Wayne O. Reed, assistant
U.S. education commissioner, was there.
They asked questions but got few if
any specific answers. Both Reed and
Day said “You have to desegregate”
but neither would be pinned down on
how a particular district was to do it,
or how much it had to do to be in
compliance.
After the meeting at Monticello, Day
explained in an interview with the
Pine Bluff Commercial why the Office
of Education provided little information
and why no desegregation plan had
been approved up to that time.
Day said the office was trying to
avoid setting any minimum level of
desegregation. Once the first plan is
approved, he said, many districts will
tend to look on it as a minimum and
the office wants more than that. If the
office were to set a minimum, he said,
it would be complete desegregation at
once.
Day gave a political reason too. He
said the federal aid-to-education bill
was important to the Office of Educa
tion, and the office waited deliberately
until the law had been approved before
rejecting some plans, because the re
jection might have undermined con
gressional support for the bill.
Day said he thought a plan for full
desegregation in two years would not
be questioned but he said a three-year
plan would be “doubtful” and a four-
year plan “extremely doubtful.”
The two most popular types of plans
are the “unitary geographic zone” and
the “freedom-of-choice” plans, he said.
The unitary geographic zone is the
neighborhood school attendance area in
which all children in the neighborhood
of a school attend it. He said the office
seems to favor that type of plan.
Freedom of Choice
Freedom-of-choice plans are not
looked on with as much favor, he said,
because the office believes most dis
tricts choose that plan for two reasons:
They think they will not have to send
white students to Negro schools, and
they thing that not many Negro stu
dents will choose to attend white or
biracial schools.
However, he said the office had
agreed to accept freedom-of-choice
plans for the present, at least as interim
plans. If these plans do not result in
actual desegregation, he said, the fed
eral authorities will infer that coercion
is being used and it will be up to the
school boards to prove that it is not.
He predicted that freedom-of-choice
plans would be gone within five years.
Will white students have to attend
Negro schools? He thought so, prob
ably at the time when too many stu
dents choose to attend a white school
and when the next nearest school is a
Negro one. Those reassignments from
the crowded school have to be made
on a nonracial basis, he said.
Assignment Policy
Students who do not make a choice
and must be assigned by the school
authorities cannot be assigned on the
basis of the school they attended pre
viously, Day said. He said this would
amount to assignment on the basis of
race. Some school people might be mis
informed on this point, he said, because
the George W. Foster article (Guidelines
for Southern School Desegregation,
published in Saturday Review of March
20) was “ambiguous” on it.
Day said the Office of Education
realized that some districts were load
ing their plans with loopholes, hoping
to get by with little or no desegrega
tion, but “they are hiding their heads
in the sand if they think they are going
to continue on a segregated basis.”
As for the questions school people
ask, they are ones they already know
the answers to, he said. Day contended
that schoolmen already know all they
need to know—that discrimination by
race in any form is illegal in the public
schools.