The North Carolina Method

School systems complying with the Supreme Court decision can still maintain de facto, if not legal, segregation. The decision, it must be remembered, did not require integration; it merely condemned compulsory segration.

The North Carolina Advisory Committee on Education, accepting the Supreme Courts decision, recently recommended rebuilding the state's school system on a basis of voluntary separation. The Committee's report stated in part:

"When the fires have subsided, when sanity returns, when the NAACP finds that it cannot use the federal courts as a club in a fight with the white people, and when the North Carolina Negro finds that his outside advisors are not his best or most reliable friends, then we can achieve the voluntary separation which our governor and other state leaders have so wisely advocated.

"Specifically, we recommend that all school units:

"1) Recognize that there is no law compelling the mixing of the races. . . .

"3) Declare that initial assignments to school will be made in accordance with what the assigning unit (or officer) considers to be for the best interest of the child assigned, including in its consideraton residence, school attended during the preceding year, availability of facilities, and all other local conditions bearing upon the welfare of the child and the prospective effectiveness of his school.

"4) After initial assignments are made, permit transfers only upon application and hearing in due course and in accordance with the provisions of the 1955 assignment law.

"...It should be noted again that we are proposing the building of a new school system on a new foundation--a foundation of no racial segregation by law, but assignment according to natural racial preference and the administrative determination of what is best for the child...."