Desegregation Now, Legal Defense Attorneys Urge

    PRESS RELEASE e 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET + NEW YORK 36, N. Y. JUdson 6-8397 

ARTHUR B. SPINGARN THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director and Counsel 

WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER 
Secretary Assistant Counsol 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Treosurer Press Relations 

DESEGREGATION NOW, LEGAL SRFENSE 
ATTORNEYS URGE November 15, 195h 

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 15.--Decrees ordering immediate 

desegregation in public schools are asked by the attorneys for 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in their brief filed with 

the United States Supreme Court today in answer to the Court's 

questions on the implementation of the May 17th decision, 

However, if the Supreme Court issues its decrees at a time 

when desegregation would present an administrative problem, 

September 1955, is the date the Court is asked to order the defen- 

dants in the five school segregation cases to put an end to their 

Jim Crow schools. 

On the other hand, should the Court decide to grant the 

schools time to develop and institute a gradual desegregation 

plan, then September, 1956, is asked as "the outside dateby which 

desegregation must be accomplished." 

The lawyers do not ask the Court to direct or supervise 

the decrees, They claim no elaborate decree structure is necessary, 

Normally, a Supreme Court decision would put an immediate 

end to an existing unlawful practice, but whatever measures the 

Court may decide upon to implement the decisions, a time limit 

should be specified, the attorneys for the Negro children and 

parents argue. 

The May 17th decision was the result of five cases brourit 

oefore the high court challenging the validity of the statutes 

requiring the separation of the races in public and elenentary 

schools, They came from Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia 

and the Distrigt of Columbia, 



eo. 

In handing down the unanimous opinion declaring that the 

"separate but equal" doctrine has no place in education and that 

segregated schools established by statutory requirements violates 

the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court ordered the five cases 

restored to the docket for further argument on questions ) and 5 

of the five original questions posed in the reargument of the 

cases in December, 1953. 

All parties involved were asked to present their views on 

whether the Court should direct immediate or gradual desegregation, 

and when and how it should be done. 

Should the Court decide that gradual adjustment from a 

segregated to a non-segregated system is necessary, the attorneys 

for the NAACP Legal Defense ask that the integration program not 

be allowed to drag on indefinitely, They point out that, "Each 

day the relief is postponed is to the appellants a day of serious 

and irreparable injury; for this Court has announced that segrega- 

tion of Negroes in public schools generates a feeling of inferiority 

as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts 

and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone," 

There is no reason to believe that the process of transi- 

tion would be more effective if allowed to lapse into years, they 

say. 

The attorneys agree that delays in some communities might 

be necessary because of administrative difficulties, but they do 

believe that the Court would not place the request of the defendants 

to prolong and drag out a make-believe process of desegregation 

above the need for immediate action to give relief to the many 

thousands of Negro children now being denied a fair and adequate 

education. 

"Gradual @ proaches" to desegregation without a time limit 

could well delay the successful conclusion for five or ten years, 

the lawyers maintain. Such delay could result in additional 

manipulation on the part of those bent on circumventing the law and 

the decrees. 

Negro children should be given an opportunity to enjoy the 

constitutional rights which the Court held on May 17th they are 



ay ® * 

entitled, the lawyers continue. The decrees should contain no 

provision for extension of time. To grant more time is merely an 

invitation to put off a desegregation program, 

Moreover, the decrees should also provide that in the 

event the school authorities for any reason at all fail to comply 

with the time limitation, the Negro children should immediately 

be admitted to the Schools where they applied for enrollment and 

were refused, the attorneys maintain. 

NAACP Legal Defense lawyers ask that any decree granting 

time for gradual desegregation be so framed that no state main-= 

taining segregated school systems will be encouraged to sit back, 

do nothing and merely wait for court suits on the assumption that 

the same period of time will be granted to them after the suit 

hits the court. 

The lawyers also say that if the Court should decide to 

grant gradual adjustment, it should not formulate detailed decrees 

but "should send these cases back to the courts where they origi- 

nated" with "specific instructions to complete desegregation" by 

a certain date, 

They urge the Court to issue specific instructions that 

any decree entered by the district courts should specify "(1) 

that the process of desegregation be commenced immediately, (2) 

that appellees be required to file periodic reports to the courts 

of first instance, and (3) an outer time limit by which desegrega- 

tion must be completed.” 

In this argument, the lawyers say that "whatever the reason 

for gradualism, there is no reason to beliéve that the process of 

transition would be more effective if further extended. . . 

Therefore, we submit that if the Court decides to grant further 

time, then all decrees should specify September, 1956 as the out- 

side date by which desegregation must be accomplished." 

NAACP Legal Defense attorneys are Thurgood Marshall, NAACP 

special counsel and director-counsel of NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund, Inc., New York, and Harold R. Boulware, 

Columbia, S.C., (the South Carolina case); Robert L, Carter, NAACP 

assistant special counsel and assistant counsel of Legal Defense, 

New York, and Charles Scott, Topeka, Kansas (the Topeka case); 

Spottswood Robinson, III, Southeast regional counsel of Legal 



alin 

Defenses and Oliver W, Hill, member of the Legal Defense National 

Legal Committee, both of Richmond, Va, (the Virginia case); Jack 

Greenberg, Legal Defense assistant counsel, New York, and Louis 

L. Redding, member Legal Defense National Legal Committee, 

Wilmington, Del, (Delaware case); and James M, Nabrit, professor 

of Law at Howard University and member of Legal Defense National 

Legal Committee, and George E, C, Hayes, Washington, D, C. (the 

D.C. case), 

The questions posed by the Supreme Court are: 

. Assuming it is decided that segregation in public 
schools violates the Fourteenth Amendment, 

(a) would a decree necessarily follow providing 
that, within the limits set by normal geo- 
graphic school districting, Negro children 
should forthwith be admitted to schools of 
their choice, or 

(b) may this Court, in the exercise of its equity 
powers, permit an effective gradual adjustment 
to be brought about from existing segregated 
systems to a system not based on color dis- 
tinctions? 

Se On the assumption on which questions l(a) and (b) 
are based, and assuming further that this Court 
will exercise its equity powers to the end described 
in question k(b), 

(a) should this Court formulate detailed decrees 
in these cases; 

(bo) if so, what specific issues should the decrees 
reach; 

(ec) should this Court appoint a special master to 
hear evidence with a view to recommending 
specific terms for such decrees; 

(d) should this Court remand to the courts of 
first instance with directions to frame 
decrees in these cases, and if so, what 
general directions should the decrees of this 
Court include and what procedures should the 
courts of first instance follow in arriving 
at the specific terms of more detailed decrees? 

The Attorney General of the United States was invited to 

participate. The Attorneys general of the states requiring or per- 

mitting segregation in public education were also invited to appear 

as amici curiae (friends of the court). 

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