Does the Supreme Court Think White?

For almost two generations the N.A.A.C.P. has devoted much of its time to representing the Negro in courts throughout the nation. Last week the organization was more than a little embarrassed at having to defend itself against charges pressed by its own chief lawyer. The N.A.A.C.P. board of directors, said General Counsel Robert Carter, acted in a manner that was "arbitrary, demeaning and intolerable" when it fired Lewis Steel, 31, one of his ablest staff attorneys.

Steel stirred up the trouble by writing an article entitled Nine Men in Black Who Think White, a blunt attack on the U.S. Supreme Court that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. These days, the court is criticized most often as excessively libertarian; Steel took an opposite tack. He charged the court with maintaining the status quo and striking down only "overtly obnoxious" discrimination.

Damage to Privilege. According to Steel, the court backed down from its historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision when it ruled a year later that the states did not have to desegregate their schools immediately, but only "with all deliberate speed." In effect, said Steel, the court was serving notice that it was "a white court which would protect the interests of white America in the maintenance of stable institutions." The justices, he said, "considered the potential damage to white Americans resulting from the diminution of privilege as more critical than continued damage to the underprivileged." They have now ordered segregation plucked out "root and branch." But 14 years after the Brown decision, said Steel, only about 15% of the black children in the South attend integrated schools.

Steel also claimed that these days the court is relying on the "good faith" of racist white officials to assure that Negroes are seated on juries in state courts and enjoy other constitutional rights. In Steel's opinion, it is wrong to answer that the court has set the pace of racial progress for the rest of the Government. Instead, he contends, "a cautious Supreme Court has waltzed to the music of the white majority--one step forward, one step backward, sidestep, sidestep."

An Ultimatum. "My God," said the N.A.A.C.P.'s assistant executive director, John Morsell, after he read the article. "Now they'll be able to say that the N.A.A.C.P. is jumping on the court." Bishop Stephen Spottswood, N.A.A.C.P. board chairman, denounced "historical inaccuracies" in the piece without specifying his objections, and one day after the article appeared, the board discharged Steel without summoning either him or Counsel Carter for an explanation.

A step-grandson of Albert Warner, one of the founders of Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., Steel went to Harvard and later was first in his class at New York Law School. He does not really need the $10,500-a-year job at the N.A.A.C.P., but he likes the work. In his four years with the association, Steel has tried more than 75 cases across the country and has won a number of them.

General Counsel Carter was quick to point out that Steel's provocative article contained criticisms of the court that he and other staff members have often made in print. Claiming that the association has denied its own attorney the same due process that it tries to assure for Negroes, Carter sent an ultimatum to the board demanding that Steel be reinstated before noon on Oct. 21. N.A.A.C.P. Executive Director Roy Wilkins, who was away on a vacation cruise during the board vote, told Carter that his action was "inappropriate," but other civil libertarians took a different view. They admitted that the thesis of Steel's article is open to question, but they were also quick to question the N.A.A.C.P.'s reaction. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, denounced Steel's firing as "a deplorable act."

As for Steel, he is due to appear this week in the Supreme Court for a ruling on his application to practice before it. Approval is a mere formality. However the N.A.A.C.P. finally disposes of his case, the nine white-thinking men in black are not likely to be bothered by what he said about them.

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