Joint Pretrial Document
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Press Releases, Volume 3. Fund Challenges State Tuition Payments to Students in "Private" Miss. Schools, 1966. d0fe28cc-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b2a7b597-b01c-4cfb-b73d-bcf8b4f5714b/fund-challenges-state-tuition-payments-to-students-in-private-miss-schools. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle NeW York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 NAACP. Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE President Hon. Francis E. Rivers Director-Counset FOR RELEASE Jack Greenberg Thursday, February 24, 1966 FUND CHALLENGES STATE TUITION PAYMENTS TO STUDENTS IN "PRIVATE" MISS, SCHOOLS JACKSON, MISS,---Attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Monday (Feb 21) sought a federal court injunction against payment of state tuition grants to white students attending "private" segregated schools. The suit, filed in behalf of Negro pupils and their parents in Holmes County, alleges that the Mississippi tuition grant law "constitutes State interference with plaintiffs’ right to de- segregated public education..." The Federal District Court in Jackson last July ordered desegregation of at least four grades of the Holmes County school system for the 1965-66 school year. Holmes County school officials subsequently submitted a plan whereby grades one through four were desegregated on a "freedom of choice" basis, and about 403 white children, and 189 Negroes registered for desegregated classes for the fall term. Meanwhile, however, three "private" schools, embracing the four desegregated grades, were organized in Holmes County, allegedly for the purpose of perpetuating segregation. All but about 25 of the white pupils withdrew from the deseg- regated grades of the public schools and transferred to the "private" schools where the state pays their tuition, the complainx alleges. The "private" schools exclude Negroes, and the 189 Negro pupils remained in the previously all-white public schools, according to the complaint. The Legal Defense Fund complaint asks that a three-judge Federal court enjoin the State Education Finance Commiss:on from paying tuition of pupils in "private" schools from which Negroes are excluded, Legal Defense Fund attorneys involved in the case are Carsie A, Hall, Marian E, Wright and Henry M, Aronson of Jackson; Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, Derrick A, Bell, Jr. and Melvyn Zarr of New York. =30= Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public I ion—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Ss