Pride and Prejudice

When the Supreme Court decrced an indefinite period for the "adjustment of local problems" in desegregation, even enthusiastic liberals must have felt considerable relief. The prospect of enforcing a law that some citizens seem prepared to break violently is not a pleasant one. The Court evidently hopes that under this last decree, continual, if restrained, federal prodding will force segregation into retirement. With part of the South claiming that it is prepared to go to any lengths to break or evade the law, the decision is probably a wise one.

But the expedient nature of the Court's decision does not hide what "adjustment of local problems" really means. Segregation, before the original decision a year ago, was a matter of taste. One either believed in it or not, and practiced it or not within the limits of local police regulations. It is still a matter of taste, and one may still believe in it, but its practice in public schools, according to any interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, is illegal. When apologists talk about "local problems" they are now speaking about an unwillingness to obey the law.

If, for administrative reasons, desegregation could not be accomplished within a week, or even a year, it would have been entirely natural to allow a maximum of time in which the Court's decision should take practical effect. But by its supplementary ruling the Court is, in effect, diluting its original decision. Only the requirement that each public school system display good faith in its efforts to bring segregation to a close, and the power given Federal courts to act against any school board obviously obstructing desegregation, keep the new ruling from being classed as an actual retreat. The new period of languid desegregation, the Court evidently feels, is better than certain tension and possible large-scale defiance of its order.

While the new decision smacks of moral abdication, the Court was probably right to adopt a practical point of view. The consequences of open defiance to a "desegregation immediately" order, depending on southern tenacity, could have meant virtual military occupation. On the other hand, the plan of South Carolina to turn the school systems over to private hands would have meant an interminate revival of complete segregation and a lowering of already inferior educational standards. Nevertheless, the "wisdom" of the Court's decision only emphasizes the unpleasant truth that a sizeable segment of the population is not, at present, ready to obey the law. The Court has merely made clear that it prefers modified un-Constitutionality to possible violence.