Report Card

> Does a state university have the right to charge higher tuition for students from other states? Well, yes and no, the Supreme Court ruled last week.

Specifically, by 6 to 3, it upheld the complaint of two women who transferred to the University of Connecticut, took up residence there, registered to vote and got drivers' licenses, but still had to pay $625 per semester as against $175 for state residents. If universally applied, equality of payment would wreak havoc in many state universities, but the Supreme Court did not go that far. While not officially ruling on the broad issue, Justice Potter Stewart declared: "We fully recognize that a state has a legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the quality of its colleges and universities and the right of its own bona fide residents to attend such institutions on a preferential tuition basis."

> The labyrinthine problem of how (or whether) to integrate inner-city and suburban schools moved one important but inconclusive step closer to a solution last week. At issue was the situation in Detroit, where Federal Judge Stephen J. Roth has ordered that the city's 285,000 pupils (67% black) must be merged, by busing, with the 495,000 (80% white) who live in 52 outlying districts. A similar ruling in Richmond was rejected by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and died when the Supreme Court tied 4-4 (Justice Lewis Powell, a former Richmond school board official, abstained). In the Detroit case, however, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 6-3 that city-suburban busing could indeed be ordered by the state legislature or, if the legislature did nothing, by the courts. The problem, therefore, appears headed once again for the Supreme Court, whose ruling could decisively affect similar suits pending in Boston, Hartford, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Wilmington and a number of other cities. In the meantime, though, the Sixth Circuit Court stayed any actual execution of Judge Roth's integration orders until the Detroit suburbs have a chance to state their objections in court--and those objections will be long and loud.

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