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

plaintiffs be admitted to the superior school forthwith, or does the rule
of all deliberate speed still apply?
Another question relates to the rights, if any, of the individual plaintiffs.
In the second Brown decision the Supreme Court said that the
plaintiffs' realization of their constitutional right of admission to public
schools on a nondiscriminatory basis may be deferred. But can they
be forever barred from qualifying for nondiscriminatory admission by
the terms of a desegregation plan? For example, a grade-a-year plan
beginning at grade i gives no relief to individuals who are in grade 2 and
above when the plan is put into effect. Since suit cannot be brought
on behalf of a child until he is eligible for admission, all plaintiffs will
be in grade 2 at least when litigation is concluded and such a plan put
into effect.
The Supreme Court said that school authorities have a duty to initiate
desegregation and bring about a constitutional operation of their
school systems. Did this duty arise immediately after the second Brown
decision, June i, 1955, or does it arise only when a Negro pupil first
asserts his constitutional rights? This question has considerable pertinence
because 6 years have elapsed since the second Brown decision
and many school boards have not yet taken any action to desegregate.
Are they to be allowed as much time now as boards which started
working out plans in 1955?
Lower courts were admonished in the second Brown decision to judge
whether or not the action of school boards constitutes "good faith implementation
of the governing constitutional principles." What is good
faith? Is it what the school board believes is best for the plaintiff, other
pupils, or the community as a whole? Or does "good faith" relate to
the result to be achieved, i.e., full compliance?
The Supreme Court enumerated six factors that courts may consider
hi fixing the time limits of the transitional period. Are these six factors
exclusive of all others?
During the transitional period fixed by a court as reasonable under
all the circumstances, to what extent, if any, may race be considered?
Does the extent to which race may be considered during a transition
period approved by a court depend at all upon the type of desegregation
plan adopted? For example, is the extent to which race may be
considered the same in a grade-a-year plan based on rezoning and in a
grade-a-year plan using individual pupil placement?
It has been said that the Alabama Pupil Placement law (although
not the individual criteria) was approved by the Supreme Court in the
Shuttlesworth case as not unconstitutional in toto. What action on the
part of a school board is required to implement such a law? May the
board continue to assign all pupils on a racial basis and merely consider
individual requests for transfer to another school?
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