ustxtxb_obs_1957_01_22_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

LATIN SEGREGATION LIMITED chez, chairman of the Department I of the History and Philosophy of the History and Philosophy of Education. at the University of Texas, that the best method is that there be no grouping on account of the language barrier, he accepted at the outset there is nothing unreasonable “about good faith grouping for language deficiencies at least for the first year.” But, said Allred, the pattern of segregating Latins for three or four years in the first two grades “was followed, irrespective of in-. dividual progress and abilities … No scientific tests are given to determine aptitude or progress.” The judgment of teachers was relied upon instead, practically all of whom “have had their experience and training under the old -system …. Very few promotions have been made out of the Latin sections and then only to a higher Latin section, not an Anglo or English-Speaking section,” he said. In September, 1955,’Allred said, the school refused to place in an Anglo section a first-grade Latin child, Linda Perez, who could speak no Spanish. When a lawyer was hired, they let her in. But the instance shows “the line is drawn on a racial rather than a merit basis,” Allred said. “In the twelve years that the present superintendent has been at Driscoll this is the only Mexican child who has been placed in the Anglo section and then only after the lawyer’s intervention.” \(In an interesting footnote, Allred said: “Defendants point out various bits of testimony by some of the minor plaintiffs which allegedly show their inability to speak or understand the English language. As observed by the court … these children appeared to be as bright as Anglo children of the same age; and, I add, their mistakes were no more than those that might have been made by any other child under the excite ment or other emotions of a first little Mexicans’ away from the `lily white’ children.” Sanchez is sensible of the importance of the issue for Negro segregation. “All these things \(arused against the Negro,” he said. “All the gains Mexicans win now are gains for the Negroes, too … The Negroes have ‘a language handicap’ too, you see,” he said. A case is now pending in Judge Allred’s court against the Mathis, Texas, schools. As Sanchez sums it up, Mathis has “a long history of segregation,” is “entirely segregating” Latins in an old elementary school. They stay two years in the first grade, take tests in the second grade, and then have “separate sections” in the second, third, fourth, and fifth grades “composed entirely of Mexicanname students.” “What would have happened to this nation if we had separated studentsGermans, Italians, Latinosby language when they started school?” . Sanchez asked in his Austin office. “The unitary school, making no distinction of caste among students, is the genius of American society. The segregation of Negroes is an aberration. “Within the class, intraclass grouping, is very defensible. But segregation by language is not necessary. Schools that practice integration as a general rule show better results than those that do not.” Sanchez referred to a study which traced proportionally more Spanish name graduates from Austin High School’ to integrated rather than non-integrated elementary schools. Again, he said, reading achievement scores of Latin-surname children at Allan Junior High School showed those coming from Metz School, which does not segregate Latins early, were. “head and shoulders above the others that had less integration.” Sanchez says that some educators, “in thorough good faith,” do separate Latin-American and Anglo students in the first grade, “and they do a good job.” “If, in good faith, Latin-Americans are segregated the first year, and a majority of them pass into the integrated second grade, then I say okay, even though I don’t like it. But the test of a remedial procedure is that it remedies. Holding students two years in a segregated first grade automatically retards a group of children who are going to drop out of school early anyhow. If they are perpetuating segregation beyond the first grade, then I immediately challenge the motives.” “The history of America supports the conclusion that everybody, whether Chinese or Yiddish or what, goes into the school with all the other American children. Segregation does not conform with the principles and value forms that prevail in American education. We don’t treat children by caste. “Second, it has been demon*strated time and again by good school systems that there is no need for segregation of Latins. “Third, a language is not learned by isolation. These children are put in a separate grade because they don’t know English, and they they don’t learn English because hey’re in a separate grade. Children don’t learn English from a teacher they learn English from each other.”