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

1959 LEGISLATIVE SESSIONS
Virginia
The Virginia General Assembly, called into extraordinary session in January
1959 as a result of the collapse of massive resistance, again took the
lead by devising what has become the new defensive approach. At first
the only alternatives to massive resistance appeared to be either desegregation
or complete abandonment of the State's public school system.
However, a third choice was presented late in March 1959 by the
Perrow <strong>Commission</strong> that Governor Almond had appointed to study
the problem.
The <strong>Commission</strong> reported that the most defensible position legally
would be for the State itself to go completely out of the school business
and leave each locality free to abandon public schools, or to operate
them as it saw fit with local tax funds and funds received from the State
for general purposes. The <strong>Commission</strong> took the position that if there
were complete local autonomy, the abandonment of a local school
system by local action would present no problem of State-imposed
unequal treatment of localities.
The <strong>Commission</strong>, however, recommended neither the complete abandonment
of public education nor complete local autonomy, but a middle
course whereby the State system would be continued with the greatest
possible freedom of choice for each locality and each individual. 9 Adoption
of this approach transformed massive resistance into a scheme of
local option, tuition grants, and free choice. All mention of school
segregation was deleted from the State school laws. Under the earlier
law private-school tuition grants were authorized only if the student's
public school had been desegregated. Under the new law desegregation
was no longer the premise for the subsidized choice of a private school.
Parents were entitled to a tuition grant to send a child to a private school
within or without the State, or to a public school outside of the school
system of their residence. 10 The statewide compulsory school attendance
law was replaced by a measure giving each local community the right to
adopt or suspend compulsory attendance whenever it deemed proper. 11
Local boards of supervisors were authorized to make appropriations for
public schools for 3O-day periods, 12 thus facilitating the closing of schools
for lack of funds.
Another bill, passed on April 28, I959, 13 gave cities and counties the
choice of remaining under the authority of the State pupil placement
board, or of giving the placement function to their own local school
boards, subject to rules to be adopted by the State board of education.
Other measures exempted buildings used for private schools from zoning
codes, 14 permitted referenda on the disposal of public school property, 18
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