Foreword

The NEA PR&R Commission conducts studies such as this one of East Texas to identify and focus attention on the problems affecting education and educators in certain regions and to propose steps to improve the situation. Those who are a part of the society of a given region often lack the perspective necessary to recognize injustices, particularly if they are not victims themselves. The function of this report is to assist all concerned in recognizing the need for change and to suggest means of bringing about such changes. Inability to recognize 1njustices because of life-long involvement and acceptance is no excuse for inaction in seeking to remedy them.

East Texas is not unique. Other regions have similar practices and attitudes which result in the denial of equal education to minorities-Black, Spanish American, Indian, Puerto Rican. But the existence of parallel conditions elsewhere in no way excuses or condones their continuation in East Texas.

Change in a social order is never easy. Yet difficulty is no justification for failure to make whatever changes are needed to make reality conform to the promises of our Declaration of Independence. Both minority and majority groups have vital roles in this change.

Let no one outside East Texas read this report without reflection on his own community and the degree of equality of education available to all students in their home town.

NICHOLAS E. DUFF, Chairman

Commission on Professional Rights and Responsibilities
National Education Association

1. Introduction

In 1965, a Task Force of the National Education Association (NEA) surveyed the problem of teacher displacement as a serious and spreading side effect of school desegregation in 17 Southern and Border states. The Task Force found that

One of the ironies of school desegregation has been that those school systems giving earliest and most complete compliance to the Supreme Court's [school desegregation] decision are likely also to be the systems where marked displacement of Negro teachers takes place. This has been true especially of the rural and small-city systems of the Border states.1

It was in Texas—a beacon state in desegregation—that the Task Force found the highest number of reported instances of teacher displacement attributed directly to school desegregation.* In Deep South states, the displacement of black educators was a growing problem, but this was often due to their participation in civil rights activities (such as voter registration drives) rather than to desegregation of schools.

During the years since 1965, school desegregation has proceeded-albeit haltingly and with varying degrees of gradualism-throughout all Southern states; and desegregation in many districts has meant the elimination of black principals and the dismissal or demotion of black teachers.

As reflected in Resolutions of its Delegate Assembly, the National Education Association is deeply concerned about the violation of the professional and civil rights of educators-black and white-wherever such violations occur. This concern is manifested in various concrete ways: through financial aid to educators seeking redress of just grievances through the courts, through continuing assistance to state affiliates in working for improved teacher tenure laws, and through continuing assistance to affiliated associations in working to achieve professional

• Another state. Florida, had the largest number of teacher displacement cases, and although many of these may have been indirectly the result of school desegregation practices, the immediate cause was found to be the manner in which the state used National Teacher Examination test scores as criteria for promotion and placement on tenure status.

negotiation agreements with local boards of education, which will incorporate equitable and orderly means of grievance resolution. The NEA Commission on Professional Rights and Responsibilities (PR&R Commission) has worked with local and state affiliates to strengthen their own PR&R units, and it has investigated and publicly reported cases of teacher rights violation throughout the United States in the belief that the exposure of injustice, with realistic proposals for organized corrective action, can have ameliorative effect. It was in this spirit that the NEAPR&R Commission authorized a study of reported school desegregation problems in East Texas.

REPORTS OF DESEGREGATION RESULTS IN EAST TEXAS

During the latter part of 1967, the PR&R Commission received several reports of alleged flagrant discrimination and bypassing of legally established desegregation procedures by local East Texas boards of education.

The usual pattern of desegregation (in Texas and in other states) has been oneway-the transfer, through freedom-of-choice or administrative order, of black students into formerly all-white schools. In those districts adopting desegregation plans involving the mass transfer of students, there has been a pattern of closure or gradual "phasing out" of the all-black schools.

Reports from East Texas during 1968 indicated that the problems of desegregation had not diminished-rather they had increased-since the NEA Task Force Survey of 1965. It was claimed that the one-way desegregation process was resulting in the demotion and dismissal of qualified black teachers of long seniority and their replacement by less experienced, sometimes uncertificated white teachers, who were assigned to the desegregated schools. Black principals, allegedly, were being removed altogether from their school systems; they were being demoted; or in some instances they were given a paper promotion to a position in the central administration with greatly reduced authority, responsibility, and visibility.

Further, it was reported that transferred black students were being placed in segregated classrooms in "desegregated" schools and that they were being victimized by discriminatory treatment on the part of their white teachers and classmates.

In those instances where black teachers were actually transferred along with students to formerly all-white schools, there was much criticism of the method by which these transferred teachers were selected.

