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PAGE 18—JUNE, 1965—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS SOUTH CAROLINA * Schoolmen COLUMBIA H arrassed South Carolina schoolmen, many of them al ready in financial difficulties be cause of the holdup of federal funds, struggled during May through a maze of Washington guidelines and local advice in an effort to comply with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At month’s end, seven of the state’s 108 school districts had been ruled in compliance by the U. S. Office of Edu cation. Representatives of other districts gathered in Columbia May 27 to see what they had to do to get approval. They got somewhat conflicting advice. Gov. Robert E. McNair urged the schoolmen not to panic and rush into desegregation plans they cannot live with. State Supt. of Education Jesse T. Anderson, on the other hand, advised districts whose desegregation plans were not approved to change them. “I would immediately modify the plan,” Anderson said, “and let the peo ple in the community know. We are living under the Civil Rights law. If you don’t do it, you’ll be a year be hind.” Urges Good Faith Attorney General Daniel R. McLeod, speaking at the same meeting, urged the schoolmen to submit their plans in good faith. He said it was his opinion that plans substantially similar to those submitted by Richland County District 1 (Columbia) and York County District 1 would be approved by Washington. The Columbia and York plans are the only voluntary ones in South Carolina accepted to date. The U. S. education office has also ruled proce dures followed in five districts under court desegregation orders to be in compliance. Anderson’s offer to reproduce and distribute the Columbia plan to those desiring it was met with applause. Gov. McNair and Attorney General McLeod made unscheduled appearances at the meeting, called primarily to discuss the new federal aid to educa tion act which could send more than $28 million into South Carolina next year. Ways of Complying McNair, one of the Southern gover nors who met in Washington May 18 to seek clarification of the U. S. guide lines, told the schoolmen the governors organized to find ways of complying with the Civli Rights Act, not to op pose it. Both McLeod and Anderson criticized the Office of Education for not telling the districts specifically why their plans were insufficient. McLeod suggested that districts write and ask what the plans lack. Seventy-two South Carolina districts had received form letters from Wash ington saying their plans were inade quate. A total of 98 were known to have made some effort at compliance. A Department of Education official said he understood most of the 10 unre ported districts had plans ready to sub mit but were holding up pending fur ther clarification. All of the plans from the state have been of the freedom-of-choice variety and are similar to those ordered by federal district judges for districts in Charleston, Darlington, Greenville, Sumter and Orangeburg counties. (For details of the approved plans, see separate article under Schoolmen.) Many Hours for Governor Gov. McNair, who stepped up from the lieutenant governorship in April after Gov. Donald S. Russell resigned to accept a Senate appointment, spent many hours of his first month in office grappling with the compliance problem. He was one of six Southern gover nors who met in Atlanta May 9 to plan action against the guidelines set forth by U. S. Commissioner of Edu cation Francis Keppel. The governors contended the guidelines were an il legal extention of the Civil Rights Act and decided to meet with congressional delegations in Washington to seek clar ification and modification. McNair called his first press confer ence as governor May 11. He urged school districts not to adopt plans that go beyond those ordered by the courts. He said he believed in close co ordination with the federal government “so long as they don’t try to tell us how to run our state. Federal money is our money and we are entitled to our proportionate share.” On the same day the S. C. School (Gressetfe) Committee, watchdog of Struggle To Comply With Civil Rights Act segregation in the state for a decade, issued a statement urging the districts to make no “final agreement” with fed eral officials until after the governors’ Washington meeting and until after the committee had made its recommenda tions to the General Assembly. The committee, headed by Calhoun County Sen. L. Marion Gressette, said it had studied the guidelines carefully and found them to be “entirely un reasonable and dictatorial.” The com mittee said the regulation would likely have an end effect that “would be dis astrous” by producing “utter chaos in any school system to which they are applied.” Gressette appointed a special sub committee to advise the governor and the General Assembly on the matter. To it he named Sen. Rembert C. Den nis of Berkeley County, Rep. Joseph O. Rogers of Clarendon County, Green ville newspaper editor Wayne W. Free man and Columbia attorney David W. Robinson, the committee’s chief counsel. The State Senate, on May 4, and the House of Representatives, on May 12, went into secret sessions to discuss compliance problems. For the House, it was the first executive session in years. Not All Approve This activity in the political arena did not meet with universal approval among schoolmen or even legislators. “I wish the Gressette Committee would stay out of this,” one legislator said. An educator said the legislators were only arousing emotions and doing noth ing to help solve a serious problem. “I don’t like the regulations,” this su perintendent said, “ . . . but we’re going ahead with our desegregation plans be cause it’s coming sooner or later and it’s better to take the initiative ourselves and develop something we can live with.” When McNair and eight other South ern governors met in Washington May 18, they agreed to form a committee, composed of the governor and one con gressional representative of each state represented, to seek relief from the guidelines. They propose an early meet ing with President Johnson and Secre tary of Health, Education and Welfare Anthony Celebrezze. U.S. Rep. L. Mendel Rivers of Charleston, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, will join McNair as South Carolina’s members on the committee. ‘Unanimity of Action’ Rivers immediately termed the guide lines “silly, ridiculous and insulting to our state and the South. We’ve got to do everything possible to keep these people from running over the state of South Carolina.” He said the major benefit of the meeting was “the un animity of action” among Southern states. Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond said the Southern states “will have to make their political strength felt be cause the whole matter is mainly one of politics.” Both he and Sen. Donald Russell, his Democratic colleague, pledged their full Legislative Action South Carolina Highlights Schoolmen, with the help of po litical leaders, maneuvered in a confused situation to win approval of their compliance plans. Compliance plans of seven school districts and the State Department of Education were approved by the U.S. Office of Education. Berkeley County desegregation was revealed, running the total number of desegregated districts to 18. Harvey Gantt, who broke the state’s educational color bar in 1963, was graduated from Clemson Uni versity with honors. Compulsory school attendance bills before the General Assembly failed. A federal judge denied a motion that he revoke temporary injunc tions that are holding up payment of tuition grants to private school pupils. co-operation with the governors. Rus sell, while governor, had, in fact, been among the first to suggest that the U.S. Office of Education had gone beyond the law and that districts should not be required to do more than ordered by the courts. Delays caused by the compliance dis pute resulted in the holding up of ap proximately $1.2 million in federal im- pacted-area funds to 15 South Carolina school districts that failed to submit their applications for these funds before Jan. 3. Seventeen other state districts beat the deadline and so far have received 75 per cent of the impacted area funds due them. Aiken Affected Most seriously effected was Aiken, a one-district county with many feder ally connected students from the near by Atomic Energy Commission plant. Aiken’s compliance plan was one of the 72 formally rejected. At a school board meeting May 11, County Supt. of Education Charles F. Kneece was authorized to borrow up to $550,000 to pay teachers’ salaries. The county had budgeted $350,000 in impact funds for the period. “Even if the county qualifies later and receives these funds,” Kneece said, “we must pay these salaries with the money we have on hand.” Kneece said a letter he had received from HEW Commissioner Kappel indi cated that Aiken’s desegregation plan, announced voluntarily in September, 1964 and effective at the opening of the 1965-66 school term, failed to meet Of fice of Education requirements primar ily because it did not specify that “transition grades” be desegregated. The federal guidelines insisted that desegregation proceed in at least the first, seventh and 12th grades. The Ai ken plan, based on those approved by federal court judges, permits entry into any grade if certain criteria are met. The district approved 64 of 83 trans fer requests by Negroes on May 5. But none, as it turned out, involved the first, seventh or 12th grades. Keppel noted this fact in his letter. Board Chairman L. G. McElmurry said, “The plan which Aiken County submitted followed a court-approved guideline and we will stick pretty much to it until this other guideline is tested in court.” But he said a study would be launched to see if the plan could be brought into conformity with the fed eral guideline. The impacted-area assistance pro gram is an old one, but the delays might also hurt new programs designed primarily to help the children of low- income families, said P. H. Bomar, finance director of the State Depart ment of Education. These programs ac count for $28.6 million of the $42 mil lion South Carolina could receive next year. “If we got these approvals today,” Bomar said May 18, “I doubt if we could spend $10 million of it intelligent ly.” As new programs, Bomar said, they will require a tremendous amount of planning, which cannot proceed in every case until compliance plans are approved. ★ ★ ★ Two Districts Get Approval of Plans With Adjustments By adjusting compliance plans to meet standards set forth in the U.S. Office of Education guidelines for school desegregation, two South Carolina school districts won approval from Washington during May and immed iately became eligible again to receive federal funds. Also accepted during the month was the compliance plan of the State De partment of Education. Five districts, already desegregated under court or der, also were approved by federal education officials. These were the first acceptances re ceived in the state, although 98 of 108 districts had submitted plans. The two voluntary plans approved were for Richland County District 1 (Columbia) and York County District 1. Court-ordered plans, accepted by Washington after some delay, involve Greenville and Darlington counties, Charleston District 20, Orangeburg Dis trict 5 and Sumter District 2. Administrative Criteria These court-ordered plans open all grades in all schools to Negroes but set up five administrative criteria to guide assignment and transfer. The criteria involve the child’s pref erence, his educational program, the capacity of the school to which assign ment is sought, availability of space in the other schools and the distance the child lives from the school. These criteria have been attacked in \ the courts as vague. Negro attorneys * 1 seem to feel they are capable of being c administered in such a way as to limit ' desegregation sharply. s The federal judges, however, did not * modify the plans and they were used by the districts in assigning pupils on a ' r nonracial basis last September. Former Gov. Donald S. Russell and his successor, Gov. Robert E. McNair " urged districts complying voluntarily : 1 not to go beyond the court-ordered f plans. Most followed the advice. *■ Other Guarantees The U.S. Office of Education, how ever, does not consider these plans ade- 1 quate without other guarantees. It did ^ accept the plans from the five districts ! 