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

and authorized school boards to provide transportation at State expense
or to allot funds to parents for transportation of children attending nonsectarian
private schools, with the cost of the latter program to be borne
in equal shares by the school division and the State. 16
The Virginia General Assembly, however, defeated attempts to remove
from the State constitution the requirement that the State should operate
a uniform system of free public schools. In the course of the debates
it was disclosed that the Perrow <strong>Commission</strong> believed the amendment
unnecessary because any locality could abandon public schools simply by
refusing to appropriate money to operate them.
Five other Southern States—Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas,
and Georgia—in their regular legislative sessions in 1959 considered
legislation to resist, limit, or control desegregation. In all except Alabama
active desegregation suits were pending.
Tennessee
The Legislature of Tennessee amended the State compulsory attendance
law by making local school boards solely responsible for its enforcement.
Without any reference to segregation or race, it authorized a child's
parents upon approval of the local school board to withdraw him from
a school "for any good and substantial reason," provided the child enrolled
within 30 days in another public school designated by the board,
or in a private school. 17
Alabama
The Alabama Legislature in 1959 enacted the so-called Independent
School District Plan. This allowed individual schools threatened with
desegregation to withdraw from State and local control and set up their
own independent districts. The sponsor of the plan, Senator Dumas,
described it as "a second line of defense in the battle to preserve our public
schools from forced Federal integration—the effect would be to give the
Federal courts a lot of scattered targets to shoot at." 18 The legislature
also authorized 19 school boards to use public funds to pay tuition grants
for residents of their districts attending private nondenominational
schools when instruction was not available in the local public schools.
Florida
On the basis of a report by the Governor's Advisory <strong>Commission</strong> on Race
Relations, 20 the Florida Legislature passed five school bills and avoided
the path of a closed school program. One measure authorized the incorporation
and operation of private schools. 21 Another granted county
school boards 22 discretionary power to segregate students by sex. The
third measure added to the Florida pupil assignment law several factors
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