Supreme Court Hears Argument on How Fast is "Deliberate Speed?"

    PRESS RELEASE Gr) 

NAACP. LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE * NEW YORK, N. Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 

DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG ‘ CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY 
President ae Tg Director-Counsel- Associate Counsel 

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SUPREME COURT HEARS “ARGUMENT ON , 
ce HOW FAST IS "DELIBERATE SPEED?" 

Question Held Key to Speed of School Integration 

é March 30, 1964 

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The question of how fast is "deliberate speed"--an 
issue that has constantly been before the nation's courts since 1954, 
will gain its first U,S. Supreme Court hearing Monday, March 30th, 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is specifically 
challenging the grade-a-year school integration plan of the Atlanta, 
Ga. Board of Education on behalf of Negro children there. 

The case is slated to be argued by Constance Baker Motley, asso- 
ciate counsel of the Fund. 

Atlanta initiated its "integration" plan in response to court 
order when 10 Negro high school seniors were admitted to previously 
all-white high schools in September of 1961. 

Negro parents, acting through Legal Defense Fund attorneys, sued 
to end the city's dual school system in January of 1958 in the U.S, 
District Court of the Northern District of Georgia. 

The parents had been asking local officials for integration of 
schools since 1956. 

"Atlanta's public schools, a decade (1964) after the first Brown 
decision (1954) have 145 out of a total of 56,000 Negro students at- 
tending public schools with 58,000 white students. 

"In short," the Legal Defense Fund attorneys maintain, "tokenism 
has now been superimposed upon a so-called separate but equal" school 
system, * 

The Atlanta plan, which starts at the 12th grade and works down- 
ward, integrated 10 Negroes in 1961; 40 in 1962 and 119 in 1963. 

One hundred twenty nine Negro students applied for transfer be= 
tween May lst and 15th, 1961, the dates open for application under 
the Atlanta plan. 

The school board used 17 criteria to judge Negro students. 
Among them were: 

*"psychological qualification of the pupil for the type of teaching 
and associations involved" 

*"morals, conduct, health and personal standards of the pupil" 

*"possibility of breaches of the peace or ill will, or economic 
retaliation within the community" 

*"reason for wanting to transfer" 

*Yachievement in relation to the norm for the school to which they 
were requesting transfer." 

; This plan went into effect in September of 1961, although the 
district court issued its order in July of 1959. The court ordered 
Atlanta. to submit its-plan for desegregation by December, 1959, 

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Supreme Court Hears Argument on -2- Maret 304 1968 fe 
How Fast Is "Deliberate Speed?" * z 

The district court said that this was cont inseae “upon enactment of 
State statutes permitting such a plan to be put into. Contest ones 

FY 

~ Georgia had laws providing for closing or withholding state 
from racially mixed schools, 

The city of Atlanta waited until December 1, 1959--the final 
provided by the court--to submit its integration plan. 

School Board spokesmen cited numerous administrative problem: 
submitting their pupil assionWagt plan with its 17 criteria. Pe 

Eleven days later, Legal Def Ase Fund attorneys filed a ns too 
the plan, arguing that: , 

ia as 
| system *it did not end the dual sch 

*Negro students would be assi on the basis of race 

*the »burden of transfer was re Solely on Negro children 

¥the school board had not ated the need for a 12 year 
in which to accomplish i id 

*the plan did not provid choo) administrativ 
personnel without regan 4 

The district court reje 

Meanwhile, the Georgia legislature adjou without ropes a 
anti-school integration laws, thereby blocking enactment of the PA 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys argue that "it is painfully appar 
that the plan calls fora war of attrition, in which only the har 
Will be able to bear the burden of a contest with state power." 

Moreover, the plan "not Mly depends upon enmeshing each child 
an administrative net, but depends as well upon clothing the cit 
f aeare-—an admitted wrongdoer--with practically unreviewablesdi 
tion over the quality and extent of its own reformation." 

The Defense Fund attorneys, who represented Negro Americansin 
cases presented to the Supreme Court last year, cited the positions 
of the Courts of Appeal on this issue: ae 

They 'have shown great impatience with the all-too-deliberate slo 
of the 12 year plans, Four circuits--the Third, Fourth, Fifth and 
Beit noapeve now invalidated 'grade-a-year' plans, "the attorneys asse 

Aléhéugh Negroes constitute 45 per cent of Atlanta's total school 
eepulation, they have been alloted only 33 per cent of the school 
Buildings and 40 per cent of the teachers and principals, 

They suffer "serious overcrowding and higher pupil-teacher rati 
the Defense Fund attorneys report. 

Mrs. Motley was joined by Jack Greenberg, director-counsel “from the 
Fund's New York City headquarters; E.E. Moore and Donald Holiowell, 
of Atlanta. Attorneys A.T. Walden, Norman Amaker and J. LeVonni 
Chambers, were of counsel, 5 

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