New York.-- The U.S Supreme Court…

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- Press Releases
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- LDF
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- 13412c63-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. New York.-- The U.S Supreme Court…, 1958. 13412c63-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/65ee3ecf-5055-4a40-af0e-9b49f7490b2f/new-york-the-us-supreme-court. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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PRESS RELEASE @  ) 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK 19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 
DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS o> THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President DirectorCounsel 

May 16, 1958 

NEW YORK,--The U. S. Supreme Court was asked this week to review 

an appeals court approval of the decision of a Maryland district court 

which permits the Harford County Board of Education to maintain segre- 

gated classrooms under the guise of community opposition, overcrowding, 

and a delayed stair-step desegregation procedure, 

In a brief filed with the high Court Tuesday, May 13, on behalf oi 

the Negro students, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorneys 

attack the plan advanced by the Board of Education by which racial 

segregation in the school system is being maintained, 

Following two court suits and an appeal, the Harford County Board 

of Education had obtained court permission to put into effect a plan 

which provides for the gradual desegregation of its public junior and 

high schools beginning with the seventh grade in 1957 and up a grade 

each year until 1963 when all Negro students will be admitted on a non- 

segregated basis. Elementary schools were on a different schedule-- 

desegregation beginning in 1956 and becoming complete in 1959. The 

plan permits Negro high:school students not eligible under the "stair- 

step" arrangement to transfer or enter a nonsegregated high school 

only after a special examination based on students! intelligence achiev: 

ment tests and other standards prescribed by school officials. White 

students are transferred without such examinations, 

Harford County is predominantly rural with approximately 12,600 

white and 1,00 Negro students, Some of the reasons advanced by the 

Board of Education for deferring desegregation are alleged fear of "bit- 

ter local opposition," riots, and overcrowding on an "overall average." 

Legai Defense Fund attorneys, in their brief filed with the 

Supreme Court, argue that by admission of a committee appointed by the 

School Board to survey the County schools, and the superintendent of 

schools, himself, these reasons are invalid. 



Regarding overcrowding, the attorneys for the Negro students point 

=2— 

out that the Committee which made the survey had concluded that over-all 

capacity of the schools is such that eight of them could receive more 

than 500 students in excess of the number enrolled, 

In requesting the high Court to review the decision which approved 

the plan, NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys state: 

"The evil of racial segregation still permeates respondent's 
plan. Little effort has been made towards faithfully complying 
with this Court's holding that state created racial distinctions 
must be eliminated from public education, Every effort has been 
made to continue the overall pattern with as little desegrega- 
tion as possible so that nonsegregation would be the exception 
rather than the rule," 

Attorneys for the Negroes are Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg 

of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York, and Tucker 

R. Dearing and Juanita J. Mitchell of Baltimore, Md. 

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New York.-- The U.S Supreme Court…

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