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

6. The Threat to Education
... no instrumentality less universal in its power and authority
than Government can secure popular education. . . . without
popular education, moreover, no government which rests on popular
action can long endure. . . .
WOODROW WILSON
As a premise to its conclusion in the School Segregation Cases that separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal, the Supreme Court
stressed the importance of education as "perhaps the most important
function of State and local governments," x and observed that the opportunity
for education ". . . where the State has undertaken to provide
it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." 2
In 1955 a three-judge Federal district court in discussing the Supreme
Court decision in Briggs v. Elliott, one of the original School
Segregation Cases, 3 elaborated on "what the Supreme Court has decided
and what it has not decided in this case": *
[It] has not decided that the States must mix persons of different
races in the schools or must require them to attend schools or must
deprive them of the right of choosing the schools they attend. What
it has decided, and all that it has decided, is that a State may not
deny to any person on account of race the right to attend any
school that it maintains. . . . Nothing in the Constitution or in
the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people
freedom to choose the schools they attend. . . . The i4th amendment
is a limitation upon the exercise of power by the State or
State agencies, not a limitation upon the freedom of individuals.
This exegesis underlies a number of measures taken by States of the
Deep South in response to the School Segregation cases. The i4th
amendment prohibits racial segregation only by the States and their
instrumentalities. Eliminate participation by the States in the field of
education, and segregation can be preserved. Measures premised on
this reasoning were enacted by all of the former Confederate States
save Tennessee, 5 ranging from laws compelling or allowing the closing
of public schools, through the repeal of compulsory school attendance
79