Anti-School Integration Law Overturned by Federal Court

Press Release
April 6, 1966

Anti-School Integration Law Overturned by Federal Court preview

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  • Press Releases, Volume 3. Anti-School Integration Law Overturned by Federal Court, 1966. 92b642ea-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/5c36109e-f5cd-4ff2-999a-8d05747d14aa/anti-school-integration-law-overturned-by-federal-court. Accessed April 06, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 

JUdson 6-8397 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Wednesday 
April 6, 1966 

ANTI-SCHOOL INTEGRATION LAW 
OVERTURNED BY FEDERAL COURT 

Legal Tefense Fund Wins North Carolina Victory 

CHARLOTTE, N.C.----A three-judge federal court struck down a North 

Carolina law designed to thwart public school desegregation mandates 

here Monday (April 4). 

The judges ruled on a suit brought by NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund attorneys in behalf of three Negro families in 

Charlotte. 

The court declared unconstitutional a law that authorized 

students to transfer from desegregated public schools to private 

schools where their tuition would be paid with grants from the state. 

The panel also invalidated provisions of the law that allowed 

local school boards acting on the petiton of voters, to close public 

schools rather than desegregate. 

Another provision that permitted suspension of the compulsory 

attendance law when schools were integrated, was also struck down. 

In New York, Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg 
called the decision "another example of the growing impatience of the 
courts with the invidious practices of segregationist state and 
local public officials. 

"This and other court decisions should make it clear to southern 
lawmakers and school officials that evasion of their responsibility 
to provide desegregated education will not be tolerated. 

"Such barriers to integrated education, constructed in obvious 
attempts to circumvent the supreme law of the land, will continue tc 
be attacked by the Legal Defense Fund wherever they are found," 
Mr. Greenberg added. 

The suit was filed in behalf of the children of Dr. and Mrs. 
Reginald Hawkins, Rev. and Mrs. Darius Swann and Rev. and Mrs. E,3. 
Moore after the parents of a white student attempted to use the law to 
transfer theirchild from an integrated public school toaprivate school. 
Ts a 

& Fund attorneys participating in the North Carolina case were : 
Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg and Charles H. Jones of New York, 
and J. LeVonne Chambers of Charlotte. 

Legal Defense Fund lawyers are presently litigating similar suits 
king to overturn tuition grant laws in Mississippi and Louisiana. = a oO

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=20- 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 SS

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