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Ms. State Howversity
Social Science. Resenral center

Miss School District-Lactas

in the Desex f of Deals

Systems

by James M. Palmer
Aug. 1971

*Cite for following page

MAR 29 1979

AR 29 1979

37

plans for state-wide private school systems, 11 others provided grants and loans to children in private schools. With this legitimization private schools, characteristic of the Northeast, began to blossom over the South like daisies. In 1964, alone, the state of Mississippi granted 23 charters to private educational foundations.

As desegregation progressed white flight began. In the words of news columnist Kilpatrick (1970:611) it was "back to segregation by order of the courts." The term "resegregation" was coined to describe the phenomena.

The public unitary system would indeed be unitary - all black - or so it seemed. A white private system would emerge, it was contended, that would parallel a black public system. Since Mississippi does not have a compulsory school attendance law, some parents, both black and white are keeping their children out of school. White parents, it would appear, have in the most part enrolled them in private schools.

While white flight and the private school movement may be thought of in one sense as resistance to social change, it is, on the other hand, a retreat from resistance to school desegregation. It should be noted that while it resists one type of social change, racial mixing, it is itself a form of social change. While no direct measure of white flight is -available, three measures are fairly good indicators of the phenomenon: the decline in enrollment from 1969 to 1970, the increase in percent black for the districts, and the growth of private schools.

The decline in public school enrollment from 1969 to 1970 was 41,163. A drop of 6,450 was recorded for the previous year. For a decline in enrollment from 1969-1970 for each district see the Appendix I Table, pp. 100-108. Table 8 shows that an increase in percent Negro has occurred in most of the school districts in the state. The greatest increase occurred in districts that were already majority-black in 1968. This increase is probably to a large degree the result of whites leaving the public schools. It is interesting to note that only three districts changed from minority-black status in 1968 to majority-black in 1970. These three districts all had better than 45 percent black in 1968. Map 3, p. 38 shows the majority black districts.

Miller (1957:4) wrote, "Private, i.e., nonpublic, education has long held an important place in the scheme of American education." However, in the South, and Mississippi in particular, private schools have not been a major factor in education since the emergence of the state-wide public school systems for the two races. In 1960, Mississippi had less than five percent of its school children in private schools (U.S. Census Bureau, 1961b:S47). Lovejoy, in 1963, listed in his Prep School Guide (1963:74) only 12 private and parochial schools in the state. In 1964 there were only three non-sectarian private schools in operation. Today there are ~236 private schools in Mississippi (see Table 9).

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Fichter (1958:428-429) classified private schools into parochial, characterized by religion, and private schools, characterized by social class. The recent Southern phenomenon does not fit Fichter's simple dichotomy. The so-called "segregation academies" are not the expensive

11Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Virginia. The Mississippi House passed such a bill but it was defeated in the Senate (JDN, 4/7/54:1).

Mr. GIBBONS. In any dealings with the Government, where should the burden of proof lie? Should it lie with the one who is being accused or should it lie with the Government? When, in your opinion, should

Ms. O'LEARY. I would like to limit this particular discussion to this circumstance, Mr. Gibbons.

Mr. GIBBONS. All right.

Ms. O'LEARY. I think that in this case, clearly, the burden of proof should be on those schools requesting exemption, especially in cases where they have been aready adjudicated in a formal court proceeding. Mr. GIBBONS. I agree with you 100 percent there. I think it is inexcusable that the IRS would not do that.

Ms. O'LEARY. And I personally have real concerns about the IRS' ability in the field to document the cases. I know that their staffing around the country is not dedicated to that kind of thing. It seems to me it is a bit irrational to expect the IRS to be able to do that kind of intense investigation.

Mr. GIBBONS. Well, normally, they put their effort where they can collect some money and we have enough trouble collecting money. This is obviously going to be not a big money maker for the Government as far as that is concerned.

And it does worry the committee, it certainly worries me, that we are going to take our collectors out and, in effect, make them sociologists and school board superintendents, in effect. I don't condone the fact that the nonpayment of taxes does amount to a benefit to someone and it is an added burden to the rest of us that this kind of benefit should not be used to sponsor a desegregated program in violation of the public policy and it is a tough one.

I realize we have got first amendment questions here, and everything else, but we certainly are not able to come to a firm conclusion so far as to what is the proper thing to do.

Ms. O'LEARY. We see the ancillary effect of additional tax burdens being placed on those who support, through their tax dollars, the public school systems in places where these kinds of nonpublic schools are privy to all kinds of Federal programs and in some communities, to the detriment of the public school system.

There are only so many dollars to be divided up so many ways. We are very concerned about this long-range effect on maintaining the health of the public school system.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Gradison?

Mr. GRADISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to make one comment and I would welcome any reaction you have to it. I don't agree, perhaps because I don't understand your argument, that the large enrollment in private schools is harmful to the public schools. In my county, there are roughly 40.000 students attending nonpublic elementary and secondary schools. None of these would be affected by this proposed ruling, or the one before it, because we don't have any segregation orders, voluntary or otherwise, and most of the students are attending the parochial schools systems which have been in effect for a long time anyway, and they seem to be given special treatment in the new regulations.

