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

Courts seem to be seeking a solid basis for classification in saying that
the Negro applicant cannot be rejected for reasons not applied to white
applicants, 80 or for low IQ or achievement when there are white students
in the school of as low or lower IQ or achievement. 81 What they have not
explicitly recognized is that the only practical solution is a system of
definite classification of the various schools.
Classification of schools by purpose is not new. At the high school
level curriculum is often the basis of classifications; e.g., college preparatory,
scientific, technical, commercial, vocational, and industrial.
Scholastic qualifications for admission, if applied equally to all, are
certainly constitutionally unobjectionable. At all levels in some systems
there are separate schools for the physically handicapped, retarded,
emotionally disturbed, and incorrigible. Some form of
certification as to the particular disability is usually required before a
child can be assigned to such a special school.
A great deal of the confusion, inconsistency, injustice, frustration,
and litigation arising out of the administration of pupil placement laws
could be eliminated if school boards classified their schools and related
their placement criteria thereto. For example, if IQ or achievement
were the criterion, one school could be designated for pupils scoring
i oo or better, and another for pupils having an IQ score of 99 or less.
Bringing school classification and placement criteria into line would
also solve the problem of arbitrary and unreasonable criteria. Clearly
a constitutional classification of schools must relate to such things as
curriculums, academic standards, or teaching methods. Special teaching
methods are required for certain types of schools, such as schools
for the physically handicapped, the retarded, the blind, and the deaf.
Obviously, public schools could not be classified by the morals of the
pupils or their parents, by home background, by general health or personal
standards. These factors do not relate to education or educational
processes. The day of special public schools based on social classification
such as existed in the early days of the Republic is long since past. 82
An attempt to do so now would certainly be held a denial of equal
protection of the laws.
In the second Little Rock case, the court of appeals found that in
considering Negro students' applications for transfer, "the board was
preoccupied with considerations not ordinarily deemed relevant to normal
school criteria, and that, consciously or otherwise, the standards
and criteria were applied by defendants for the purpose of impeding,
thwarting and frustrating integration. . . ." 83 One of the board's preoccupations
was with the "attitude" of the applicants at the hearing on
their transfers. It found some were "evasive," "disrespectful," "hostile,"
"uncooperative" or "improper." Several applications were denied on
such grounds. One student, who was found to be academically qualified
and unobjectionable from the standpoint of morals, health, and personal
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