Federal Court asked to void Arkansas School Bias Law

    PRESS RELEASE @ e 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
TO COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 
De. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS Bae THURGOOD MARSHALL 

Director-Counsel 

FEDERAL COURT ASKED TO VOID 
ARKANSAS SCHOOL BIAS LAW 

January 1h, 1959 

NEW YORK, -- A move to have the Arkansas law which permitted 

Governor Orval Faubus to close the Little Rock high schools, declared 

unconstitutional and to reopen them on an integrated basis was initie- 

ted this week in the federal courts by attorneys for the Negro student, 

Thurgood Marshall, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense 

and Educational Fund and Wiley Branton of Pine Bluff, Ark., in a 

motion accompanied by a supplemental complaint, asked the U, S, Dis- 

trict Court of Arkansas on Monday to take the following action: (1) to 

include as defendants in the case, along with Governor Faubus, the 

members of the State Board of Education, and other state officials: 

the commissioner of education, education budget director, disbursing 

officer, legislative auditor, state auditor and treasurer; (2) convene 

a three-judge district court; (3} advance the case upon the docket an: 

order a speedy hearing; (l.) enter a judgment or decree declaring Acts 

No, and 5 of the General Assembly of Arkansas, 2nd Extraordinary 

Session 1958, to be unconstitutional and void; (5) enter a temporary 

injunction restraining and enjoining defendants from enforcing or sec! 

ing to enforce any of the provisions of Acts and 5; (6) enter a 

permanent injunction restraining and enjoining defendants from enfore- 

ing or seeking to enforce any of the provisions of Acts and 5; (7) 

enter a final judgment and decree ordering the Little Rock School Dis- 

trict to reopen, maintain and operate all public schools in the Little 

Rock School District, to admit the plaintiffs to said schools on a 

nonsegregated basis, and to take all steps necessary to implement the 

orders of the federal courts requiring desegregation of the schools 

maintained by defendants; (8) forever enjoin and restrain defendants 

from taking any other or further action which would prevent the 



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carrying out of the existing orders of this Court (to desegregate the 

Little Rock high schools). 

The laws which permitted Gov. Faubus to close the Little Rock 

high schools, Acts 4 and 5, were approved by a special session called 

by Gov. Faubus on September 12, 1958. Act 4. empowers the Governor to 

close public schools if ordered to intograte by the courts; Act No. 5 

provides for the withholding of state funds from schools closed by the 

Governor and authorizes the payment of such funds to other schools, 

public or private, which enroll the students on a segregated basis. 

The attorneys for the Negro students argue that Acts 4 and 5 are 

unconstitutional in that they deprive them of rights, privileges and 

inmunities guaranteed by the due process and equal protection clauses 

of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 

"Acts No. . and 5 are part of a studied plan devised by the 

Governor and General Assembly of Arkansas to preserve racial segrega~ 

tion in the public schools and thus evade or frustrate compliance 

with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 

School Segregation Cases, and more specifically, the decrees of this 

Court, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in the instant 

case," the attorneys contend in their supplemental complaint. 

"Bach order of the federal courts to implement the constitutional 

rights of plaintiffs and others similarly situated to an unsegregated 

education has been met by action of the legislative and executive 

departments of Arkensas designed to nullify those orders," attorneys 

Marshall and Branton argue further. 

They sey thet "the State of Arkansas has undertaken as a state 

function to provide a system of free public schools for the education 

for all persons between the ages of six and twenty-one years," 

"Acts No. . and 5, in authorizing the closing of the public high 

schools of the Little Rock School District, the withholding of funds 

from them because they were in the process of being desegregated pur- 

suant to Court order, and the payment of said funds to 'tnon-profit 

private! schools which enroll pupils who formerly attended the schools 

now closed, is designed to nullify the orders of this Court and to 

condition the maintenance of public schools upon their operation in 

an unconstitutional manner...." the attorneys claim, 



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Governor Faubus closed the Little Rock high schools on September 

12, 1958, following a U. S. Supreme Court ruling ordering the imme- 

diate desegregation of the schools. At the Governor's request an 

election was held on September 27 in the Little Rock school district 

to determine whether the majority of the qualified electors were for 

or against "racial integration in the schools.” The majority voted 

against integration and the high schools have since remained closed. 

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