New Jersey Presses Discrimination Charges Against Englewood School Board

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February 4, 1955

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. New Jersey Presses Discrimination Charges Against Englewood School Board, 1955. 4ee7261b-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/88554c86-6803-432f-9776-fb36f7e1bb4e/new-jersey-presses-discrimination-charges-against-englewood-school-board. Accessed November 03, 2025.

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    PRESS RELEASE @ e 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET *© NEW YORK 36, N. Y¥. © JUdson 6-8397 

THURGOOD MARSHALL oe : pieces 
WALTER WHITE V ROBERT L. CARTER 
Secretary Assistant Counsel 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Treosurer Press Relations 

NEW JERSEY PRESSES DISCRIMINATION CHARGES 
AGAINST ENGLEWOOD SCHOOL BOARD February 4, 1955 

TRENTON, N. J., Fob. 4,--Charges that the New Jersey laws against 

discrimination have been violated were made here today against the 

Englewood, N. J, School Board in a brief filed with the New Jersey 

Department of Education, Division Against Discrimination. 

The action was brought in the name of the New Jersey Attorney 

General and in behalf of two Negro parents and their children who 

charged the Englewood School Board with discriminating. It was filed 

by Deputy Attorney General Thomas P, Cook, NAACP Legal Defense attor- 

neys Constance Baker Motley and Jack Greenberg of New York, and 

attorney for the Trenton Branch of the NAACP Leonard Williams, 

In this brief, counsel for the Negroes pointed out for the first 

time in any legal school proceeding, that in drawing district lines 

school boards have an affirmative duty to take into account the mental 

hazard of segregation, It is not enough, they urged, that lines be 

drawn with regard only to such physical hazards as crossing heavily 

traveled streets, This duty to promote desegregation, they charged, 

the Englewood Board has ignored, 

The litigation specifically charged the Enplewood School Board 

with discrimination against the Negro children by establishing school 

zone boundaries to include most of the city's Negro population in one 

zone and maintaining "without just cause" an all-Negro elementary and 

junior high school, 

The first complaint arainst the Englewood School Board was made 

in December of 1953 by Mrs. Susanne Anderson, a Negro parent who com- 

plained to the Division Against Discrimination that her son was refused 

admittance to the school closet to her home and within her school zone 

and compelled to attend an all-Negro school in another zone. 

The second complaint was made to the D.A.D. in July 1954 by 

Mrs, Mary Walker who accused the Englewood School Board of drawing 

& 



=o e 

the zone lines so as to compel her son to attend kindergarten in the 

all-Negro school, 

As a result of the two complaints, together with new ones, made to 

the D.A.D. of discrimination, the State Commissioner of Education, 

Dr. Frederick Raubinger, conducted a public hearing last October to air 

the complaints of the Negro parents. The hearing was requested by 

Dr. John P, Milligan, Director of the Division Against Discrimination, 

after investigation by his department revealed evidence which indicated 

that the New Jersey anti-discrimination laws might have been violated. 

At the hearing, Dr. Milligan, who is also a New Jersey Assistant 

Commissioner of Education, held that in his opinion the Englewood new 

boundary lines were not drawn in the best interest of the anti-segrega- 

tion policy of the New Jersey anti-discrimination laws, 

In the brief filed today with the Commissioner of Education, the 

lawyers for the state, the Negro parents and children charged that the 

Englewood School Board "unlawfully discriminated" against all Negro 

children who were obliged to attend the Negro elementary and high 

schools, and that the school board was guilty of discrimination by 

establishing a new attendance zone line that forced most of the Negro 

children into the two schools, 

The lawyers say that in view of the past and present "wrongs" 

committed by the Englewood Board of Education, the State Commissioner 

of Education should order the Englewood Board to cease and desist from 

unlawful discrimination against children of the Negro race in the ad- 

mission of pupils to its elementary and junior high school, and to 

recreate the zone lines in "such a manner as to bring about the maxi- 

mum degree of racial integration" in the schools. 

=30-

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New Jersey Presses Discrimination Charges Against Englewood School Board

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