New Rochelle Decision Called "Extremely Significant" by Legal Defense Fund Attorneys

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK 19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS © > THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director-Counsal 

NEW ROCHELLE DECISION CALLED "EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT" 
BY LEGAL DEFENSE FUND ATTORNEYS 

August 7, 1961 

NEW YORK - Last week's important decision in the New Rochelle, 

N, Y. school segregation case, won 2-to-l in the U. S. Court of 

Appeals by NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys, was hailed today as 

"extremely significant" by Constance Baker Motley and Paul B, Zuber, 

who represented the Negro plaintiffs. 

"Tuesday's decision was the result of a 30-year struggle," said 

Mrs. Motley. "It means that the Supreme Court school desegregation 

ruling of 1954 will be applied with equal vigor to northern as well as 

southern school boards." 

"The School Board has already lost twice," observed Mr. Zuber, 

who argued the case for the Negro parents when the suit was initiated 

last fall. “The Board may appeal to the Supreme Court, but we feel 

the law has been established." 

The Court of Appeals, on August 2, upheld the ruling of Federal 

Judge Irving R. Kaufman of January 24, that the New Rochelle Board of 

Education had, prior to 1949, deliberately created its Lincoln School 

as an all-Negro school, and since then "has been motivated by the pur- 

poseful desire of maintaining the Lincoln School as a racially 

segregated school," 

The School Board has been ordered to initiate a desegregation plan 

by September, 1961, which will make it possible for parents in the 

Lincoln School district to transfer their children to schools in other 

districts. 

The appeal to the Circuit Court by the School Board was from 

Judge Kaufman's decision, and from the desegregation plan which he had 

ordered, 

Judge Joseph E. Clark, representing the majority in the Circuit 

Court opinion, held that "...the present 94 percent Negro enrollment 



aoe 

at the Lincoln School goes beyond mere ‘racial imbalance’ and approxi- 

mates closely the harmful conditions condemned in the Brown case.” 

It called Judge Kaufman's desegregation plan “noteworthy for its 

moderation." 

A strong dissent was registered by Circuit Court Judge Leonard P. 

Moore. He stated in his dissenting opinion that ".,.the effect and 

implications of the lower court decision were to place the operation 

of the schools in the hands of the Federal courts or a single judge." 

Mrs. Motley, reflecting on the case, said "some New Rochelle 

officials will be outraged because they feel the Brown decision should 

be applied only to the South, What the court has said, in effect, is 

that they are doing the same thing the South does. 

"Tuesday's decision means that in the North, as well as the 

South, where there has been official action to create or preserve 

school segregation, such action will have to be considered in the 

light of the New Rochelle case." 

New Rochelle's Lincoln School, which is now 94 percent Negro, has 

long been the subject of dispute. Mrs. Motley noted that in 1930 a 

Negro dentist, Dr. Leon Scott, complained in a letter to Governor 

Franklin D. Roosevelt that the Lincoln School district was gerrymanderec 

to include an overwhelming racial majority of Negro students. 

This situation was accentuated by a school board policy which 

allowed white children who lived in the Lincoln district to transfer 

to other schools if they wished. When, in 1949, complaints by Negro 

parents and the NAACP increased, the permissive transfer policy was 

abolished. 

Negro groups continued to protest, however, for the new policy 

did not alleviate the virtually all-Negro character of the Lincoln 

School. The School Board called in several experts, including Dr. Dan 

W. Dodson of Columbia University. The Dodson Report, completed in 

1957, confirmed the existence of racial imbalance in New Rochelle 

schools. The Dodson Report, said the Circuit Court, "was a most com- 

prehensive statement of the problem and an admonition to the Board to 

make a broadly based attack upon the evil of segregation...." 

The Board, in 1957, proposed to rebuild the Lincoln School on its 

present site. Negro groups opposed this plan vigorously, arguing that 

it would "freeze in" seqregation in the Lincoln district. greg 



=32 

Nevertheless, the proposal to build a new Lincoln School was 

carried before a referendum vote in May, 1960, and was passed. A 

group of Negro parents, represented by the local NAACP chapter, then 

appealed to the State Commissioner of Education, but the appeal was 

rejected. 

In the Fall of 1960, a federal District Court suit was instituted 

by the parents of eleven Negro children who refused to send their 

children to the Lincoln School, 

Judge Kaufman's decision of January 24, and his desegregation 

decree of May 31, will make it possible for these parents to send their 

children to other public schools in New Rochelle. 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys for the Negro plaintiffs were 

Paul B. Zuber, Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, all of 

New York City. 

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