The Best Defense Is a Good Offense: The Stennis Amendment and the Fracturing of Liberal School Desegregation Policy, 1964–1972

Journal of Policy History

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 304-325

  Crespino, Joseph ^a  

^a EMORY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79960505118     PISSN: 08980306     EISSN: 15284190     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jph.2006.0008     Document Type: Article

References (150)

1. New York Times, 14 December 1969, 40.
2. Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1970, 1A.
3. Washington Post, 13 February 1970, A10.
4. New York Times, 12 February 1970, 36.
5. Christian Science Monitor, 12 February 1970, 18.
6. The literature on the legal and political history of federal school desegregation policy is vast. For a good bibliographic overview, see James Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (New York, 2001), 263-68.
7. Works of particular importance for this investigation include J. Harvie Wilkinson III, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954-1978 (New York, 1979)
8. Gary Orfield, The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act (New York, 1969), and
9. Public School Desegregation in the United States, 1968-1980 (Washington, D.C. 1983)
10. Hugh Davis Graham, The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administration (Chapel Hill, 1984), and
11. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972 (New York, 1990)
12. Mark Tushnet, Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991 (New York, 1997)
13. John C. Jeffries Jr. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.: A Biography (New York, 2001)
14. Jack Greenberg, Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedicated Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution (New York, 1994)
15. Jack Bass, Unlikely Heroes (Tuscaloosa, Ala. 1981)
16. George R. Metcalf, From Little Rock to Boston: The History of School Desegregation (Westport, Conn. 1983)
17. Peter Irons, Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision (New York, 2002).
18. The most important works on massive resistance to school desegregation in the South end before the 1964 Civil Rights Act greatly expanded the role of the federal government in advocating school desegregation and before federal courts more clearly established the legal parameters. Numan Bartley's The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s (Baton Rouge, 1969, 1999)
19. Neil McMillen's The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-1964 (Urbana, 1971, 1994)
20. Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York, 2004), 389-442.
21. The best work on the opposition to busing has focused on Boston. See J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (New York, 1985)
22. Ronald Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill, 1991).
23. Charles W. and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Washington, D.C. 1985), 33;
24. Graham, The Civil Rights Era, 126–27.
25. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, “The Civil Rights Bill of 1963: A Comparative Analysis of Three Versions of the Civil Rights Bill H.R. 7152,” folder H.R. 7152 (88) Civil Rights–Administration Omnibus, Drafts of Bill–Working Papers, folder 1, box 463, Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress.
26. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights: Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (Washington, D.C. 1963).
27. Robert D. Loevy, To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Lanham, Md. 1990), 19.
28. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Book 2: Education (Washington, D.C. 1961).
29. Loevy, To End All Segregation, 46–49.
30. “History of Title IV,” folder Notebook, box 466, Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress.
31. “History of Title IV,” folder Notebook, box 466, Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress.
32. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights '63: 1963 Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (Washington, D.C. 1963), 55-56.
33. Loevy, To End All Segregation, 41–43.
34. Washington Post, 11 February 1964, A1, A5.
35. Bell v. School City of Gary, 324 F.2d 209 (1963)
36. New York Times, 5 May 1964, 1.
37. See Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 (New York, 1998), 221-26;
38. Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York, 2001), 317-21.
39. New York Times, 10 May 1964, E5.
40. Wall Street Journal, 9 April 1964, 4;
41. Dan T. Carter, Politics of Rage (Baton Rouge, 1995), 195-225;
42. Gary Donaldson, Liberalism's Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964 (Armonk, N.Y. 2003)
43. Stephan Lesher, George Wallace: American Populist (Reading, Mass. 1994).
44. New York Times, 10 May 1964, E5.
45. Congressional Record, Senate, 4 June 1964, 12717.
46. New York Times, 30 October 1963, 1.
47. Congressional Record, Senate, 20 March 1964, 5795;
48. Chicago Tribune, 21 March 1964, 7.
49. The Southern Civil Rights Litigation Papers at Tougaloo College, Jackson, Mississippi, record scores of examples of white intimidation against black parents who chose to send their children to white schools. For an account of the Carter family in Sunflower County, Mississippi and the harassment they received in their effort to exert their freedom-of-choice and send their children to the “white” school, see Constance Curry, Silver Rights (Chapel Hill, 1995).
50. For a broader discussion of the ineffectiveness of freedom-of-choice plans as a desegregation tool, see Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke, 108–15.
51. John Stennis, “Floor Statement Re HEW Guidelines,” 20 February 1967, press release, John C. Stennis Papers, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, Starkville (hereafter JCSP).
52. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, “Revised Statement of Policies for School Desegregation Plans Under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” (Washington, D.C. March 1966), 7.
53. Revised Statement of Policies for School Desegregation Plans Under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 7.
54. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968).
55. Chicago Tribune, 4 January 1970, 7.
56. See Dean J. Kotlowski, Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principles, and Policy (Cambridge, Mass. 2001), 30-31.
57. Jackson (Miss.) Daily News, 4 August 1969.
58. “Research on Northern School Desegregation, 1970,” folder C-119, box 3, Series 29, JCSP.
59. New York Times, 15 October 1969, 20.
60. Washington Post, 25 November 1969, A1.
61. Abraham Ribicoff, America Can Make It (New York, 1972), 14-48, and
62. Ribicoff, “The Future of School Integration in the United States,” Journal of Law and Education 1, no. 1 (January 1972): 1-21.
63. Christian Science Monitor, 24 February 1970, 2.
64. Washington Post, 15 February 1970, 49.
65. Christian Science Monitor, 3 March 1970, 1;
66. Newsweek, 23 February 1970, 22–23.
67. Also see folder “Univ. of Pennsylvania,” 2 March 1970, box 121, Abraham Ribicoff Papers, Library of Congress.
68. Washington Post, 15 February 1970, 49.
69. Time, 23 February 1970, 14–17.
70. Quoted in CR, Senate, 91st Cong. 2d sess. vol. 116, part 8, 1 April 1970, 10012–19.
71. Washington Post, 13 February 1970, A18.
72. New York Times, 12 February 1970, 36.
73. CR, Senate, 1 April 1970, 10012–19.
74. Washington Post, 22 February 1970, 54.
75. New York Times, 12 February 1970, 1;
76. For a record of these hearings, see Equal Educational Opportunity, Hearings Before the Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity of the United States Senate, 91st Cong. 2d sess. Part 3A-3E (Washington, D.C. 1970) (hereafter Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings).
77. Ribicoff, America Can Make It! 27
78. Christian Science Monitor, 4 March 1970, 1.
79. Transcript, “Meet the Press,” 1 March 1970, folder Education (school segregation), box 121, Abraham Ribicoff Papers, Library of Congress.
80. Washington Post, 15 February 1970, 49.
81. New York Times, 24 February 1970, 42.
82. Bickel, “Desegregation: Where Do We Go from Here?” New Republic, 7 February 1970, 21 (hereafter Bickel, “Desegregation”).
83. Bickel, The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress (New York, 1970), a compilation of the Oliver Wendell Holmes lectures that Bickel delivered at Harvard Law School in October 1969.
84. For more on Bickel's liberal credentials, see Kluger, Simple Justice, 614–16, and
85. CL, 28 August 1968, 1.
86. Bickel, “Desegregation,” 21.
87. Desegregation 22.
88. Desegregation
89. Equal Education Opportunity Hearings, part 3E, 1970, 2332-53. Critics of Bickel included David Tyack, Gary Orfield, Paul Brest, Michael B. Trister and P. Kent Spriggs, Leon Panetta, and Marian Wright Edelman. Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings, part 3E, 1970, 2338–39.
90. Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings, part 3E, 1970, 2339;
91. For more of the reaction by liberal integrationists in the South, see New York Times, 15 February 1970, 25, and an article by Pat Watters of the Southern Regional Council, New York Times, 3 May 1970, 26-27, 104-8;
92. New York Times, 15 March 1970, 1.
93. Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings, part 3E, 1970, 2351.
94. Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings 2349.
95. Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings 2217;
96. for more on the Preyer-Spong legislation and Bickel's comments and criticism, see Equal Educational Opportunity Hearings, 2207–47.
97. Also see Washington Post, 1 March 1970, 79.
98. For the larger literature on Nixon and school desegregation, see Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York, 1994)
99. Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence, Kan. 1999)
100. Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (New York, 1991)
101. Kotlowski, Nixon's Civil Rights, 15–43;
102. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 301–65;
103. Carter, Politics of Rage, 324–414.
104. Christian Science Monitor, 16 February 1970, C3.
105. New York Times, 13 February 1970, 1.
106. Washington Post, 14 February 1970, A1.
107. New York Times, 26 February 1970, 22.
108. New York Times, 18 February 1970, 1.
109. New York Times
110. Quoted in New York Times, 19 February 1970, 1;
111. also see New York Times, 1 March 1970, 50.
112. See New York Times, 25 March 1970, 26, for the full text of Nixon's statement.
113. Carter, Politics of Rage, 380–81;
114. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power (New York, 1982), 230.
115. New York Times, 25 March 1970, 1, and 26 March 1970, 46;
116. Washington Post, 26 March 1970, A16.
117. Washington Post, 12 April 1970, 1.
118. New York Times, 19 February 1970, 36.
119. New York Times, 20 March 1970, 1;
120. Wall Street Journal, 25 March 1970, 2;
121. CR, Senate, 91st Cong. 2d sess. vol. 116, part 8, 1 April 1970, 10015.
122. John Stennis, “Desegregation,” 12 October 1970, press releases, JCSP.
123. John Stennis, “Press release–Desegregation,” 12 October 1970, press releases, JCSP;
124. John Stennis, “Floor statement–Segregation,” 14 October 1970, press release, JSCP.
125. Washington Post, 31 January 1971, 39.
126. John C. Stennis, “School Desegregation,” 19 April 1971, press release, JCSP;
127. CQA, 1971, 606;
128. Washington Post, 23 April 1971, A9.
129. Washington Post, 27 April 1971, A17.
130. New York Times, 21 March 1971, E11;
131. see also New York Times, 18 April 1971, E13.
132. Quoted in Washington Post, 20 April 1971, A2.
133. New York Times, 23 April 1971, 1.
134. New York Times 1;
135. Newsweek, 3 May 1971, 27.
136. Washington Post, 22 April 1971, 1.
137. CQA, 1971, 605.
138. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1;
139. 91 S.CT. 1267;
140. 28 L. Ed. 2d 554 (1971)
141. New York Times, 21 April 1971, 29.
142. New York Times 1, 28;
143. New York Times, 23 April 1971, 1.
144. Washington Post, 24 October 1971, 1;
145. New York Times, 14 November 1971, E2.
146. Washington Post, 24 October 1971, 1; also
147. see Washington Post, 14 November 1971, 38.
148. New York Times, 14 November 1971, E2.
149. Christian Science Monitor, 31 May 1973, 1.
150. Neil McMillen, “Development of Civil Rights 1956-1970,” in McLemore, ed. A History of Mississippi, vol. 2 (Hattiesburg, Miss.), 175.