INTEGRATION IN U.S.

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28799, 21 January 1959, Page 8

INTEGRATION IN U.S.

On State Law'

(NJZ. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.DL) NORFOLK (Virginia), Jan. U A Federal Court in Virginia today ruled as “unconstitutional” a State law requiring the closing of all schools faced with Federal ordera to undertake racial integration. So far nine white schools in three Virginia communities have been closed under the State law. They were closed when local school boards, attempted last autumn to carry out Federal orders to enrol negro children. The three judges of the Federal Court which examined the relevant State statutes said in their lengthy written opinion that as the statutes “effectively require a 1 continuance of racial discrimination, they are patently unconstitutional?* ( The Court , did not, however, orders the closed schools to re-open. “We merely hold,” it said, “that (Virginia) Governor Almond's proclamation of September 27, 1958, closing the schools, was predicated upon an unconstitutional statute, and hence is void.” The .Court said the effect of the injunction would _be to restore to the Norfolk School Board, the rights, duties and obligations it had before the State laws were enacted. One of these obligations, the Court said, was to comply with the Court’s order prohibiting the school board from barring negroes from white schools on the gounds of race.

The Norfolk School Board. has closed six secondary schools under the State closing law. Some observers believe the ruling may re-open the school integration crisis in this part of the southern United States, which has simmered down since the troubles which exploded at the beginning of the current school year.

The ruling would presumably apply equally to similar State laws enacted last autumn in the State of Arkansas, the hub of the school integration fight. Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia,' today, the State Supreme Court announced a ruling which had a more immediate effect on Virginia’s schools. The five justices of that Court ruled by three votes to two against Governor Almond’s Administration in an .action brought to test the validity of the payment of State tuition grants for the private segregated schools that were established to replace the closed public schools.