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

grants, for example? If so, what proportion of its funds must come
from public sources?
A related problem is the abandonment of public schools to avoid the
necessity of compliance with a court order to desegregate. In the
School Segregation Cases the Supreme Court said ". . . education
is perhaps the most important function of State and local governments.
. . . Such an opportunity (for an education), where the State
has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available
to all on equal terms." 82 Does this mean that the State has no duty
to provide free public education or that having assumed that duty
may abandon it at will?
In the absence of action that might be construed to be an evasive
scheme to perpetuate segregation with State support, can the operation
of public schools be abandoned for the purpose of avoiding compliance
with a court order? Can an individual school district close its public
schools without denying equal protection if other public schools in the
State remain open?
Attributes of a nondiscriminatory system
The Supreme Court has held a dual school system based upon race
unconstitutional but it has been less specific as to what satisfies constitutional
requirements. Does full compliance require the elimination
of a dual, and the achievement of a single, unified public school system?
Several of the Court's statements suggest that it had a unified
system in mind: For instance, the fact that it specified, among the factors
that might be taken into consideration in determining how much time
could be allowed for the achievement of full compliance, the revision
of school districts and attendance zones and the need of revision of
local laws and regulations. 33
The Shuttlesworth case indicates that assignment of pupils individually
by nonracial criteria is an acceptable manner of achieving desegregation.
What other methods—in addition to rezoning which the Court
has suggested—would satisfy constitutional requirements?
Achievement of full compliance
Weighing the public interest against the private, the Court has not insisted
upon immediate, universal desegregation. After a prompt and
reasonable start has been made, full compliance is to be achieved with
all deliberate speed. The first and most obvious question is whether
delayed compliance is limited to the factual situation presented in the
School Segregation Cases where all tangible factors were equal or being
equalized. If segregated school facilities are patently unequal must the
12