Memorandum on Complaint and Petition Calling for HEW Hearing

Press Release
February 2, 1966

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Memorandum on Complaint and Petition Calling for HEW Hearing preview

Identical content (aside from notice on bottom) to LDFA-15_thrdv_80 but indexed separately.

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  • Press Releases, Volume 3. Memorandum on Complaint and Petition Calling for HEW Hearing, 1966. 5ea90bba-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/3f28c9e1-174d-41fa-8060-417f94463d8d/memorandum-on-complaint-and-petition-calling-for-hew-hearing. Accessed December 04, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 5 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

Director-Counsel MEMORANDUM February 2, 1966 Jack Greenberg 

TO: WASHINGTON WORKING PRESS 

FROM: NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. 
10 Columbus Circle, Suite 2030, N.Y.C. 

RE: Press Conference Thursday, February 3, 1966 in the 
CONGRESSIONAL ROOM of the Hotel Willard a= 11 AM * 

SUBJECT: Complaint and Petition calling for a Department of Health, 
Education and Welfare hearing on denial of welfare 
assistance to otherwise eligible families on the basis of 
"an arbitrary and irrational ‘substitute father’ policy." 

THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN 
SOUTH AND NORTH, ARE 
PRESENTLY AFFECTED 

Under their "substitute parent" policies, Arkansas and Georgia 

(and other southern states and some northern states) deny welfare 

assistance to families with dependent children on the assertion 

that the families now include a so called “substitute father". 

In an extensive complaint and petition for a hearing of wel- 

fare cases by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, it is 

contended that the states define a "substitute father" in terms of a 

vague social or sexual relationship. 

The complaint was prepared by attorneys of the NAACP Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund with the assistance of attorneys from 

the Center on Social Welfare, Law and Policy, Columbia University, 

School of Social Work, 

The legal and research speefiaiists assert that Arkansas and 

Georgia specifically violate the Fourteenth Amendment as well as 

requirements of Title IV of the Social Security Act. 

Untold thousands of children are in "lack of food, lack of 

clothes, lack of adequate shelter, ill-health; and, it is perhaps 

worse for children who are in desperate need of state aid because 

they are without parental support, us 

Thursday's press conference will also launch the Legal Defense 

Fund's welfare litigation program that will see suits qqeNorth 

Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, as well as major 

northern cities, within the next few months, 

*This conference was to have beénfeld Monday, January 3lst, but, 
Was cancelled due to the weather, 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Rlverside 9-8487 > @

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