Sequel to Sipuel

Even with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ada Lois Sipuel, who is a Negro, couldn't get into the University of Oklahoma law school. The Court, which made up its mind in an almost unprecedented hurry, had told the State of Oklahoma to give Ada an education equal to what whites get (TIME, Jan. 19). And at least one of the judges made it plain that a law school for just one pupil is no legal education at all. But this week the Oklahoma state regents established a school of law at Oklahoma City (as part of Langston University for Negroes), to be open by next Monday. Whether this step would satisfy the U.S. Supreme Court, no one yet knew.

All the Southern states shared Oklahoma's hopes & fears. At a conference of five Southern governors, Florida's Governor Millard Caldwell put forward a plan he had long been plumping for. Since few states could afford to build separate professional schools for Negroes, why didn't the five states get together and take over a going campus, turn it into a great university* to serve all their Negroes?

In South Carolina, the Charleston News & Courier had a more radical idea: "Were the Court to decree that Negroes be admitted into state-supported colleges for white students in South Carolina, this paper would urge that all appropriations for the [state universities] cease. That could close them. The white people would have plenty of money to support private colleges for themselves."

* One possibility: Meharry Medical College at Nashville.

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