1961 US Commission on Civil Rights Report Book 2 - University of ...

district court might conclude after analysis of all relevant factors "that
justification existed for not requiring the present nonsegregated admission
of all qualified Negro children." 22 If immediate, general admission of
all qualified Negro children is not required, however, the program of the
school authorities must point toward completion of desegregation at the
earliest possible date, and the appropriate steps to put such program
into effective operation must have been taken before additional time may
be granted. The Court emphasized the duty to end segregation, saying
that State authorities (which includes local school boards and superintendents
as agents of the State) are "duty bound to devote every effort
toward initiating desegregation and bringing about the elimination of
racial discrimination in the public school system." 23
THE SHUTTLESWORTH CASE
Shortly after the second Brown decision, the legislatures of several Southern
States 24 seizing upon long-recognized power of school authorities
to designate the school each child is entitled or required to attend,
authorized and directed school boards to assign children to schools in
accordance with specified criteria other than race. These measures are
designated as pupil placement, enrollment, or assignment laws.
Two months after the decision in the Little Rock case, the Supreme
Court affirmed without opinion the judgment of a three-judge district
court in Skuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education 26 "upon the
limited grounds on which the District Court rested its decision." This
decision gave great impetus to reliance on pupil placement plans by
Southern States as a means of meeting legal requirements with little or
no actual desegregation. The Shuttlesworth case in the district court
turned entirely on a single issue, namely, whether the Alabama School
Placement Law was void in toto. 26 The law in question enumerated 14
factors to be considered with respect to the assignment of pupils and it
had a severability provision. The plaintiff in the lower court conceded
that some of the assignment factors were valid. Thus the law could not
be held invalid in toto because of the severability clause. The district
court stated: 27
. . . The School Placement Law furnishes the legal machinery for
an orderly administration of the public schools in a constitutional
manner by the admission of qualified pupils upon a basis of individual
merit without regard to their race or color. We must
presume that it will be so administered. If not, in some future
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