. Key Cases UNTIL ABOUT 1947, Sanchez recalls, segregation of the Latinos \(his affectionate term for Latinthroughout The Southwest, and Texas was “the horrible eXam ple.” But then came the Mendez and Delgado cases. In the Mendez case, tried before Judge Paul J. McCormick in a U. S. District Cotirt in California, parents and guardians of a group of Spanish-name children complained against several school systems that segregated them in separate schools. The court restrained “further discriminatory practices” against the Spanishname pupils. Judge McCormick said at one point: “The equal protection of the laws’ … is not provided by furnishing in separate schools the same technical facilities, text books and courses of instruction to children of Mexican ancestry that are available to the other public school children regardless of their ancestry. A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality.” The methods of segregation used “foster antagonisms in the children and suggest inferiority among them where none exists,” said the judge. But the Mendez case did not take up the question of separate classes for Spanish-speaking children in a common building or campus. In the Delgado case, Mexicanname students from four Central Texas communities alleged deprivation of civil rights by their enforced exclusion from “schools and classes” reserved for “other white children.” Judge Ben H. Rice, Jr., concluded in 1948 that the defendant school districts’ practices “insofar as they … have segregated pupils of Mexican or ‘other Latin-American descent in separate classes and schools” were “arbitrary and discriminatory,” yiolationg of the Fourteenth Amendment, and illegal. Rice enjoined the school boards permanently from segregating Latins “in separate schools or clases,” He excepted “separate classes, on the same campus in the first grade only and solely for instructional purposes, for pupils in their initial scholastic year” who, according to impartial tests, show they don’t know enough English “to understand substantially classroom instruction in first-grade subject matter.” `Free Choice’ AFTER the Delgado decision, Sanchez cays, many Texas school districts complied in good faith. Ozona and Sonora schools, which had been operating separate schools for Latins and Anglos through the high school level, ceased doing so. Elgin had required Latins in the segregated elementary school to take any high school they wanted in the elementary school; this stopped, too. But “some school systems became recalictrant,” he said. The first one was Del Rio. San-: chez says they had two elementary schools in the same block, with a common playground, with Anglos attending one and Latins the other. School Superintendent L. A. Wood ordered their accreditation discontinued in 1949, but they went on with their segrega. tion. However, in September of that year, a large number of Latin children “chose” to enroll in the Anglo school, flooding it with students and thus showing that the Del Rio schools’ defense that the students had “free choice” about which school to attend was untenable. Del Rio integrated. The strategem was applied again in Hondoonly one Mexican child. signed up for the Mexican school; School. district gerrymanderin g and “neightorhood schools” still leave a lot of South and Southwest Texas schools dominantly Latin or Anglo, but it’s nothing formal. “Many of the’ schools in deep South Texas separate the Latins for two years in the first grade,” Sanchez said. “I would say, thinking of the entire Southwest, that most of the dO not.” RD. Workmen’s Comp Hike Proposed Allred had observed in the trial that it might be an incentive to let apt Latins move into the English-speaking second grade. The defendants replie d, somewhat jauntily, that this would “call for a recognition of a difference in descent, and would imply that those who are not of Latin descent are superior …” Allred replied this showed “the present discrimination is based upon race rather than English’ speaking ability. If indeed the Anglo group were designed for English-speaking students, as defendants contend it is, rather than upon racial origin, as it is, promotion to that group would be a proper incentive, a recognition of individual merit with no , racial connotations. Allred refused to draw a line at the end of the first grade for the end of segregation. He insisted, instead, that such grouping must be based on individual abilities, scientifically tested. A ‘Subterfuge’ SANCHEZ,. who was a witness for the