Public school sold for $1,500, then turned over to private group for $10.00, now operated as private school, Malden, Miss.

Mr. FISCHER. There is also evidence that white teachers have been kept on the public school payroll until the end of the school year, although they are teaching in the private school.

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND ADMINISTRATION STATEMENTS AND POLICY

The local and State officials are not alone responsible for the conditions which are contrary to the spirit and letter of the integration laws. In an article in the Washington Monthly, Peter Gal, a former member of the Office of Civil Rights staff in HEW, states the situation succinctly:

From almost its first month the Nixon Administration began to nibble away at our program. First the desegregation guidelines were weakened in a joint HEW-Justice statement drafted primarily at the White House.

Then several school districts got favored treatment that violated all the standards that had been maintained until then. Then Secretary Finch sent a letter to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for a delay for 30 Mississippi School districts, in what then appeared to be (and was later held to be) direct conflict with rulings of the Supreme Court. Finally the Administration adopted the code words "busing" and "neighborhood schools" as the definition of what school desegregation was all about, abandoning the contention of the Supreme Court, Congress, and the previous Administration, that the issue was equal educational opportunity under a very explicit law *

The firing last week of Commissioner of Education James Allen, virtually the only voice in the Nixon administration expressing deep commitment to the cause of integration, is the latest negative event in this sequence.

Senator MONDALE. Would you yield at this point?

Am I correct in saying that Commissioner Allen is regarded as one of the outstanding education administrators in the country?

Mr. FISCHER. He was regarded as one of the outstanding State school superintendents, when he was in New York State before he came to the U.S. Office of Education.

Senator MONDALE. Is it also not the case that as commissioner of education in New York, and as U.S. Commissioner of Education, he always fought for quality integrated education?

Mr. FISCHER. In my opinion, he did.

Of course, a lot of fighting was hidden, but he was a very frustrated man. He told us privately that he could make no headway with this administration, but stayed on in an attempt to try.

Senator MONDALE. He did, in fact, issue shortly before he was fired, a statement supporting integrated education at a time when his own administration was pursuing this other route which you have just described.

Mr. FISCHER. He did.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Senator MONDALE. I would like to ask a few questions about this critical issue of the development of private segregated schools in some communities in the South. As your testimony points out, some of these school districts which are ostensibly complying with desegregation orders are, in fact, resegregating through the private school route. These school districts actively support these racist private schools by "leasing" school buildings, and "lending" school buses and textbooks if not actually giving them away.

I think one of your reports indicated that teachers were allowed to teach free during school hours in the private lily-white schools. In other words, through series of steps, public money is really being given to these private, segregated institutions-private schools only in the most strained sense of the word.

Are you aware of any case in which the Justice Department brought action to enjoin this transfer of public monies to a such a segregated private school?

Mr. FISCHER. I am not aware of any case. Let me take just a minute to check.

Senator MONDALE. Would you check with your team?

Mr. FISCHER. No, it seems there aren't any cases.

Senator MONDALE. This practice is clearly unconstitutional in my opinion, and it would take a simple lawsuit to restrain it, but the Justice Department, to your knowledge, was not involved in preventing public assistance to these private schools.

This would be consistent with their position of encouraging tax deductibility of the tuitions for these same segregated institutions. One of my major concerns is that this billion and a half dollars which the administration is talking about sending principally to the South, would arrive just at the time that these schools need more money to survive, these private institutions; if southern public school officials can divert this money, by means of such blatant hoaxes into private institutions, they will flourish indeed and achieve just as clear-cut a segregated program as in the old dual systems.

Mr. FISCHER. Are you aware of the bill that passed the Louisiana house this week?

Senator MONDALE. I am not.

Mr. FISCHER. The House passed a bill making it legal to pump public money into the private schools in Louisiana. It has not passed the senate yet, but will be in the senate this week.

We are working through our affiliated association to kill this bill in the Senate, if possible, but this gives you an idea of the direction things are going in Louisiana.

TEACHER DEMOTION AND DISMISSAL

Senator MONDALE. Returning to your comments about this widespread practice of firing, demoting, and transferring black teachers in the South: Have the Federal authorities in the Department of Justice or the Title VI compliance officers or any other Federal officers seriously attempted to prevent or reverse this form of blatant discrimination?

Mr. FISCHER. Not to my knowledge; but let me check again.

Mr. ETHRIDGE. You are talking about under this administration? Senator MONDALE. We are not dividing this according to administration, but rather are investigating the whole practice of discriminating against black teachers, whether that practice is being encouraged by HEW or the Justice Department, or both.

Mr. ETHRIDGE. At one time, in 1966, shortly after this task force report was issued, it seems to me that people in charge of Title VI

wrote a pretty tough set of guidelines and had a set of staff people who worked at them very vigorously.

They unforunately got pushed around by some of the very people up on the Hill here, and were attacked through the congressional route. Many of them were either dismissed or moved into other positions so that there has been a steady deterioration of this effort. since, I would say, 1967.

Senator MONDALE. In other words, there was an attempt back in 1966 to deal with this problem of black teacher discrimination and

Mr. ETHRIDGE. Also, Mr. Panetta wrote a very forceful set of guidelines for the protection of teachers. This might have contributed to his dismissal.

Senator MONDALE. Mr. Panetta did?

Mr. ETHRIDGE. Yes.

Senator MONDALE. Are those guidelines being enforced?

Mr. ETHRIDGE. I don't know whether they ever got past whatever desk they had to get past, but he did write them.

Senator MONDALE. Do you have a copy of those guidelines?

Mr. FISCHER. We can get them for the record.

Senator MONDALE. I would like to have that information. I think the billion and a half program ought to have some protection written into it.

Mr. FISCHER. We agree that the bill should have that kind of protection.

Senator MONDALE. Maybe Mr. Panetta's guidelines would offer some suggestions.

(The documents referred to follow :)

STATEMENT OF POLICY ON FACULTY DESEGREGATION

Many school districts are now or will in the near future convert to a unitary school system. The reassignment and reorganization of faculties in a non-discriminatory fashion is crucial to any such conversion and this phase of desegregation requires a great deal of planning and attention on the part of school administrators. The goal of such reorganization should be the achievement at each school of a ratio of White and Negro faculty members which approximates the ratio of White and Negro faculty throughout the school system.

Section 10 of the Department's "Policies on Elementary and Secondary School Compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964" provides generally that school systems shall not discriminate on the ground of race color or national origin in their professional staffing policies and practices, and shall rectify the effects of past discrimination in this area. Section 10 also contains the following specific provision:

If, as a result of a program for complying with Title VI, there is to be a reduction in the total professional staff of a school system, or professional staff members are to receive assignments of lower status or pay, the staff members to be released or demoted must be selected from all the school system's professional staff members without regard to race, color, or national origin and on the basis of objective and reasonable standards. Dismissals should be infrequent because, even where a school district finds that the size of its staff should be reduced, the reduction usually can be accomplished through normal requirements and retirements. Where, however dismissal or demotion is necessary such action shall be carried out in accordance with the above quoted provision of Section 10. In addition, no staff vacancy may be filled through recruitment of a person of a race, color, or national origin different from that of the individual dismissed or demoted, until each displaced staff member who is qualified has had an opportunity to fill the vacancy and has failed to accept an offer to do so.