Department of Health, Education and Welfare Required to Revoke Deficient Desegregation Plans for 8 States

    Ast 

From: 
10 Columbus Circle 

New York, New york 10019 

Contact: Jack Greenberg 

(212) 586-8397 

Jean, Fairfax 

(602) 944-7757 

dJoseph L. Rauh, Jr. 

Elliott C. Lichtman 

(202) 331-1795 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
FOR IMMEDAS eS 

WASHINGTON, D-C-+ Aug. 1 - The NAACP 

Educational Fund asked the Federal District 

require the Department of Health, Education 

court here today to 

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. 

Legal Defense and 

and Welfare to revoke 

its approval of eight state plans purportedly formulated to dismantle 

segregated systems of higher education. 

The state plans, approved a year ago last 

obtained in compliance with a court mandate of 1973 (Adams v 

June by HEW, were 

Richardson), oo 

which set a series of deadlines for the initiation of Federal fund 

termination proceedings when and if segregated 

failed to submit acceptable desegregation plans- 

contending that the approved plans 

fail to meet minimum standards enunciated 

Fund requested the court to direct the agency by 

state college systems 

are totally deficient and 

by HEW, the Legal Defense 

November 1, 1975 

to revoke its earlier approvals of the 8 plans and to require by 

February 1, 

desegregation plans- 

(More ) 

1976 the submission of new and constitutionally 
acceptable 



a a Pigg 

The motion for relief parallels an earlier motion concerned 

solely with elementary and secondary education, which was granted 

by Judge John H. Pratt in March, 1975. 

The present action requests the Court to instruct HEW by 

March 1, 1976 to suspend action on all new higher education funding 

applications and to commence enforcement proceedings against any of 

the states failing to file adequate new plans. 

The suit additionally seeks an injunction barring HEW,as of 

July 1, 1976, from providing any financial assistance to any of the 

eight systems not submitting a plan in compliance with Title VI of 

the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act forbids Federal aid wherever 

segregation is practiced. 

The states affected are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, 

North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

Asserting that HEW's approval of the eight plans was an act 

of "blatant regression" from its own desegregation criteria, Legal 

Defense Fund lawyers alleged that HEW accepted state plans in June, 

1974 which lacked measures to eliminate racial duality and failed 

to promise actual desegregation results. They contend that the 

state plans consistently declined to: 

1. Abandon or alter admission, retention, scholarship, 

and program elements at white institutions, so as to achieve 

proportionate or even significantly increased black enrollments. 

(More) 



= Gee Jette 

2. Reassign staff or otherwise alter faculty distribution 

to achieve proportionate or even significantly increased black 

faculty representation at traditionally white campuses. 

3. Abolish duality and promote desegregation by eliminating 

duplication of programs and degree offerings, particularly where 

there are neighboring black and white institutions. 

4. Upgrade predominantely black institutions to redress 

decades of discrimination and help facilitate their desegregation. 

5. Desegregate institutional governance structures which 

tend to confine blacks to administrative roles on black campuses. 

6. Project specific desegregation goals or the dates on 

which the dual structure of institutions will be eliminated. 

Apart from lack of commitment in salient areas, Legal Defense 

Fund lawyers assert, the plans also lack comprehensiveness, 4s stated 

in the brief: "The plans consistently renounce state-wide changes, 

state responsibility, and commitments by state officers on the 

purported ground that local statutory schemes leave such matters 

as student admission, teacher hiring, scholarship aid, and the 

educational program in the hands of individual institutions and 

their boards.” 

The lawyers assert thatHEW unlawfully accepted these 8 plans 

in June 1974. Further, they contend, the 8 states have largely 

failed to implement even their meager promises during the year 

following the HEW approvals. In continuing defiance of the court 

orders, no desegregation has occurred. 



The original complaint, filed five years ago, focused on 

HEW's refusal to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 

against state colleges and universities as well as public school 

systems and other institutions. 

HEW in 1969-70 had identified the continued dual and segregated 

patterns of the higher education systems, but, as the Court of Appeals 

found, the agency failed thereafter to formulate "guidelines for 

desegregating state-wide systems of higher learning", or even to 

comment upon five state desegregation plans which it had received 

at that time. 

Accordingly, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's 

1973 order that HEW commence formal Title VI enforcement actions 

against any state which would not undertake an adequate and comprehensive 

“higher education desegregation program, 

EE 

NOTE TO EDITOR: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is a 

completely separate organization, even though originally 

established by the NAACP in 1939. The correct designation 

is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 

frequently shortened to Legal Defense Fund. The 

organization has a national staff and headquarters in 

New York City and works with 400 cooperating attorneys 

throughout the country.