A Question of Qualifications

The foes of rapid integration won a round in Arkansas last week. Taking its cue from a U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld the constitutionality of Alabama's pupil-placement law last winter, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled that a similar law in Arkansas is legal. Under the law, Arkansas school boards have full authority to assign students on the basis of qualifications not essentially concerned with race.

The specific case at issue occurred in the rabidly segregationist Dollarway district near Pine Bluff (pop. 37,000), where three Negro students applied for immediate entrance to the all-white Dollarway High School. School officials refused, and a U.S. district court ordered the children admitted at once. The Dollarway school board countered by invoking the placement law, assigned the youngsters to a Negro school and appealed the case to the Circuit Court. The Negroes' next move: to prove, if they can, that the school board acted in bad faith.

Many moderate Southerners argue that placement laws like those in Alabama and Arkansas will permit them to proceed with integration on a slow, peaceful basis. Said Little Rock's Arkansas Gazette: "The placement laws do make it possible to control and limit the degree of integration in any school district. This is the pattern that offers the hope of a peaceful resolution of our problems." The trouble, of course, is that they can also be used as an excuse not to integrate at all.

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