Little Rock Revisited?

Amidst violent demonstrations of popular support, Louisiana Governor Jimmie H. Davis is leading the resistance to the first attempt in the Deep South to effectuate the 1954 Supreme Court decision voiding the "separate but equal" doctrine.

The eruption of rioting which accompanied the entrance of four Negro first graders into New Orleans' McDonough and William Frantz elementary schools last Monday was the forseeable culmination of action begun last May. At that time U.S. District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered the New Orleans school board to desegregate public schools this fall. When it became evident recently that the board, including its segregationist president Lloyd Rittinger, was going to comply with the order, the state legislature met in special session and passed resolutions resisting the court decree.

However, school officials ignored an attempt of the legislators to take over control of the city's educational system and proclam a school holiday. In defiance of Judge Wright's restraining orders, the legislature has issued written demands to the school principals not to integrate and had voted to remove those members of the school board who had moved to obey the federal action. Another resolution prohibited inter-school transfers without legislative consent. In an appeal to the public, the House urged white parents to boycott the two integrated schools. At present, with these and other measures rescinded by Judge Wright, Governor Davis is under injunction forbidding any further legislation designed to impede desegregation.

Although the court has attempted to protect the school board's stand, the legislature has made defiance more difficult by imposing financial sanctions. They have made it clear to banks and other loan sources that they consider the board's compliance to the federal directive illegal. A legislative resolution intimated that anyone giving financial aid to the schools might not get his money back should the State finally take control of the New Orleans schools. State aid to the city's schools comes to 57 per cent of their budget, and with $2,300,000 needed for imminent payrolls, the board's lawyer, Samuel Rosenberg, has stated that its position has become "completely untenable." "From a practical point of view, the board is reaching a point where it will, regardless of the orders of the court, be unable to operate the schools," Rosenberg said. He has asked the three judge commission now deciding whether to maintain Judge Wright's restraining order to nullify the flood of legislation against the actions of the board or keep the schools segregated until the litigation is completed.

Although Louisiana is grasping at legal straws in its attempt to interpose state sovereignty between local and national authority it can keep the situation alive by refusing to grant funds. However, such action can only lead to a closing of the public schools and it is doubtful whether the people of the city would permit this to continue, any more than they have in Arkansas where Faubus has been forced to begin token integration.

The interposition agrument is not novel. Madison and Jefferson used it in framing the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions which condemned the Alen and Sedition Acts of 1798 as unconstitutional. It was their contention that the federal government was created by the states to serves as their agent. They reasoned that state legislatures may declare federal laws unconstitutional. From that time, though the South has recognized both the idea of the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and of the Supreme Court as the agent to preserve that law, it has refused to combine two concepts and allow the high court to interpret the law it is supposed to uphold. According to Robert G. McCloskey, professor of Government, the doctrine of nullification embraced by the South since the origin of the states' rights argument "is no different legally from the right of interposition which Louisiana now claims."

From the time of Chief Justice John Marshall, the supremacy of the national government has dominated the Court's decisions. And, as McCloskey notes, "Since the Civil War the notion of interposition has been the battle cry of a lost cause." The overwhelming weight of judicial precedent opposes the Louisiana legislature's actions. The present problem will probably be brought before the high bench. With little chance of the tribunal reversing its former decision, the legislature's arguments will be mere rhetoric, there being no legal ground on which to fight. Although state intervention has worsened the New Orleans situation, it is unlikely that the city's troubles will become as acute at Little Rock's. The lesson of Arkansas acquiescence, following her exhibited temerity, will deter Louisiana from similar extreme action.

While the public demonstrations and frenzied bills have been ineffective, they have caused sparks bright enough to catch federal executive departments in their glow. Attorney General William P. Roger's telegram to Governor Davis warning that he would "use the full power of my office" against further obstruction to the court order, has been blatantly ignored. While a word from President Eisenhower himself might have added moral conviction to the stand taken by the Supreme Court, the President has repeated the pattern he followed in Little Rock: a reluctance to act firmly and quickly. Since he has left the question open, Louisiana has attempted to feel out President-elect Kennedy's position. The state representatives met with Clark Clifford, the Senator's spokesman on the matter. They came away saying, "We are not happy." Although the judicial outcome of the trouble in New Orleans can be foreseen, the political implications of the situation remain unclear.