Comment bitter on Court ruling
ATLANTA (UPI) — The Supreme Court's tough, new desegregate "now" school order drew bitter comment from officials across the South Thursday, with many freely predicting that it sounds the death knell for public education.
Alabama Attorney General MacDonald Gallion said the degree was a "body blow to the public schools and our children here and everywhere," and Sen. James O. Eastland declared "the decision spells disaster for public education in Mississippi and many areas of the South."
In a ruling that came 15 years, 5 months and 12 days after the 1954 decree outlawing school segregation, the high court held Wednesday that it was "the obligation of every school district to terminate dual systems at once."
Although the ruling came as a blow to the administration, which had urged a go-slow policy in Mississippi — the state against which the new ruling was specifically directed — President
Nixon promised his backing. He said he would exert his leadership in solving the "practical and human problems" resulting from the ruling.
Southern officials said the problems would be many. Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia predicted the ruling would create a "hell hole" of education in the state and would bring about a deterioration of education because whites in the future will "not vote for needed school bond issues."
This was a view voiced in many quarters. Rep. Jack Edwards, R-Ala., declared: "I think this decision is going to destroy the school systems of many areas. It is already happening in many parts of the South. The white kids who can't afford private schools are dropping out. The public school system will become a colored school system . . . It is almost impossible now to get any bond or school tax through."
Officials who took a less drastic view of the new order still foresaw problems in its implementation. "Many children will be forced to go to schools they do not want to go to, there will be a tremendous amount of busing—inconveniencing students and putting a new financial burden on school systems," said Paul West, superintendent of Fulton County (Atlanta) schools.
Ruling may not affect schools outside South
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Justice Department school desegregation suits against seven areas outside the South would appear at first glance to be untouched by the Supreme Court's Mississippi ruling Wednesday.
While officials were attempting to determine the full impact of the court's ruling, they felt it would not apply to any school system except those which have been operated in the past by law as dual systems.
All seven non-southern suits involve what the Justice Department calls "purposeful discrimination" as opposed to dejure segregation in the deep South and defafo segregation in the North and West.
The most recent suit was filed Oct. 14 against Waterbury, Conn. It charged that the city operated a school system which discriminated against Negro and Puerto Rican elementary children through the establishment of school district boundaries and the transportation of white children to Roman Catholic schools.
A suit against District 12 in Madison, Ill., is in the pre-trial stage while an order for integration of students and faculty in the
Chicago suburb of South Holland, III. has been issued.
A consent decree also was entered in the government's case against school district 189 in East St. Louis, Ill. The issue of segregated faculty assignments in Indianapolis has been resolved although that case is still open.
The government's suit against Tulsa, Okla., is on appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a seventh case against Pasadena, Calif., the government is an intervener in a private suit that is set for trial sometime in November.
Too old to meet Spock
CHICAGO (UPI) — William Kunstler, defense attorney in the "Chicago Eight" riot conspiracy trial, Wednesday offered to introduce to the court Dr. Benjamin Spock, noted baby doctor and peace advocate who was listening to the proceedings.
U. S. District Court Judge Julius J. Hoffman turned down the offer.
"My children are grown," the judge said.
12 KANSAN Oct. 31 1969
gration was to be accomplished. "We don't know how many blacks and how many whites we must have in what schools," Compton said. "No court has said exactly what is the complete elimination of a dual school system."
Statistics compiled by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare show that despite the 15 year gap since school segregation was outlawed, the majority of the South's Negro youths still attend black schools.
"Anything which violates the neighborhood concept of schools violates the concept of public education in our land," West said.
M. S. McDonald, head of Rome, Ga., schools, said "everybody is bound to be upset by the decision. Our problem here in Rome isn't as great as in other systems, but if we have to start shifting students and teachers around in the middle of the year, we're in for trouble."
The total length of all coastlines and land boundaries of the United States is 19,921 miles.
William Compton, school board attorney at Meridian, Miss., complained that the ruling, for all of its explicit language, did not spell out the mechanics of how inte-