Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, … I plan to propose the amendment that would establish and make clear that it is the national policy to have uniform enforcement of desegregation of schools in all regions of the United States.

Let me make it clear that my primary purpose is to preserve the neighborhood school and, so far as possible, rescue all schools in every section of the Nation from this killing squeeze put on by those who have made education clearly secondary to integration in the public schools.

I emphasize also that this is not an attempt to repeal the Civil Rights Act. It is simply a good faith attempt to save the schools of every section of the Nation, including the South where they are now literally being emasculated in many areas as educational centers for educating the children.

I wish to make it absolutely clear that I want every child, and I have always wanted every child, to have every opportunity to obtain adequate schooling and training under just as favorable conditions as can be had. I want faculties and others who are engaged in school work generally to have conditions as favorable and as encouraging as possible.

For several years, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Justice Department have conducted, or attempted to conduct, a campaign to bring about a total integration of the public schools in the South. Both the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Department of Justice have launched a crash program to integrate the races in every school in the South.

This drive for allout integration has been so intense and so demanding that the education and welfare of the students and teachers have actually become secondary. The prime objective has been allout integration.

Those who are directing this campaign have either failed to recognize, or have deliberately chosen to ignore, the fact that this localized effort against the South overlooks segregated conditions in the North that are as pronounced, and in some instances even more pronounced, than segregation in the South which is actually the sole target of this massive integration program.

The record is heavy with facts collected and verified by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that show the extent of segregation in the North.

Last year, I placed in the RECORD detailed figures showing the extent of segregation in several Northern and Western States. The references are as follows, in volume 115, part 30:

These figures show, for instance, that in Ohio there are 197 predominantly Negro schools. There are 154 which are 90 to 100 percent Negro. There are 131 95 to 100 percent Negro, and 105 of them are 98 to 100 percent Negro.

In Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, there are 13,765 Negro students in 17 schools that are from 99.2 to 100 percent black. In all these 17 schools there are only 37 students listed as white.

In Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania, there are 9 schools with a total enrollment of 7,206 that are 100 percent Negro.

Also in Philadelphia there are 57 schools with an enrollment of 68,402 that are 99 to 99.9 percent Negro.

In Los Angeles, there are 48 schools with a total enrollment of 65,877 that are 99 to 99.9 percent minority segregated.

These are but some examples. The facts show that in many sections of the North, in large and small school districts, segregation is as extensive, and in some cases, more so, than in the South. Segregated conditions are much worse in the North than in the South now after the Supreme Court decisions have been implemented and put into effect in the South.

The policy of singling out the South for enforcement of the 1954 Supreme Court decision prohibiting discrimination in the public schools on account of race is based upon the idea that enforcement should be directed against areas of the Nation that once had State or local laws that required or allowed segregated schools.

This is known as de jure segregation. Segregation in public schools that has arisen out of a fact, or a combination of facts, not required or permitted by law is classed as de facto segregation.

By establishment of this policy—that is, a differentiation between de jure and de facto segregation—Federal officials have sought to excuse their inaction against segregation in the North while pursuing an intense program to achieve total and immediate integration in the South.

The practical effect of this policy is to say that segregation in the South is wrong but segregation in the North is not wrong.

This procedure, this approach, is merely a policy. It is not supported by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 nor by the Supreme Court decisions.

However, even under this policy the States of the South should be considered on the same footing and treated the same as New York for the reason that as late as 1938 New York law provided for separate schools for Negroes.

The New York statute, laws of 1910, chapter 140, article XXXVI, section 921, read as follows:

Sec. 921. Provision for separate schools.—The Trustees of any union school district, or of any school district organized under a special act, may, when the inhabitants of any district shall so determine, by resolution, at any annual meeting, or at a special meeting called for that purpose, establish separate schools for the instruction of colored children residents therein, and such school shall be supported in the same manner and receive the same care, and be furnished with the same facilities for instruction, as the white schools therein.

As I read this law it clearly provides for a dual school system. It is the separate but equal doctrine.

The New York Supreme Court declared this law to be constitutional and therefore in effect in New York, in decisions rendered by that Court in 1883, and again in 1900: and said section continued to be the law in that State until it was repealed in 1938.

Notwithstanding the fact that the schools of New York should be treated the same as the schools of other States where de jure segregation existed, the New York Legislature last year passed and Governor Rockefeller signed a State law which precludes the application of the civil rights law and other desegregation measures in that State as now being applied in States of the South.

By an overwhelming vote of more than two to one in the new State General Assembly, the New York Legislature prohibited the busing of students and also gave to the public school student’s parent or guardian the freedom of choice as to the public school a child shall attend.

The inequity thus created is unacceptable under the principles of our form of government. While public school students in the South are now forced to ride a school bus many tens of miles, and in some cases for hours each day, against their will, and the will of their parents, to attend a school across the county from their homes, the State of New York has by law provided there will be no bussing of students and there will be freedom of choice to attend a neighborhood school.

If freedom of choice is wrong, the State of New York should not be allowed to continue freedom of choice as an official policy. If freedom of choice is right as official policy in New York, all other States should have the same right to freedom of choice.

If public school students in New York should not be bused to overcome the vestiges of a dual school system, the public school students of the South should not be bused for that purpose either.

If the students of the South should be bused for that purpose then the students of New York should also be bused.

For a picture of the extent of segregation in the public schools of New York State, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks a summary of FIEW statistics for the school year ending June 1968.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. STENNIS. A sense of fairness should give wide support to the proposition that every State be treated alike.

I challenge those who advocate this dual standard and duplicitous policy to put this matter in national issue by adopting as part of their platform in the next election the proposition that all States, including their own, should be treated as the South is now being treated.

I predict that any candidate or political party who does so will be defeated overwhelmingly.

I further predict that not one party, nor one candidate, will make such a proposal as part of the platform on which they seek election, because every knowledgeable person in public office knows full well that defeat would be certain.

If this drastic policy is not to be pressed with equal diligence in all sections of the Nation, fairness then dictates that the pressure be eased in these sections where it is being unwisely and unjustly applied before the public schools are destroyed and there is no chance for any student—black or white—to obtain a decent education.

I consider no matter now before the Senate, or likely to come before the Senate, more important or more serious than that of preserving public school education and the concept of the neighborhood school, and I will pursue this matter as vigorously and effectively as I can.

Source: Sen. John Stennis (Miss.), “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1970—Amendments,” Congressional Record 116, pt. 1 (January 27, 1970): 1266–67.