be, a panacea. The gap between the paying abili u of the poor and the cost of decent housing must s f somehow be closed. Restrictions, legal or de fac s which limit Negroes' choices of housing locatio must still be abolished. City services in the inner-c must be extended and enhanced. Much wider a d more comprehensive efforts must be launched if f cities are to become decent, healthy, livable. ERBIN CROWELL, nder 18 years of age, 34 percent were in the labor Force in March 1966; among those with children under ix, 24 percent were working or seeking work. It is also pointed out in the report that working others often find it difficult to secure adequate day are for their children. Nonwhite children were cared or more frequently in someone else's home (22 per cent) than were white (15 percent). About 10 percent of all nonwhite and 8 percent of all white children looked after themselves. Among those 12 and 13 years of age, 26 percent of the nonwhite and 20 percent of the white children did so. Only 2 percent of both white and nonwhite children were provided group care such as furnished by day care centers. More Minority Lawyers Needed HERE ARE ABOUT 250,000 lawyers in the United States; it is estimated that only a little more than ne percent are from minority groups-2,500 Negroes, round 750 from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, a andful of American Indian attorneys. These figures raise issues which go beyond the bvious injustice which they suggest: that minorities have not been accorded equal opportunities to become awyers. Furthermore, underrepresentation of minoriies in the legal profession presents a problem more undamental than the one facing a Negro, MexicanAmerican, or American Indian who, as a matter of ersonal choice, might prefer to retain an attorney of is own race or ethnic tradition. (Negroes make up bout 11 percent of the population, but only 1 percent f attorneys are Negro, and a large proportion of these re in government or industry. The majority of the pproximately 600 Mexican-American lawyers practice the vast five-State area of the Southwest. The Puerto ican Bar Association includes only 20 practicing atorneys in New York City. There are about a dozen merican Indians in the legal profession.) One of the broader problems is that the minorities re being deprived of community leadership which ttorneys traditionally assume. But most important fall is the fact that the judicial system itself suffers om inadequate minority representation. For a sysm of justice to be viable, it must sustain the condence of the populace it serves; it must, therefore, aintain the appearance as well as the substance of quity. The bar, as well as the bench and the jury box, ust reflect the racial diversity of the community it rves. In recent years, the legal profession and law schools particular have been concerned about the need for eater minority representation in the legal world. everal law schools have conducted wide searches for promising minority students with top grades and have provided enticing scholarships for legal study. Some law schools seek "average" minority group students and offer them tutorial and remedial assistance during law school to make up for academic shortcomings. The number of minority attorneys resulting from such recruitment and remedial assistance has been slight. The total of exceptional minority students who choose a legal profession is limited, and many law schools are realizing that special help during the school year tends to attach a stigma to the students and ostracize them from the general law school society. Many of the students in special programs have objected strongly in this regard. In addition, legal representatives admit that such a method of assistance is less likely to produce competent, self-reliant attorneys. A new organization-conceived less than a year ago and operating the first stages of its program this summer intends to increase the number of minority lawyers in the Nation and, at the same time, avoid the imperfections of comparable efforts. The Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO), believing that the paucity of minority lawyers deprives people of minority groups of representation in the courts and communication with society, has acquired $493,530 from the Office of Economic Opportunity to begin its summer program and a three-year Ford Foundation grant totalling $450,000. In addition, it has received contributions from law schools and private gifts. Specifically, CLEO plans to increase the number of lawyers from minority and disadvantaged groups and from economically deprived backgrounds who are not motivated or able to pursue a legal career under present standards for admission to law school. The CLEO project is designed to enroll at least 100 minority students in law school for each of the next few years. The program is directed to Negro, Ameri can Indian, and Spanish-speaking students. The Council includes representatives of the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the National Bar Association, and the Law School Admission Tests Council. The chairman of CLEO is Millard H. Ruud of the University of Texas Law School. The executive director is Professor Melvin D. Kennedy, chairman of the department of history at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga. Professor Kennedy, a member of the Morehouse faculty since 1941 and now the pre-law advisor at the college, has had considerable experience with students with problems which discourage minority students from pursuing a legal career. "We've had several students right here at Morehouse," says Kennedy, "thought by their teachers to have a very good potential for law but who, for a variety of reasons, don't pass the law school entrance exam." Kennedy gives as an example a Morehouse senior who was in the top 10 percent of his class and had received, among other awards, an overseas study grant to Sweden. He failed the law school entrance exam twice. Kennedy agreed with other professors that the student's potential was worth further effort. "We did some calling around, and Harvard Law School decided to take a chance on him. We were all confident he could make it, and