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

standards, was rejected on "attitude and ability to adjust and home
environment." The court noted that at the hearing of this child's application,
the father of the student, a doctor, gave the board a rather spirited
lecture as to its constitutional duties.
Since the procedures used by the board in making initial assignments
had been found discriminatory, it was not necessary for the court to
pass upon individual denials of reassignments. Hence, no specific criterion
or group of criteria were condemned as irrelevant. But it does
appear that this court believed that the criteria used in placing pupils
must be relevant to the business of operating schools. This would be
assured if it were explicitly required that criteria used for assignment of
pupils be related to a definite classification of the schools.
Judicial guidelines.—Although about 40 court cases have considered
the rejection of applications for transfer, few definitive guidelines have
emerged. Residential proximity to a school without regard to zoning
is almost universally upheld 84 as a basis for determining school assignments,
88 as is residence in a properly established attendance area. 88
(The propriety of the attendance areas seems questionable where they
were established under a dual system of racial schools and not revised,
but this has been upheld.) 87 A Negro living in the appropriate attendance
area cannot be subjected to transfer tests which his fellow white
students are not given. 88 In one case, after a special survey showed that
the applicant for transfer lived 15 feet nearer to the Negro school than
the white school for which he applied, a forced assignment to a Negro
school was upheld. 88
Scholastic achievement has been held a valid factor for consideration
with respect to an application for transfer. However, a Negro applicant
cannot be barred from a white school if white students are not
excluded on the same basis, 60 or, where achievement is the criterion
applied, if the applicant's achievement is equal to or better than that
of the lowest white student in the class to which he seeks admission. 91
Overcrowding has been upheld as a ground for denial of midyear
transfer of a Negro student, 92 but the same court rejected this as a reason
for denying transfer the following fall when new classes were being made
up. 98
The educational undesirability of repeated transfers was sufficient to
deny a transfer to a student who lived closer to a new Negro school
about to be completed than to the white school for which he applied,
since he would be subject to transfer to the new school when completed. 94
Likewise, the denial of transfer of a high school senior was upheld when
he had only a few more months to go to complete high school. 95
Possible racial tension and violence, 96 or threat of friction and disorder,
87 as criteria for denying transfer have been held to conflict with
the Supreme Court decision in Cooper v. Aaron?* "Isolation" in school
30