I cannot see how it would help the public schools if these 40,000 students had to be educated at public expense rather than private

expense.

Ms. O'LEARY. I didn't intend to say that, Mr. Gradison. We are talking about small communities where there may be one segregated academy established that then funnels off money that would ordinarily be going into the existing public school systems. There are small communities around the country. I know in the Cincinnati area specifically, where we have a strong parochial school system, that it ultimately benefits the public school system.

They serve as checks and balances on each other on the quality of education and that has been well documented, I agree with you there.

Mr. GRADISON. Thank you very much.
Thank you for appearing here today.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Jenkins?

Mr. JENKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. O'Leary, I am a strong public school advocate and have very few private schools in my district. So far as I know none of them related in any way to the racial question because I have, very frankly, a very small minority ratio in my district. But I have noticed in the past few years the formation of a lot of church schools that have no bearing whatsoever upon the question of race.

Now, when you blanket in to get a few of the guilty ones, you have a tendency, do you not, to impose a great number of burdens upon those schools that have no problem whatsoever with the racial makeup? Ms. O'LEARY. We think that from our experience, Mr. Jenkins, those schools that you are talking about are the ones I referred to in the testimony as exceptions, those that by no stretch of the imagination could possibly acquire a significant minority enrollment because the minority child does not exist in that area.

We know that there are all kinds of alternative schools to the established public school system that were established for a number of reasons. Our concern really does go to that private school that was set up or greatly expanded as a direct result of either voluntary or court-ordered desegregation of that public school system. That really is the thrust of the IRS regs and it is definitely the thrust of our

concern.

Mr. JENKINS. To give you an example, in my home county, there is only one public high school. It was integrated, as a matter of fact, before we were required to do so. We have a very small, less than 10 percent, minority.

In the last 10 years a church-related private school has been formed in my county. It has no minority enrollment whatsoever at this time, but obviously, it was not formed for any racially discriminatory

reasons.

There has been no flight from the public schools. Those students attend because the church that they happen to belong to emphasized a private Christian education process.

Ms. O'LEARY. Yes.

Mr. JENKINS. Now, it appears to me that this little school, assuming these regulations are placed into effect, will have the burden certainly of employing an attorney, someone to go to IRS and convince them

that they are nondiscriminatory. Do you think that burden ought to be placed on them?

Ms. O'LEARY. Doesn't that school have to hire the attorney to go to IRS to get its tax exemption in the first place?

Mr. JENKINS. They don't even have an attorney, they got their exemption originally when they formed the school.

Ms. O'LEARY. Not being a tax attorney myself, or an employee of IRS, I have some difficulty trying to answer that question.

Mr. JENKINS. The problem I am addressing is that when we uniformly adopt regulations that apply to everyone we often place burdens upon the private individual, the private school in this case.

Should the financial burden be on the Government, or should it be on the school?

Ms. O'LEARY. I think, in this case, it should be on the schools, Mr. Jenkins.

I do agree that there is sufficient talk around this country about people being bound up in Government regulations and interference in our daily lives, but I think that this is a case that is critically important to an overall, clearly stated goal of this Government, and that is equal to the educational process.

Mr. JENKINS. In this case, you feel that the school ought to have some affirmative action?

Ms. O'LEARY. That school actually understands the August regs, I think, and could probably comply very easily when there is no significant minority population for them to attempt to attract and when their initial goal was not to set up an alternative to an integrated public school system. I think that they would fall very nicely within the four out of five alternatives published in August.

Mr. JENKINS. Do you think they could win their case?

Ms. O'LEARY. I don't think that there would be a case.

Mr. JENKINS. Let me give you another actual example. I have in my district a private school located about 100 miles from the city of Atlanta. It is church-related and all white. The county in which the school is located is all white with no minority population whatsoever, but 80 percent of their students come from the city of Atlanta where the racial makeup is the opposite.

Now, under these regs, as I understand them, that school would be required to attempt to make up minority enrollment from an area 100 miles away and there is no possibility.

Ms. O'LEARY. Well, if the majority of their student body is coming from an area 100 miles away, it seems logical to me that they would be able to do that.

It seems to me there is an example in the Catholic parochial high school system, where innercity high schools-I can speak specifically to the Cleveland situation where those Catholic high schools, boys' schools, girls' schools, and coed schools-have, over the past 5 years, made a supreme effort to integrate their student bodies. They did this by, first of all, dropping some religious requirements that they had. The non-Catholic kids don't have to take religious courses and participate in Catholic religious liturgy. They also went to the extent of offering scholarships to integrate that student body.

Mr. JENKINS. Let me interrupt you. Does it not concern you, though, that when you are really asking a school not to teach a certain religious

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