Nashville Desegregation Plan Reaches Supreme Court

    “PRESS RELEASE @ @ 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
1O COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK 19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ® THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director-Counsel 

NASHVILLE DESEGREGATION PLAN 
REACHES SUPREME COURT 

Washington, D.C., Oct. 15.--The U. S. Supreme Court was asked 

today to review a lower court's decision which approved the Nashville, 

Tenn. 12-year "stair-step" public school desegregation plan. 

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on June 17, 

1959, affirmed a district court ruling which permitted the Nashville 

school authorities to begin desegregating its classrooms with the 

first grade and to continue at the rate of one grade per year. This 

plan takes 12 years to complete, therefore the students above the 

first grade at the time of the filing of the suit are denied an 

opportunity to ever enter a desegregated class. 

According to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed with the 

high Court today by NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attor- 

neys, the lower court based its findings largely on local hostility 

and antipathy to desegregation rather than on the issue of how soon 

desegregation could "practicably" be accomplished. 

The Supreme Court was asked to reverse this decision and order 

the lower court to reconsider the facts as they apply to the case. 

The case was originally filed September 23, 1955, with the 

district court in behalf of a group of Negro children. It was later 

amended to include 2 white students who wanted to attend desegregated 

schools. 

The first plan advanced by the school board called merely for 

the desegregation of the first grade. The district court held that 

this was not sufficient and required the board to bring in a plan to 

desegregate the remainder of the school system. Subsequently, the 

board brought in the plan to desegregate over the 12 year period. 

The plan also included a provision whereby children could trans- 

fer if they were assigned to schools which had previously been 

attended solely by students of another race, or if students of another 



=0= 

race, or if students of another race were in the majority. This 

latter provision also is attacked by the petition filed in the US. 

Supreme Court today. 

The school board based its demand for 12 years delay almost 

entirely upon the hostility of the community to desegregation. At 

earlier hearings, the board also alleged some administrative problems 

such as the difficulty of recruiting teachers who might be opposed 

to desegregation and the need to group students together "homogen- 

eously." The board, however, did not relate any of these problems 

to the necessity of taking 12 years to accomplish desegregation. 

In September, 1957, nine or ten Negro children were admitted to 

first grade classes in previously all-white schools. At the opening 

of classes attempts were made by segregationists to interfere with 

the desegregation plan. However, the school board and the City of 

Nashville obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting further 

interference with the desegregation plan. 

Attorneys for the students are Thurgood Marshall, and Jack 

Greenberg, both of the Legal Defense Fund in New York; Z. Alexander 

Looby and Avon N, Williams, Jr-, both of Nashville, Tenn. Also 

appearing on the petition are Elwood H. Chisolm, Constance Baker 

Motley and James M. Nabrit, III, all of New York City. 

=30 = 

October 15, 1959