No Private Segregation

Sandra McCrary, a U.S. Navy employee who lived in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Va., and Margaret Gonzales, a Howard University secretary in nearby Dale City, Va., once shared the same baby sitter. That was how they found out that they also shared the same problem. The McCrarys' son Michael, 2, and the Gonzaleses' son Colin, 6, had both been rejected by local private schools. So the parents went to court and charged that their children had been barred on racial grounds. Last week Federal District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. ruled in their favor and declared for the first time that private schools cannot practice racial discrimination.

Although there is no law specifically covering segregated private schools, Judge Bryan, citing the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, stated that "all persons shall have the same right to make and enforce contracts as is enjoyed by whites." He declared that the barring of black children from private schools violated their parents' right to make a contract. If the ruling is upheld after the appeals being planned by the Southern Independent Schools Association, it will be binding on that group's entire membership: 395 private schools and 180,000 pupils in seven Southern states. Theoretically, the decision can also be applied to Northern private schools if discrimination can be proved.

The two schools against which the suit was filed in 1972--Bobbe's Private School in Arlington and Fairfax-Brewster School in Fairfax County--both denied in the court that race had been their guide, but Judge Bryan called the denials "unbelievable." Neither school has ever had a black pupil or a black applicant. Bryan said the admissions policies of the schools show no "plan or purpose of exclusiveness for the selection of students other than race." The fact that the schools are open to every white child, he said, "disposes of the argument that these were truly private schools."

Allison W. Brown Jr., attorney for the parents, praised the decision as a provisional end to a "gray area" in education. "It was not clear that private schools were covered by the civil rights laws," he said. "Many schools believed that if they got no Government funds and were completely private, then they didn't have to operate in a nondiscriminatory fashion. This clarifies it."

Attorney George S. Leonard, who represented the Southern Independent Schools Association, said the appeal would be taken to the Supreme Court, if necessary. "There is no longer a place of refuge for any group," he said. "This is about the most important freedom decision ever made. It is so fundamental it affects the entire country."

As a practical matter, both the McCrary and Gonzales families have moved to different neighborhoods, but for their troubles, Judge Bryan awarded them damages totaling $7,500.

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