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

It had become clear that New Orleans school officials were determined
to keep the schools open and to comply with the Federal court order.
The remaining legislation enacted at the first extraordinary session, therefore,
was designed to prevent such compliance. The law providing for
the election of the Orleans Parish School Board was repealed and the
legislature was authorized to provide for the creation and election of a
new board. 62 Whenever any school in their jurisdiction was operated
"in violation of the constitution and laws of the State," accreditation was
to be withdrawn and school officials prohibited from functioning.
School officials were directed to close such schools and to revoke the licenses
of teachers instructing therein. 63 Students attending such schools
were denied promotion and graduation credits. The transfer of students
from the schools to which they had been assigned in September
was prohibited and consent thereto by any school official was made a
misdemeanor. 64 On November 30, 1960, a three-judge Federal court
found 18 of these statutes unconstitutional, and voided 4 House concurrent
resolutions that had been approved at the same session. These resolutions
implemented some of the statutes by delegating to an eight-man
legislative committee complete control of the Orleans Parish school
system, 65 and repealing the Orleans Parish School Board resolution transferring
four Negro first graders to previously white schools. They also
discharged the New Orleans school superintendent and the school board
counsel, 68 and declared November 14, 1960, the day scheduled for the
desegregation of New Orleans schools, a school holiday. 67 Finally, the
four members of the Orleans Parish School Board who had voted in favor
of desegregation of the schools were addressed out of office. 68
Since the Orleans Parish school officials had found effective support in
the Federal court, the second extraordinary session (November i6-December
15, 1960) adopted a combined strategy of recrimination against
the Federal courts 69 and intimidation of the New Orleans School Board.
Legislation was adopted to deprive the school board of the power to
select its own counsel 70 and to cripple its operations by depriving it of
funds and cutting off the pay of teachers who continued to teach in the
desegregated schools. The pay of the teachers who had refused to teach
in compliance with State law was not affected. 71 The same session also
reenacted tuition grant laws for children attending private nonsectarian
schools, 72 authorized the transfer of school property whenever a school
had been closed indefinitely under the authority of State law, 73 and made
it a misdemeanor to obstruct State court orders or judicial processes
under penalty of fine and imprisonment. 74
The legislation enacted at the third and fifth extraordinary sessions
which met between December 17, 1960, and February 26, <strong>1961</strong>, represented
a further attempt to intimidate not only the members of the New
Orleans School Board and superintendent of schools (who had attempted
74