Evasive Action

Georgia and Louisiana voted last week on desegregation as well as on Congressmen. Both states approved measures designed to evade the Supreme Court ban on segregation in the public schools.

Georgia, by a slim margin, approved the long-threatened "private school" amendment to the state constitution. The amendment would permit the state legislature to allot public school funds to private individuals "for educational purposes." Under the scheme, white schools in Negro districts would be put in "private" hands; white pupils would get money from the state, pay it as "tuition" to the all-white "private" schools.

The amendment's highly vocal opponents (including State School Superintendent Mauncey D. Collins, Atlanta's Journal and Constitution, and most white teachers) warned that using the amendment would mean "destruction of the public school system," e.g., ineligibility for free federal lunches and textbooks, collapse of teacher pension plans, haphazard classroom standards.

In Louisiana, white resistance to the Supreme Court ban on segregation was stronger. By more than 4 to 1, state voters endorsed a constitutional amendment to continue school segregation "in the exercise of the state police power to promote . . . peace and good order . . . and not because of race. The legislature shall enact [appropriate] laws . . ." Louisiana's attorneys cite the Constitution's Tenth Amendment relegating police powers to the states. But many Louisianians regard the state amendment solely as an expression of sentiment, not a legal bar to integration.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.