SELECT COMMITTEE ON EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY WALTER F. MONDALE, Minnesota, Chairman JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, Arkansas WARREN G. MAGNUSON, Washington JENNINGS RANDOLPH, West Virginia THOMAS J. DODD, Connecticut DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii BIRCH BAYH, Indiana WILLIAM B. SPONG, JR., Virginia ROMAN L. HRUSKA, Nebraska WILLIAM C. SMITH, Staff Director and General Counsel (11) CONTENTS Opening statement of the chairman___ CHRONOLIGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1970 Cleghorn, Reese, director, leadership project, Southern Regional Council, Pressly, Dr. William L., president, Westminster Schools, Atlanta, Ga--- WEDNESDAY, August 12, 1970 Thrower, Hon. Randolph W., Commissioner of Internal Revenue, accompanied by William H. Smith, Deputy Commissioner; K. Martin Worthy, Chief Counsel; Lawrence B. Jerome, Chief, Exempt Organizations Examination Branch, Technical Activity Service; and Edward J. Munez, Chief, Organizational Branch__ Statements: Cleghorn, Reese... Prepared statement_. Page 1991 1931 1986 1992 1931 1977 Pressly, Dr. William L.. 1986 Hon. Randolph W. Thrower, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 1996 Hon. Randolph W. Thrower, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 2010 Communications to MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES, PUBLICATIONS, ETC. "Both Sides in South Mistrust Nixon Actions on School Integration," 2037 2039 1998 2130 "Enrollment in Private Schools Up" from the Tampa Times, Sept. 16, 1970--- 2046 2043 2173 "Heritage School Begins Fund Drive for Building," from the Newnan (Ga.) Times-Herald, March 5, 1970- IRS announces position on private schools (press releases from Internal 1996 IRS exhibits on rulings of exemption for seven private academies. "New 'Segregation Academies' Are Flourishing in the South-A Special Report," from South Today. 1951 "No Negroes Apply at OK'd Schools," from the Atlanta Journal, July 20, 1970... 2030 "Only Some Schools," from the Atlanta Constitution, July 8, 1970. 2031 Pamlico Community School, Washington, N.C... Press reports on administration's actions on school integration in the South. "President Warned About '72," from the Washington Post, July 16, 1970. "Private School Issues-a Nonbias Policy," from the Atlanta Constitution, August 6, 1970__ Page 2169 2035 2035 2033 Private schools incorporated in Georgia, October 1969-June 1970- 2034 2066 "Sales: Small-Town Stores Blame Private Schools for Pinch," from the Wall Street Journal_. "School Plan Announced at Helena," from the Arkansas Gazette, February 25, 1970. 1949 2032 Southeast Education, Inc., Dothan, Ala. 2144 Southern Regional Council materials on segregated academies.. 2029 2005 "Tax Exempt Status Given Dothan Unit," from the Birmingham (Ala.) News, July 24, 1970. 2030 "Tax Status of Discriminatory Private Schools," from the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 13, 1970-- 1998 "Taxes: Lower Revenue Attributed to 'Seg Academies' Cost," from the Memphis Commercial Appeal__ 1947 The busing myth: Seg academies bus more children, and further, a South 1959 The Gaffney Day School, Gaffney, S.C. 2080 The Heritage School, Inc., Newnan, Ga.. 2051 "The Old South Tries Again-Segregation Academies" "U.S. to Tax Segregated Academies," from the Washington Post, July 11, 1970_ 1963 2042 EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1970 U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 1318, New Senate Office Building, Senator Walter F. Mondale (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Senators Mondale and Dominick. Staff members present: William C. Smith, staff director and general counsel, and Leonard P. Strickman, minority counsel. Senator MONDALE. The committee will come to order. We are privileged to have as our first witness Mr. Reese Cleghorn, director of the leadership project of the Southern Regional Council, Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Cleghorn, we are delighted to have you here. You may proceed as you wish. STATEMENT OF REESE CLEGHORN, DIRECTOR, LEADERSHIP PROJECT, SOUTHERN REGIONAL COUNCIL, ATLANTA, GA. Mr. CLEGHORN. Mr. Chairman I am director of the leadership project of the Southern Regional Council, a research and information agency in the human relations field, and editor of the council's monthly publication, South Today. PRIVATE SCHOOLS: TOTAL ENROLLMENT; EXTENT OF THREAT I have been asked to present a general view of the recent development of segregated private schools in the South, a development which has been accelerated by the desegregation of the public schools. I will try to describe the origins, the nature, and some of the ramifications of this latest development in the continuing resistance to public school integration. I believe there has been a very sad failure on the part of the Federal Government to deal with what constitutes a major threat, in some areas of the South, to the very existence of general public education. The Southern Regional Council estimated last October that at least 300,000 students then were attending segregated private schools in the 11-State South. The council is now revising those figures upward, to perhaps 400,000. Many of the institutions involved are older private schools, not founded for the purpose of segregation, but still segregated. Others are the newer schools which were established because of public school integration, and I shall call these segregation academies. The 11 States have a public school enrollment of approximately 11,700,000. An enrollment of 400,000 in segregated private schools is not, then, a threat to public education throughout the region. But it is important to note that enrollment in the segregated private schools is concentrated in certain areas, and that in many of these the effect is to undermine the public school system. We cannot lightly dismiss any development, still ongoing and probably not yet at its peak, which threatens a substantial number of public school systems, which deprives large numbers of white children of good educations and frequently exposes them to antidemocratic nostrums and preachments, and which further postpones the South's coming to grips with the fact that it is a biracial society wherein both whites and blacks are deprived by the social and economic costs of separatism. PRIVATE SCHOOLS: NUMBERS-1954 VERSUS 1970 The history of the "segregation academies" goes back to the period immediately following the Supreme Court ruling against public school segregation in 1954. Development, however, was slow in the initial phase, because school desegregation was slow. The movement began to accelerate rapidly after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. which began to produce school desegregation throughout the South. We believe that enrollment in segregation academies is now as much as 10 times as great as before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the number of private schools more than doubled between 1954 and 1967. Some 168 new private schools are known to have been established in those States between 1964 and 1967. By 1967, according to the Southern Education Reporting Service, at least 200 segregation academies were operating in the 11 States. The number has steadily increased since then. Mississippi, alone, apparently now has more than 100. A recent figure from the Citizens Council from that State said 125. Some 46 such schools filed for incorporation in Georgia during a recent 10-month period. Unfortunately-and this is a part of the failing of State and Federal Governments in the face of these developments-no one today knows the number of such academies in the South, and no one knows the enrollments. The Southern Regional Council figures which I have given to you are the best estimates available, and they have been very difficult to determine. Not even State departments of education have any accurate count, in most cases, of private school enrollment, and official figures do not usually separate the various categories of private schools. I think it is urgent that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare begin to maintain figures of this kind, and to make them public. PRIVATE SCHOOLS: THE CITIZENS COUNCILS; RACIST OUTLOOK The Citizens Councils of America and the South Carolina Inde pendent School Association, which is closely alined with the Citizens Councils, have been the most important supporters of the segregation academy movement throughout the region. |