US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

This class action to effect pupil and faculty desegregation of the Fort Smith, Arkansas, high schools was brought several years ago by petitioners, two Negro students. The courts below refused to order respondents to transfer petitioners or to order immediate desegregation of the high schools, and it was also held that petitioners had no standing to challenge racial faculty allocation. Since one of the students had graduated during the pendency of the suit, and the other had reached the 12th grade, two other Negro students, one in the 10th grade and the other in the 11th grade, moved in this Court to be added as party plaintiffs.

Held:

1. The motion to add parties is granted.

2. The assignment of petitioners to a Negro high school on the basis of race is constitutionally prohibited, both for the reasons stated in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, and because petitioners are prevented from taking courses offered only at another school limited to white students. Pending immediate desegregation of the high schools according to a general plan, petitioners and those similarly situated shall be allowed immediate transfer to the high school from which they were excluded because of race, and which has the more extensive curriculum.

3. Under two theories, the first of which plainly applies, students not yet in desegregated grades would have standing to challenge racial faculty allocation: such allocation (a) of itself denies them equality of educational opportunity, and (b) renders inadequate an otherwise constitutional pupil desegregation plan soon to be applied to their grades.

Certiorari granted; 345 F.2d 117, vacated and remanded.