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

students wishing to do so could register at the Negro high school without
regard to their residence. White students living in the zone of
the Negro school were given a similar privilege regarding the white
high school. Fifty-nine Negro students chose not to exercise this
option and registered at the white school in their residential zone. 81
Their registration forms were marked with a special identifying symbol.
In making original assignments (registration apparently being considered
an application therefor) of 2,600 students "en masse," the board
assigned 3 Negroes to each of 2 formerly white schools where they had
registered, and all of the other 53 Negroes to the Negro school, despite
their areas of residence or their places of registration. All white students
were assigned where they registered. The U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit held these initial assignment procedures invalid: ° 2
... It is established without any serious dispute that the board's
assignment criteria under the pupil placement laws was [sic] not
applied to any white student in making these initial assignments;
that no white student was refused assignment to the school of his
residence area or registration; and although controverted, the
evidence convincingly establishes that in making the initial asassignments
of plaintiffs and other Negro students, the board's
action was motivated and governed by racial considerations.
In the consolidated cases of Wheeler v. Durham City Board of
Education and Spaulding v. Durham City Board of Education,** the
court specifically condemned the school board's practice of assigning
elementary students on the basis of two sets of city maps, one zoned
exclusively for white students and the other for Negroes. It also criticized
plaintiffs for giving little information (other than the desire to
attend an integrated school) as to why reassignment was requested.
The court said plaintiffs were in fact seeking a totally integrated school
system rather than reassignment to any particular school. Citing
Briggs v. Elliott * 4 and Thompson v. County School Board of Arlington
County, 6 ' it repeated, "the Constitution of the United States does not
require integration, but merely forbids discrimination." M
The problem here as in other North Carolina cases is that plaintiffs
were attempting to challenge initial assignments by race as a continuation
of the segregated system, but the Fourth Circuit rule required them
to apply for reassignment and protest the denial of reassignment.
Nevertheless, the court held specific practices of the board "discriminatory
and thus forbidden by the i4th amendment." 67 In addition to
assignment by a dual system of attendance areas and the lateness of
notice, it condemned "the failure of the board to adopt any criteria or
standards for considering applications for reassignment, and the failure
of the board to apply such criteria or standards equally to whites and
96