1 under court order on May 20 but made * it plain that copies of the plan, sub mitted voluntarily, would not be ap- e proved. r Allen Lesser, director of federally e assisted school programs, explained that ^ the districts with judge-approved plans remain under the close jurisdiction of 1 the court which can always order ‘ changes. 1 A week before all five court plans ‘ were accepted, the Orangeburg plan was returned as inadequate to meet the 1 requirements of the Civil Rights Act. No explanation was given when it was accepted seven days later. S Criteria Omitted i York District 1, the first area to gain approval of a voluntary plan, did not include the criteria in its proposal. This and other variations and assurances i . helped it break the ice on May 8. The York plan provided that assign- ( ment to schools be based on the choice ‘ of the child. In the event of overcrowd- 1 ing, preference will be given without regard to race to those living closest to the school. Children rejected because of space will be notified and permitted to make an effective second choice to a school ‘ with space available. The plan also ® provides that “students will ride with out discrimination on the bus serving ( the school to which they attend.” It pointed out that professional staff ' meetings in the district have been de segregated for several years and that ‘ Negro and white teachers serve to- ‘ gether on various committees, such as curriculum development, textbook se lection, etc. ’ £ ‘To Develop Plans’ ( The plan further promised that “the board of trustees will continue to de velop plans for further integration of professional staffs.” Another important consideration in winning approval of the York plan was a provision guaranteeing that parents would receive the necessary informa- tion to allow them to exercise their freedom of choice on behalf of their ^ children. To implement this, the district mailed forms to all parents of children enter- j ing junior high schools or high schools f next September. It was made manda- ( tory that the parents indicate the school of their choice on the forms and re- . turn them to school officials in an en- ] closed addressed envelope. ( Pupils who normally would continue next year in the same school they now ( are attending were given letters to ( take home. The letters notified the pa r " ents of the right of transfer. House Kills Compulsory Attendance Compulsory school attendance, one of the major issues debated by the 1965 South Carolina General Assembly, failed to win acceptance. A bill which would have made juven ile court judges responsible for en forcing school attendance by children from seven to 16 was felled by an ac tion of House Speaker Solomon Blatt. It was a simple amendment to exempt his county, Barnwell, from the pro visions of the bill. This had the effect of making it special legislation, which is prohibited by the state constitution. Blatt, dean of America’s House speakers, threw his weight behind the amendment and it passed 81-24 as a total of 28 legislators switched sides from an earlier roll call vote on tabl ing the bill. Rep. Heyward McDonald of Richland, one of the measure’s chief sponsors, bristled when the vote was announced. “We cannot continue to let the spectre of integration so panic us that we fail to meet our responsibilities,” he told the House. “We may ignore the statistics on il literacy and delinquency in this state— we may fail to meet this need—but we do so to our shame and to the ever lasting detriment of thousands of chil dren in this state. I hope that some day, if not today, this legislature will do something positive about it.” He then moved to have the bill— unconstitutional as amended—continued until next year and this was done. Chief proponent of the bill was Charleston Rep. Arthur Baker, a mem ber of the Gressette Committee, the state’s school segregation watchdog. It was this committee which recommended repeal of the state’s original compul sory attendance law a decade ago. But the measure ran into determined opposition. Kershaw Rep. J. C. Arrant, for one, called it “dynamite” and said it could lead to forced desegregation. Arguments Fail As adjournment neared, Fairfield County Rep. Purvis Collins, himself a school administrator, made one last attempt to salvage something by pro posing a constitutional amendment to allow each South Carolina county to decide if it wants a compulsory at tendance law. He said it was obvious that 15 or 20 counties were against such a law and it would be difficult to get an effective bill passed. He entered his proposal May 25. The General Assembly adjourned on state wide matters May 28 without action on it. ★ ★ ★ The 1965 General Assembly again appropriated $25,000, the normal amount for operations of the state’s joint school (Segregation) Committee. The 15-member committee, common ly called the Gressette Committee after Calhoun County Sen. L. Marion Gressette, its first and only chair man, was created in 1956 to lead the state’s battle to retain its segre gated school sys tem. Some legislative members were quoted as saying they thought the committee had outgrown its usefulness in the light of increasing desegregation in the state. But committee members and legis lative leaders came to its defense and insisted it still had a purpose in the changing picture. No floor opposition to the appropriation materialized. Most of the committee’s funds go into legal fees. Submitted April 12 York Supt. Harold C. Johnson said he did not submit the district plan unta j April 12. Before that, his board h a j been in communication with official® | of the U.S. Office of Education and , the State Department of Education. “We tried to develop a plan accept able to the U.S. Office of Education that could be administered effective > j locally,” Johnson said. . < York District 1, which includes city of York, had 2,484 white and % " Negro students in 1963-64. It is ®°_ i now desegregated, although the adja cent Rock Hill district is. Johnson sai^ | he already had received transfer ■ quests from Negroes but was not rea . to release pre-registration figures. i Columbia Plan ; The U.S. Commissioner of Ed uca ^_ nnounced the acceptance of th® j. -imbia plan May 16. Unlike the lan, it is patterned after the c ° r j a . rdered plans and includes the cri ® It was first submitted in Feb ^ nd was the subject of consider ^ negotiation between district 0 nd the U.S. office before acceptan ■ Supt. Guy L. Vam said much 0 , (See SCHOOL, Page 19)