plaintiffs in the Driscoll trial, has worked many years for the advancement of Latin-Americans in Texas and the U.S. At Driscoll, he says, “four years of segregation “eliminated many of the underprivileged students from the schools.” He said the “idea” behind the practice was that by the third grade, “only the cream of the crop gets to the third grade, and they’re all right to mix with.” He said such practices are only a “subterfuge to keep these ‘dirty AUSTIN An increase of the workmen’s compensation maximum of $25 a week is likely this session. Governor Daniel advocated it Thursday, and at week’s end three bills were introduced in the House. One, by Bill Elliott, Pasadena, would raise the payment scale to from $15 to $45 ; another, by DeWitt Hale, Corpus Christi, would raise it to from $13 to $35. A third bill was introduced by Reps. Wade Spill -nail, McAllen, and Don Kennard, Fort Worth, and is probably the compromise industry and labor have been working on. It raises the scale to from $9 to $40, and rescinds some present limitations on medical benefits for injured workers. Rep. James Turman, Gober, and 57 other members introduced the teachers’ requested pay raise bill Ben Glusing, Kingsville, a n d establishing a code of ethics with eleven standards for state officials and employees. Rep. E. E. Shackelford, Kirbyville, proposed a minimum old age assistance pension of $50 a month and was joined by 23 other members in the plan. He also introduced a bill to remove the constitutional limitation on how much may be spent on the aged, blind, and de .pendent children. Rep. Amos Martin, Paris, introduced Daniel’s plan to increase the old age pension maximum from $58 to $60 a month. Rep. Obie Jones, Austin, and 27 others introduced a bill to raise state workers’ pay 25 percent on salary up to $2,400. Reps. Charles Sandahl and Wilson Foreman, both Austin, proposed a pay raise of 12.5 percent on state workers’ salary up to $3,000. Annual Sessions Rep. Truett Latimer, Abilene, would have annual sessions and an annual salary of $7,500 for legislators. Rep. Herman Yezak, Bremond, wants to cut the House membership from 150 to 100. Rep. Dixon Holman, Fort Worth, proposes two terms of four years each, and no more, for governors. Rep. Tony Korioth, Sherman, and others, want to abolish the poll tax. Rep. B. H. Dewey, Bryan, proposes abolition of absentee voting. Rep Jack Bryan, Buffalo, proposes letting the state finance Texas advertising, as does Governor Daniel. Rep. Charles Hughes, Sherman, introduced an occupational safety bill to create a division in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, require employers to maintain safe working conditions and abide by safety rules of the division, and make it a misdetheanor for them to fail to do so. Reps. Robert Jackson, Corsicana. and Kennard introduced the urban renewal bill to permit cities to provide for slum clearance in contracts with the federal government for slum clearance and private construction in the cleared areas. No property acquired under ‘the act could be used for public housing. Of special interest is H. B. 1 by Rep. Joe Pool, Dallas, to license and regulate opthalmic dispensers and to require that their training “must be acceptable to the Texas Medical Association.” Rep. Jack Bryan, Buffalo, drew the right to introduce H. B. 1 but yielded to Pool. Regulation Rep. Reuben Talasek, Temple, introduced several bills of interest: authorizing and regulating “cooperative action among \(casand other matters”; prohibiting merchandise sales with a limit on quantities; and. regulating car junkers and rebuilders. Sen. Doyle Willis, Fort Worth, introduced a bill to allow cities to boost longevity pay for firemen and policemen from $2 to $4 per month for each year of service up to 25 . years. Rep. Ben Ferrell, Tyler, is sponsoring a bill aimed at keeping minorities from electing local school board members. The bill . provides election of school board members by places instead of naming the three strongest-finishing candidates for office. Ferrell pointed out that the present election procedure might make it possible for a Negro candidate to be elected over several white men whose votes were split. Rep. Jack Welch, Marlin, tiled a bill calling for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for dope peddlers caught dealing with minors and the death penalty for the second such offense. Sen. A. M. Aikin, Jr., Paris, and Rep. Robert M. Baker, Houston, have introduced measures ex panding the hot cheek law to cover employers who deliberately write worthless checks to pay weekly wages to their workers. Rep. Gordon B. Forsyth, Corpus Christi, filed a bill not calculated to get the youngsters’ ap