Appeal Challenges Tennessee County School Desegregation Plan

    “PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS © <= THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director-Counsel 

APPEAL CHALLENGES TENNESSEE 
COUNTY SCHOOL DESEGREGATION PLAN 

August 21, 1961 

NEW YORK - NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys challenged this 

week a "Stair-step" plan for school desegregation which was insti- 

tuted last January in Davidson County, Tenn. 

In an appeal brief to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth 

Circuit filed August 18, Legal Defense Fund attorneys claim that the 

Davidson County plan violates the "personal and present rights" of 

Negro children who are too old to come under it's provisions. 

If the appeal is successful, it will mark a major breakthrough 

against "Stair-step" or "grade-a-year" plans which have been approved 

by federal courts in other cities such as Knoxville and Nashville, 

Tenn. The Legal Defense Fund attorneys are asking for a ruling simi- 

lar to one made by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit last 

August when it rejected a "grade-a-year" plan for the state of 

Delaware. 

The current appeal is from a decision by the U. S. District Court 

in Nashville on a suit filed against the Davidson County School Board 

last September by Legal Defense Fund attorneys. The suit was insti- 

tuted because there had been no desegregation of Davidson County 

schools in accordance with the U. S. Supreme Court decision of 1954. 

The county surrounds Nashville, which began desegregating it's schools 

in 1957. 

The principal features of the Board's plan, submitted on orders 

of the court, were desegregation of one school grade a year, beginning 

September, 1961, and an allowance for transfers when a white or Negro 

child will be assigned to a school where his race is in the minority. 

On November 23, 1960, U. S. District Judge William E. Miller 

accepted the Board's plan with a few modifications of his own. Judge 

Miller ordered desegregation of the first four grades to begin in 

January, 1961, and desegregation of one additional grade each year 

beginning in September, 1961. 



Sale 

The Negro plaintiffs filed a motion for further relief, however, 

several of the plaintiffs were not affected by the desegregation orde: 

since they were then in grades higher than the fourth, and therefore 

would not be included in the plan. 

The District Court denied this motion on January 24, 1961, ruling 

that if these children were "admitted to schools as exceptions to 

said desegregation plan...to grant such exception would be in effect 

to invite the destruction of the very plan which the Court has held 

is for the best interest of the school system of Davidson County." 

On February 20, the Negro plaintiffs appealed from the District 

Court judgments of November 23, 1960 and January 24, 1961. 

In it's brief, Legal Defense Fund attorneys contend that the 

right to a desegregated education is a "personal" right, therefore 

the rights of children who do not come under a desegregation plan 

cannot be abridged in favor of the plan though it affords rélief to 

other Negro pupils. 

Attacking the District Court argument that admission of the 

older children would "destroy" the plan, the Legal Defense Fund brief 

suggests that "if the court found it necessary to formulate a rule 

for dealing with the possibility of large numbers of future appli- 

cants for exceptions, ...the court can determine on the basis GE sew 

whether the admission of the applicants would present valid administr< 

tive obstacles which necessitate further delay in the public 

interests...." 

The brief claims, secondly, that the Board's transfer procedure 

is unconstitutional, because it "expressly recognizes race aS an 

absolute ground for transfer between schools." 

"(P)roponents of the plan will argue that...correlative discrimi 

nations against white and Negroes ‘balance out'.... This is a speciou. 

argument....To hold that Negroes are equally treated because of the 

reciprocal racial discrimination against others ignores the personal 

nature of Fourteenth Amendment rights." 

NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys for the appellants are Z. 

Alexander Looby and Avon Williams, Jr., of Nashville, Tennessee; and 

Thurgood Marshall, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit, III, and Norman 

C. Amaker of New York City. 

= Sons