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

special segregation committee the words "for racially segregated schools
only" were deleted from the sections of the appropriation bill dealing
with State school funds. A general provision was inserted vesting supervision
of the expenditure of funds for educational purposes in the
State Budget and Control Board and declaring that: 44 "The appropriations
made under the following sections shall be on a racially segregated
basis only." An entirely separate special emergency bill repealing
this provision was passed in the closing days of the 1960 session. 45
It never became effective. At the convening of the <strong>1961</strong> session the
Governor notified the legislature that he had vetoed it.
The State Segregation Committee believed that the repeal device would
keep school segregation suits out of the Federal courts. The theory was
that racial restriction having been removed from the appropriation law,
the only basis for court attack against segregation in the schools would
be to contest the assignment of students under the 1956 Pupil Placement
law. 46 This imposed a long sequence of administrative procedures
that had to be exhausted before recourse to the courts. The <strong>1961</strong> session
of the legislature having adjourned without overriding the Governor's
veto, this reserve weapon can no longer be used.
Virginia
Among the Virginia school districts ordered in 1959 to desegregate,
Prince Edward County alone chose to close its schools rather than comply.
This brought about the establishment of several segregated private
schools for white children. 47 In its regular 1960 session the Virginia
General Assembly enacted three measures to support them. One
authorized local governing bodies to appropriate funds for private educational
purposes. 48 Another permitted local governments to provide
that contributions to nonprofit, nonsectarian private schools within the
locality (either in operation or chartered within a year), could be deducted
from personal and real property taxes up to 25 percent of the
taxes due. 49 The third was a new tuition grant law that provided
scholarships for the education of children in nonsectarian, private schools
wherever located and in public schools outside the school district. Local
governing bodies were authorized to levy taxes and appropriate public
funds for the establishment of such scholarships up to the amount of
$250 for elementary, and $275 for high school students, part of the
cost being borne by the State. The act declared that if local authorities
failed to create scholarships they would be provided by the State,
the local share to be withheld from other State funds due that locality. 50
Georgia
When the Legislatures of Georgia and Louisiana reconvened in January
and May of 1960, respectively, one school district in each—Atlanta
7i