Greenberg Statements on Nixon's School Desegregation Statement

    107 

= } ] i i > = 5 Ss : NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC 

Jegall =i efense | jumd 10 Columbus'Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 

STATEMENT BY 
ON TUESDAY, 

2:00 P.M. 

Please bear in mind that the LDF is a completely 

separate organization even though we. were es stablished 

by the NAACP and those initials are retained in ou 

name. Our correct designation is NAACP Legal Defense 

and Educational Fund, Inc., frequently shortened to 

LDF. 

NO te)
 

On the day that troops arrived in New York to act in 

the postal strike, President Nixon's statement that "there 

are Limits to the amount of government coercion that can 

reasonably be used" is shocking. The use of the term "coercion" 

when the issue is the protection of the constitutional rights 

of aes children is just another example of ructoric which 

Paraiy "reduces prevailing confusion" on the question of school 

desegregation. No one is asking for troops to take over Bchoul 

boards. We need only uagercre act:ion by the Department of 

| 

Justice and HEW. We sedrch in vain for any- such promise in 

-an-daductible far Il_S_iacome tax purposes _ 



N 

this statement. 

No responsible| civil rights organizations and no court 

has attempted to establish racial grids to which the 

President refers, ahd no one advocates busing for its 

| 

own sake or arbitrary racial balance. 
1 

i 
The statement mee schools will not be expected to achieve 

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"the kind of multiracial society which the adult community 

has failed to achieve for itself" is a repudiation of one 
, 

H f 

acknowledged purposes of education. The very purpose of 

{ : 

schools is to raise a generation according to our national 

| } 
ideals. 

Since the proposed half piftion dollars cannot be used 

in desegregation plans where busing. is employed, .ahd since 

i \ as ; 
busing is part of /Almost all the educational systems in 

Ss * ! . a } a | 

the country, integrated or segregated, the main weight of 
i : : 

agi fei ony a 
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the funds will be towards maintaining the segregated status 

quo. | 



To pay lip ser 

integrated society 

of segregation woul 

inferior education 

segregation. 

NOTE: Please bear 

3 

vice to integrated schools and an 

While acquiescing in the continuation 

doom black children to the kind of 

that historically has resulted from 

S30 

| 

| 

lin mind that the LDF is a completely 
separate organization even though we were established 
by the NAACP and those initials are retained in our 
name. Our corre¢t designation is NAACP Legal Defense 
and Educational Fund, Inc., frequently shortened to 
LDF. 

| 



~ - 10F 

ctstoncer+by Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel, 

N.A.A.C.P. LegatDefense and Educational Fund 

Wednesday, March 25, 1970 ‘ 

The struggle over school integration is really a struggle over 

what this country is all about: whether we submit to the meaner 

and vicious impulses among us, or whether we apply all of our 

energies and talents to achieving one nation, indivisible, with 

liberty and justice for all, a phrase which our children reiterate 

daily but experience far too infrequently. 

The incongruity of President Nixon's statement, that “there are 

limits to the amount of government coercion that can reasonably 

be used" to achieve integration cannot be overlooked - coming as 

it did on the day that troops arrived in New York to act in the 

postal strike. The use of the term "coercion" when the issue is 

the protection of the constitutional rights of black children is just 

another example of rhetoric which rarely "reduces prevailing confusion." 

But no one is asking for troops to take over school boards. We need 

only vigorous action by the Department of Justice and HEW. We 

search in vain for any such promise. 

Those of us who have struggled to achieve equality through law 

are dismayed at the President's statements about the role of the 

courts, his emphasis on the disagreements among lower courts and 

his comment that certain decisions are untypical. We know that 

Brown v Board of Zducation, -the School Segregation decision- was not 

an American aberration although some perscns thought it was "untypical" 

15 years ago. If we had followed Mr. Nixon's theory that as he pucs 

it, "We should nct provoke any court to push a constitutional principle 

beyond its ultimate limit," we would never have had a Brown decision. 



== 

The creative role of law in a constitutional democracy is to push 

for fresh interpretations, to resolve conflicting interpretations 

and thus to affirm the flexibility of our system. 

The poor black child in a segregated school is now required 

to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He will have, in the 

President's words "the right and the ability to choose for himself 

and the mobility to move upward." Nothing in this statement, 

however, gives any promise that this will be accomplished. 

Reliance on the good faith of school boards to follow the 

law collides with experience since 1954 which teaches that too 

many school boards are not going to achieve equal educational 

opportunity unless effective enforcement action is taken against 

them. 

The neighborhood school -the segregated neighborhood school- 

has now received highest endorsement. But here too the message 

is unclear. Federal officials will not be permitted to advocate 

busing. But no responsible civil rights organization and no» court 

has been advocating busing for its own sake or for arbitrary racial 

balance. No one has attempted to establish the "racial grids" to 

which the President refers into which persons would be required to 

fit their lives by "some mathematical formula or automatic assign- 

ment." The concern has been to find creative remedies and busing 

has been only one of many. So, we are left with the neighborhood 

school - but not quite. Even President Nixon has recognized the 

value of having children spend part of their school day in an 



integrated setting on “neutral territory," to use his term. How 

he intends to do this without busing he does not say. 

The President proposes spending half a billion dollars next 

year and a billion dollars two years from now. Will this transfer 

of funds short change other programs? The purpose of these expendi- 

tures is not entirely clear, but the amount is a pittance compared 

to educational needs arising out of segregation in this country. 

And the effect would seem to be to entrench segregation. 

The President's statement that schools will not be expected 

to achieve "the kind of multiracial society which the adult community 

has failed to achieve for itself" is a repudiation of one of the 

acknowledged purposes of American education. Has he forgotten that 

the Americanization of children of the foreign born was one of 

the great achievements of the public schools and contributed to the 

development of national unity? The very purpose of schools is to 

raise a generation according to our national ideals.