sure enough, he had only the normal first-year difficulties— not unusual for any law student-and he finished Harvard, not at the top of his class, by any means, but with a reputable standing. He's now beginning on what we're sure will be a successful law career." Kennedy lists three major roadblocks to law practice for minorities. The first problem is one of motivation: too often, minority students find it difficult to conceive of themselves as attorneys. Prominent Negro attorneys notwithstanding, there are just not many examples of minority lawyers, particularly those with whom the student is likely to have a personal acquaintance. Second, most good or average minority students because of a variety of cultural and academic reasons simply are not able to meet the rigorous entrance requirements for law school. Then there is the problem of money. For most minority students and their families, undergraduate study already represents a considerable financial sacrifice. Law school is expensive, and those who can muster the finances seldom have enough support to free them from the anxiety over money which detracts from concentration on studies. CLEO hopes to deal with the specific problems of motivation, academic preparation, and financial need. This summer, the four-phase program began with summer institutes at the law schools of Harvard, the Uni versity of Denver, Emory University in Atlanta, the University of California at Los Angeles (where: University of Loyola and the University of Southe California are also participating in the institute). CLEO institutes are serving postgraduates & senior-year undergraduates. All fees and expenses,. cluding travel, are paid for CLEO-sponsored part pants. (In some cases, institutes will be open to no CLEO students.) Many law schools have said they ▾ admit all CLEO institute "graduates" whether th pass a law entrance examination or not. The second phase of the project is a program of a f school scholarships for those who complete the summ institutes and others, as funds allow. Phase three a promotional program described by Kennedy "down in the community where we'll awaken inter in studying law and provide orientation to minor. disadvantaged students." The last phase includes: search and evaluation of the program. Although CLE is highly optimistic, its project is still considered € perimental and subject to improvement. One indication of the reputation achieved by t program-apparent even before its actual startthat several law schools have already set up summ institutes patterned after the CLEO courses and asking for the overflow of CLEO applicants. "Sor law schools," says Professor Kennedy, "have even " quested names of the institutes' overflow for conside tion of immediate acceptance into law school, prom ing to include them in the tutorial and remedial a sistance programs while they are in law school." E adds that law schools have assured CLEO of financ aid to augment CLEO scholarships. CLEO institutes will provide a variety of courses experiences touching on the law. Classes will focus basic law subjects and legal orientation; field tr. will provide the opportunity to meet with policem judges, prosecutors, public defenders, attorneys general practice, and community leaders who will à cuss the importance and opportunities of law care with the students. Plans are already being made to double the numb of CLEO institutes next summer. CLEO hopes er year to increase the number of minority group att neys directly traceable to CLEO assistance. And the are persons who, by CLEO's definition, would otherwise enter or complete law school. By provid Mexican Americans, Negroes, American India Puerto Ricans and others a better opportunity to b come attorneys, the CLEO program promises to crease the confidence of the Nation's minorities in the chances for a more equitable day in court.-E.C 1 The Hungry School Child CHILD FORCED to go hungry all day while his classmates eat a hot, nourishing lunch. The idea ems fantastic, but a recent study has revealed that in act more than two-thirds of the 6,000,000 school chilren who deserve a free lunch starve from morning to Innertime. To many it could mean missing the one utritional meal of the day. The National School Lunch Program is just not roviding the noon meals that are needed, the study ponsored by five national women's organizations has eported. Six million school-age children in America elong to families who earn less than $2,000 a year or ho receive welfare payments for Aid to Dependent hildren. Yet less than two million of these boys and rls receive a free or reduced price school lunch. Although racial statistics are not available, the reort, "Their Daily Bread," suggested that a disproporonate number of such disadvantaged children are om minority groups. As the report states, “it is small mfort to them to learn they are discriminated against ot because of their color but because they are poor. o a hungry child this is a very fine distinction, ineed, and one without meaning or humanity." The report, based on interviews with more than 500 Federal, State, and local officials, teachers, and rents, was conducted by local volunteers in 40 comunities in 39 States. It makes extensive use of quotaons from the interviews. The five sponsoring groups cluded the Church Women United, National Board the Y.W.C.A., National Council of Catholic Women, ational Council of Jewish Women, and National ouncil of Negro Women. A slum area elementary school principal in St. Louis, o., stated that the majority of the school's more an 1,000 children were from welfare families, but ly 12 of the school's children were receiving free nches. An elementary school principal in Mobile, a., reported that lunches were rotated among needy ildren on a weekly basis. Of 1,000 children estiated to need free lunches, only 15 were provided a eal. A welfare mother in Springfield, Mass., stated at when she could not afford to buy her children nches at school, she just kept them at home. Children suffer discrimination because of their minority status, the report said. In a Mississippi county, it was reported that lunch and milk programs were discontinued at a school which white children abandoned