Background of <cite>Adams v. Weinberger</cite> and the key players
Dawson briefly describes the background of <cite>Adams v. Weinberger</cite> during the mid-1970s. Specifically, Dawson focuses on why North Carolina was included as one of the ten southern states scrutinized for the state of desegregation in institutions of public education. In addition, he disentangles the role of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), and the University of North Carolina.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Raymond Dawson, February 4, 1991. Interview L-0133. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
But the next big step wasߞagain, I'm not sure
of the chronologyߞthe next big steps were these. There came to
be a debate on the Vet School. Then there came to be a lot of pressure
on the Office for Civil Rights and HEW to reject not only our plan, but
everybody's plan. This seemed to have been occasioned by a
motion filed by the Legal Defense Fund, the LDF, in the same U.S.
District Court in Washington. See, the case was up there, and
it's important to remember through all the discussion that we
were not parties to the lawsuit. This was a lawsuit brought by Adams,
et. al., supported by the LDF, against the United States government for
not enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in ten Southern states
which had historically had de jure segregation in public as well as
elementary and secondaryߞin higher as well as in elementary
and secondary education. So the suit was against the Federal government
itself to force them to enforce the law. And the LDF attempting to tell
them exactly how it ought to be enforced. And not all the states, not
all the southern states were named; it was a curious kind of mixture.
Maryland was named. Virginia was named. North Carolina was named. Not
South Carolina. They were not named. Georgia was named. Florida. Alabama
was not. Mississippi and Louisiana were not. Texas was not. Arkansas
was. Oklahoma was. I believe West Virginia was, in the initial thing.
- WILLIAM LINK:
-
Was there any logic to that?
- RAYMOND DAWSON:
-
The logic was, in the case of Louisiana and Mississippi those two states
simply refused to submit plans. They, as I recall, they said, in effect,
"We're not in violation of the law. If you think we
are, sue us." And so the Federal Government initiated separate
legal action against them. Mississippi's case is still going
through the courts. And the Louisiana case, I guess, was settled with a
consent decree after ours, and I think it's back in the
courts. So those two cases are still going on. I was reading something
today about the Mississippi case. The Justice Department has filed
another motion in the Mississippi case this past week. South Carolina
and Alabama were just out on political grounds. I mean, this was the
early days of the Nixon administration, and I don't think
there's any question that George Wallace and Strom Thurmond,
you know, had some muscle to pull in the Republican party and they were
simply not named. And Texas, I think, was the same explanation.
Tennessee was under separate litigation, so that was straightforward. So
anyway, we were among the main states.
- WILLIAM LINK:
-
Just to get this straight, the suit went against the government, went
against the Federal government. The Federal Government then named the
states that were requesting plans?
- RAYMOND DAWSON:
-
Right. The suit named the states in a very careful selection,
interesting selection of states.
- WILLIAM LINK:
-
This selection occurred on the part of the HEW, then?
- RAYMOND DAWSON:
-
Well, on the part of the LDF.
- WILLIAM LINK:
-
Yes, in consultation with them.
- RAYMOND DAWSON:
-
The essence of a lawsuit is, of course, that there really be a case in
controversy. And as time went on, it was not at all clear that it was
really a controversy between the LDF as the plaintiffs and HEW as the
defendant. And this began to show during '75, I think it was,
when the LDF went into court and filed this motion to order the court to
overrule HEW and declare all these plans invalid. At about that juncture
a man named Martin GerryߞG-E-R-R-Yߞbecame the
Director of the Office of Civil Rights. We read the ruling, we read the
LDF motion in the Adams case, trying to get all these suits
declaredߞthese plans declared unacceptable. The Board of
Governors even debated for a time whether we should intervene in the
suit because it was a very sweeping brief that the LDF filed. It made no
distinctions whatsoever, between public and elementary and secondary
education. Higher education and elementary and secondary. It seemed
oblivious to all that. It called for some highly punitive measures
against the states, and for the first time clearly surfaced the
proposition that in the case of public higher education, where you do
not have mandatory attendance and you do not have assignment for
schoolsߞpupil assignment plansߞthat you do have as a
mechanical device to move students around, the assignment of programs.
And that figured pretty prominently in that first LDF brief in
'75, saying that, you know, if you move programs, you can
tell students to move with them, and that's the way you mix
up the institutions. It quoted at one point the Swann decision, the
Charlotte case, Charlotte-Mecklenburg case, which said that,
"What our goal has to be is no black schools and no white
schools, but just schools." Now the people who were really
alarmed by that brief was the organization called
NAFEOߞN-A-F-E-O. That's the acronym. National
Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. Now NAFEO is an
association of black colleges. That's their group. Public and
private. 512 of them. They saw this as a threat to the historical
identity of the black college. They filed a motion, a counter-motion in
the court against this and said that since they had been themselves
ߞthat is the institutionsߞhad been themselves the
victim of discrimination and segregation, that they should not be
singled out as a part of the remedy. And so their position was that, you
know, that they were in full compliance with the law and that insofar as
the make up of their student bodies were concerned, they had always been
open to all. The fact that they were, were of a clearly racial
identifiability was because of the law of the oppressors. And so the
dire consequences ought to fall on the oppressors and that what should
be done as a remedy was to build up and strengthen the black
institutions. Now, as I say, our board talked about, "Should we
intervene in the Adams Case?" And wisely said,
"No." Said, "We do not want to put ourselves
under jurisdiction of a Federal court up in Washington, D.C.