Anti-School Integration Law Overturned by Federal Court
Press Release
April 6, 1966

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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 o n Ss =20- Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 SS