AN AMBER LIGHT ON INTEGRATION

As the school doors swing open throughout most of the nation this week, the South and its 50 million people face a year of enormous significance. 1969 is the most crucial year for school integration since the Supreme Court 15 years ago ordered that the system of dual schools for whites and blacks be dismantled. In 1968-69, only 20% of the Negro children in the South attended integrated schools; this fall, the percentage will nearly double. Moreover, the Government also inherited from the Johnson Administration plans to press --and press hard--upon those Southern education districts that had not yet begun realistic desegregation. School separatism seemed finally doomed, to the despair of diehard segregationists and the joy of civil rights advocates.

Now there is confusion over whether these expectations will be fulfilled quickly. Although Richard Nixon has been silent lately on this issue, the two Cabinet officers who share jurisdiction over school integration--Attorney General John Mitchell and Secretary Robert Finch of Health, Education and Welfare --have made some alarming and ambiguous moves. Their effect is to raise the question: Is the Administration pulling back from the scheduled pace of desegregation? The rhetoric, to be sure, remains pro-civil rights, and in some respects the Administration has been both progressive and innovative. Finch, earlier thought of as the Cabinet liberal, may yet prove correct when he promises that the Administration will maintain pro-integration pressure. For now, however, the signs point to submission to a Southern political strategy that demands placating whites at the expense of immediate integration.

Request for a Delay. Last week this fear, widely held by liberals and moderates, led to an embarrassing family dispute within the Administration. Some 40 attorneys working in the Civil Rights Division of Mitchell's Justice Department gathered in the apartment of one of their number. They met in an unprecedented act of rebellion to discuss a petition of protest to Attorney General Mitchell. The day before, the Justice Department had gone into federal court to retreat from the Government's previous insistence that 33 recalcitrant Mississippi school districts meet this year's deadline for desegregation--after a federal district court in Jackson, Miss., had requested that HEW draw up a plan for each district, to be put into effect this month. Finch asked that the move be delayed until December, contending that the plans had been hastily drawn and unclear, and Justice supported him. Three days after the rebels met, the court granted the Administration's request for a delay.

Ironically, the procedure by which the courts could call on HEW for expert help had been regarded as a significant development in the drive for integration. By taking cases in groups, this approach would save time. Since the programs would be created by the Office of Education's personnel, they obviously would be in compliance with federal regulations. Finch and Mitchell seemed to be blunting a new and apparently important weapon. Word passed within the Justice Department that they had acted out of political pressure from Southern leaders. That feeling arose because Mitchell, as Nixon's campaign manager, advocated the appeal for Southern votes that helped elect Nixon.

The Mississippi pullback was just the latest of a series of moves by the Administration that has alarmed civil rightists. Other items:

sb In an earlier case where the Office of Education was asked to write desegregation plans affecting 21 districts in South Carolina, HEW staff members wanted immediate action on 16 of the 21. Finch limited the demand to just four of the districts.

sb Finch and Mitchell in July put out a joint statement saying that Washington, while still requiring "compliance now" with federal guidelines, would avoid imposing a "single arbitrary date by which the desegregation process should be completed in all districts." A product of intra-Administration compromise, the statement was open to varying interpretations. Then HEW drafted a letter to school superintendents, making it clear that the Finch-Mitchell statement could not be used as an excuse to delay. The letter was never sent.

sb The House of Representatives recently passed a Southern-sponsored measure that would virtually cripple HEW's desegregation activities. Mitchell made a special trip to Capitol Hill to ask that Republicans refrain from opposing it. Although the amendment is expected to die before the final enactment stage, Mitchell's lobbying was clearly hostile to civil rights forces.

Ultimate Lever. HEW and the Justice Department have differing methods of attacking segregation. HEW's main weapon, if friendly persuasion fails, is to cut off federal financial aid to a district that refuses to comply. Justice works through the courts, where the ultimate lever is the application of federal force, as in the famous Little Rock case. It was HEW's dollar power, granted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that pushed many Southern communities beyond token compliance with the 1954 Supreme Court decision against "separate but equal" education. The Nixon Administration's approach is to stress court action instead.

One argument in favor of this switch of emphasis is that federal money is most often used to help pupils in the impoverished areas. Cutting off aid usually penalizes Negroes first. However, the legal route is frequently slow, and Mitchell's Justice Department has not rushed to set any litigation records. So far this year, the Justice Department has brought 15 integration suits; in the comparable period last year, the figure was 31.

Lost Momentum. There are still 1,534 school districts in the Southern and Border States that once had dual systems for black and white and that are still not formally classified as desegregated. Many of these either are under court order to integrate or are in the process of voluntary compliance. With Washington now willing to consider new delays, however, the incentive for prompt action is considerably lessened.

The Nixon Administration's caution has tended 'to blur the guidelines for school desegregation, casting doubt on the inevitability--or at least the near-term certainty--of enforced integration in the South. The result is a loss in valuable psychological momentum. For local Southern officials, the pressure to integrate can be cruel, and the most effective argument they can make to their constituents is that integration is inevitable under the law. If Washington's course is ambivalent, if school districts that have held out the longest against the law are now granted still more delays, then the position of moderates in neighboring districts is clearly undercut.

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