after 18 Negro students enrolled. A Southern State school lunch director was quoted as saying, "We went over to one of them all-Indian schools later and those Indians are worse than the 'niggers.' I wonder what that black rascal gonna say now? You tell that boy in Washington we're gonna feed his 'nigger' children." The report stated that many needy children must suffer the humiliation of being identified as poor. In many schools, special cards or tokens are given to needy children so that they may receive free lunches. Others are steered into special lines or assigned to different eating times from those who can afford to pay for the lunches. There are no uniform standards of need to govern eligibility, so deprived children in one community may receive free lunches while children in the same circumstances in another community may not, the report pointed out. In some schools, the choice of who receives a free lunch may be left to the principal or teacher. In Sumter County, Ala., children must come from a family with an income of less than $2,000 a year. But this standard applies to a family regardless of the number of school-age children in it. In some school districts, only children of welfare recipients are eligible, but in others only children from low-income families not receiving welfare are eligible. The report states that many schools cannot provide lunches because they lack food preparation facilities. For this reason, none of the children in the elementary schools of Cleveland, Ohio, participate in the school lunch program. Of 79 elementary schools in Detroit, Mich., which have no lunch program because of lack of facilities, 78 are located in slum areas. The Department of Agriculture, which provides food commodities and financial assistance for the program, estimates that there are nine million children in America who are excluded from participating in a lunch program because their schools do not have the facilities to provide lunch. When the price of lunches goes up, the report noted, participation goes down. In California, where there has been a 5 cent per lunch increase in each of the last 5 years, there has been a 25 percent reduction in the number of children participating. In the State of Washington, a price increase resulted in an 18 percent reduction in participation. The report recommends that: The price of school lunches be reduced to place them within the reach of most children and contributions be increased to permit free and reduced price lunches to needy children; • A universal free lunch program for all school children be developed as a long range goal. • A uniform standard of need be established for ne children to make them eligible for free and redu price lunches. • Practices which unnecessarily identify those dren receiving free lunches be discontinued; • School food services be placed under one admi tration to promote uniformity and efficiency in fun and record keeping, and; • A national commission be appointed to eval school food service programs and prepare a bluepr for a total nutritional program to include not only school lunch program but all the nutritional and hea needs of America's school children. Commission Hearing on Rural Poor UBLIC AGENCIES in Alabama are doing little to break PUR the cycle of poverty and dependency and assure the victims of slavery and discrimination the opportunity to lead decent and productive lives. Black citizens of 16 counties in "blackbelt" Alabama are not being helped to stay on the land; nor are they being equipped with the education and skills to work in the towns. Left with little choice but to leave rural areas, black citizens are moving to urban areas. In effect, the South has transformed a regional problem into a national one to the extent that it exiles its poor and their problems. William L. Taylor, Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, announced these preliminary conclusions in mid-June on the basis of staff investigations and a five-day public hearing in Montgomery, Ala., April 27-May 2, on the issues of economic security as they affect black people in the State. "The weight of the evidence at our hearing in Montgomery was that the legacy of slavery still continues in the form of widespread racial discrimination, poverty, and economic dependency," Taylor said. Taylor added that the issues and information covered in the six-month staff investigation and at the hearing were "particularly relevant" to current Congressional debates on spending, to issues raised by the Poor People's Campaign, and to the crisis of race and poverty in America. In other findings, released in the form of four staff papers, it was pointed out that black families in the area studied rely on a noncash system of credit ob tained from merchants and employers so that the is no regular use of money. As a result, the report said, poverty is pervas in the 16-county area covered by the Commissi inquiry. Federal programs which could at least a the problems of inadequate diet, health services welfare assistance, the staff reports disclosed, h been insufficient or totally unrealized in many co ties. The almost completely segregated school syste had taken its toll, along with the ill effects of meas diets, in stunting the educational capabilities Negro children. Alabama's segregated schools ha deprived Negro children of proper schooling, eq facilities, and even of courses with an equivalent fut job potential as those for white children. Lack of educational achievement and training skills evidenced itself in the kinds of jobs oper black citizens, but "blatant" racial discrimination even by large government contractors-had lim job opportunities as well. In agriculture, many farm continue in marginal or total dependency due to the relegation to methods dating back to the 1930s. Cooperative Extension Service and the Farmers Ho Administration were both found to discriminate providing programs and benefits to Negro farme the staff reports said. Because of economic subjugation and dependen the staff reports said, Negroes are deterred from se ing to improve their lot by asserting themselves po cally, voting in greater numbers, and seeking electi to public and party office. ☐ |