A nine-page letter, written by a Texas principal whose own position was adversely affected by the methods of desegregation in his district, served to focus the attention of the PR&R Commission on the major areas of concern. This principal asserted that, although the citizens in his area had no doubts about the good that could come from school desegregation, they did have many questions and complaints about how desegregation was being handled. Portions of the letter outlined bitter areas of strife:

When pupils, teachers, parents, and principal . . . are caught completely off-guard [by the desegregation decision] in the middle of summer, while going our separate ways, without knowledge of impending radical change, like all normal human beings we react negatively to such sudden, unexpected, unprepared for change; a decision for change that we played no part in reaching, not even remotely. We react negatively even though the objectives of such change are worthwhile and indeed desirable.

Since the overwhelmingly white student body [at the receiving school] was not prepared, psychologically (or otherwise) for the reception of Negro students who will comprise nearly 40% of the total enrollment, can one reasonably expect that racial friction will be kept to a minimum? Should racial harmony prevail, the credit will certainly be due to the good sense of the young people themselves rather than to the adults charged with the responsibility and paid to provide them with leadership in terms of a planned and orderly transition.

Neither the Superintendent [nor other school officials] has ever visited the classrooms of any of the teachers to be transferred. What criteria did they use in selecting the teachers to be transferred? . . . Why wasn't the [black high school] principal involved in the selection process .. since it has been his responsibility to assign, evaluate, supervise, and rate these teachers?

...

In the absence of any planned efforts from the Central Administration to prepare the teachers [of both the black and white high schools] for the transition, can they reasonably be expected to work together as a professional team ... ?

I have been informed that some of the transferred Negro teachers have been assigned teaching duties in their minor and weakest fields of professional preparation. . . . They cannot help but wonder if they are deliberately being goaded into resigning.

I have received the . . . information that the Negro teachers who are being transferred to the predominantly white . . . high school . . . will teach Negro pupils in the desegregated (?) senior high schools. Thus it appears that while both black and white pupils and teachers will be in the same building, they will in fact be segregated.

STAFF FACT-FINDING EFFORTS

It is the policy of the NEA-PR&R Commission not to undertake a formal investigation of a district or area without a request for such service from an identified complainant or complainants. The principal, from whose letter excerpts are quoted above, resigned from his position and did not file such a request on his own behalf. The Commission staff then attempted to contact other individuals from East Texas on whose behalf complaints had been registered with the NEA. Several months of staff fact finding revealed, however, that most of these educators had already resigned or had been dismissed from their districts. The fact finding also revealed continuing widespread dissatisfaction on the part of black educators still employed in East Texas districts. From several of these educators, and from parents and students as well, came requests for an NEA study of the problems of desegregation in East Texas. Due to their expressed fear of reprisal, the requesting individuals

asked that their identities not be divulged by the PR&R Commission, its staff, or any committee that it might appoint to conduct such a study.

AUTHORIZATION OF PRELIMINARY INQUIRY

Earlier studies by the Commission and case investigations by the DuShane Emergency Fund for Teacher Rights had revealed the swiftly growing magnitude of the teacher displacement problem in desegregating school districts of Southern and Border states. The unrelieved nature and widespread geographic dimension of this problem, as reported from East Texas, persuaded the Commission that a detailed study of the results of desegregation in selected East Texas districts might be appropriate. Such a study, the Commission believed, might produce information of value in the development of remedial measures that would be applicable, not only to the area of study, but to localities throughout the South where neither desegregation nor displacement has yet occurred to any great extent, but where the prospects of both are imminent. Therefore, at its October 1968 meeting, the PR&R Commission directed that a preliminary inquiry be conducted in East Texas to determine whether a full-scale study in this region would, in fact, be an advisable course of action.

Accordingly, a preliminary staff inquiry was held in East Texas on December 2630, 1968. The findings of this inquiry confirmed the reports that the rights of black teachers and students were being violated through discriminatory treatment and through defective personnel practices in desegregating school districts in East Texas. The preliminary inquiry report recommended that a full-scale study be conducted.

CLASS II SPECIAL STUDY AUTHORIZED

On the basis of the preliminary inquiry report, the PR&R Commission, at its meeting of February 1969, directed that

A Special Study be conducted in selected districts in East Texas. The area of inquiry will be directed towards school desegregation with respect to the effects of desegregation resulting from the application of HEW Guidelines or court orders upon the students, teachers, and communities involved in the Special Study.

FEATURES OF A SPECIAL STUDY

The Special Committee appointed to conduct the East Texas study was directed to work within the bounds set by the three criteria which describe the Special Study and distinguish it from the Commission's Class I investigation. These criteria are:

A. The report issued as a result of a Class II special study shall not have a punitive or derogatory effect on identifiable person(s), agencies, or organizations.