Supreme Court Hears Argument on How Fast is "Deliberate Speed?"

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK, N. Y. 10019 © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
President Director-Counsel L Associate Counsel 

Ss 

SUPREME COURT HEARS ARGUMENT ON 
HOW FAST IS "DELIBERATE SPEED?" 

Question Held Key to Speed of School Integration 

March 30, 3964 

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The question of how fast is "deliberate speed"--an 
issue that has constantly been before the nation's courts since 1954, 
will gain its first U.S. Supreme Court hearing Monday, March 30th, 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is specifically 
challenging the grade-a-year school integration plan of the Atlanta, 
Ga. Board of Education on behalf of Negro children there. 

The case is slated to be argued by Constance Baker Motley, asso- 
ciate counsel of the Fund. 

Atlanta initiated its "integration" plan in response to court 
order when 10 Negro high school seniors were admitted to previously 
all-white high schools in September of 1961. 

Negro parents, acting through Legal Defense Fund attorneys, sued 
to end the city's dual school system in January of 1958 in the U.S, 
District Court of the Northern District of Georgia. 

The parents had been asking local officials for integration of 
schools since 1956. 

"Atlanta's public schools, a decade (1964) after the first Brown 
decision (1954) have 145 out of a total of 56,000 Negro students at- 
tending public schools with 58,000 white students. 

"In short," the Legal Defense Fund attorneys maintain, "tokenism 
has now been superimposed upon a so-called separate but equal" school 
system, 

The Atlanta plan, which starts at the 12th grade and works down- 
ward, integrated 10 Negroes in 1961; 40 in 1962 and 119 in 1963, 

One hundred twenty nine Negro students applied for transfer be- 
tween May lst and 15th, 1961, the dates open for application under 
the Atlanta plan. 

The school board used 17 criteria to judge Negro students. 
Among them were: 

*"psychological qualification of the pupil for the type of teaching 
and associations involved" 

*"morals, conduct, health and personal standards of the pupil" 

*"possibility of breaches of the peace or ill will, or economic 
retaliation within the community" 

*"reason for wanting to transfer" 

*"achievement in relation to the norm for the school to which they 
were requesting transfer." 

: This plan went into effect in September of 1961, although the 
district court issued its order in July of 1959. The court ordered 
Atlanta to submit its plan for desegregation by December, 1959. 

(more) 



Supreme Court Hears Argument on -2- March 30, 1964 
How Fast Is "Deliberate Speed?" 

The district court said that this was "contingent upon enactment of 
state statutes permitting such a plan to be put into operation," 

Georgia had laws providing for closing or withholding state funds 
from racially mixed schools. 

The city of Atlanta waited until December 1, 1959--the final day 
provided by the court--to submit its integration plan, 

School Board spokesmen cited numerous administrative problems before 
submitting their pupil assignment plan with its 17 criteria. 

Eleven days later, Legal Defense Fund attorneys filed objections to 
the plan, arguing that: 

*it did not end the dual school system 

*Negro students would be assigned on the basis of race 

*the burden of transfer was based solely on Negro children 

*the school board had not demonstrated the need for a 12 year period 
in which to accomplish integration. 

*the plan did not provide for assignment of school administrative 
personnel without regard to race. 

The district court rejected these objections. 

Meanwhile, the Georgia legislature adjourned without repealing its 
anti-school integration laws, thereby blocking enactment of the plan. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys argue that "it is painfully apparent 
that the plan calls for a war of attrition, in which only the hardiest 
will be able to bear the burden of a contest with state power." 

Moreover, the plan "not only depends upon enmeshing each child in 
an administrative net, but depends as well upon clothing the city of 
Atlanta--an admitted wrongdoer--with practically unreviewable discre- 
tion over the quality and extent of its own reformation," 

The Defense Fund attorneys, who represented Negro Americans in 30 
cases presented to the Supreme Court last year, cited the positions 
of the Courts of Appeal on this issue: 

They "have shown great impatience with the all-too-deliberate sloth 
of the 12 year plans. Four circuits--the Third, Fourth, Fifth and 
Sixth--have now invalidated 'grade-a-year' plans," the attorneys asser: 

Although Negroes constitute 45 per cent of Atlanta's total school 
population, they have been alloted only 33 per cent of the school 
buildings and 40 per cent of the teachers and principals. 

They suffer "serious overcrowding and higher pupil-teacher ratios," 
the Defense Fund attorneys report. 

Mrs, Motley was joined by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel from the 
Fund's New York City headquarters; E.E. Moore and Donald Hollowell, 
of Atlanta. Attorneys A.t, Walden, Norman Amaker and J, LeVonne 
Chambers, were of counsel. 

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