An F With Honors

When is a failing grade not a failing grade? Maybe when the Department of Education is handing out the marks. In another statement last week, Secretary Bennett announced that six Southern and Border States had yet to comply fully with a 17-year-old court order to desegregate public colleges. However, instead of expressing concern, Bennett praised the states for having made "substantial progress." Moreover, the Secretary gave passing grades to four other states, even though they have not fully met goals or timetables set by his department.

The optimistic appraisal winds down an important Government battle against academic segregation. As a result of a 1969 lawsuit by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the states were forced to submit plans to increase black enrollment and recruit more minority faculty at white institutions, and to upgrade facilities at traditionally black colleges. Otherwise, the states would face a cutoff of federal funds. Last week's ruling means that the four passing states -- Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia -- are now free of such orders.

The six states that failed -- Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma and Virginia -- must take certain steps by year's end. One requirement in Virginia, for example, will be to complete buildings already under construction at some all-black campuses, while Georgia must develop a plan to encourage students at a largely white junior college to transfer to a traditionally black one.

Critics contend that such measures are largely cosmetic. The N.A.A.C.P. notes that the disparity between black and white student-enrollment figures is growing, despite court orders to reduce such gaps. In Arkansas, 46% of white high school graduates and 36% of blacks went on to college in 1978; by 1985 the rate for whites had risen to 49%, while blacks had gained no ground.

Bennett argues that the real problem is a shrinking pool of able black students, a problem felt nationwide, not just in the South. Says he: "In any one of these ten states, a black student will find, if he has qualifications, many institutions eager to have him." Jenell Byrd, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, disagrees, insisting that segregation remains an obstacle for Southern blacks who want to attend mostly white colleges. On that point, she claims, the Federal Government gets an F.