| Abstract: | In the summer of 1965, the legislature of the state of Mississippi passed a law which required children whose parents were living in another state to pay up to $350 tuition in order to attend public school. On the belief that this law discriminated against Negroes and was therefore unconstitutional, the Department of Justice began litigation procedures to repeal it. But evidence was needed to prove that the law was in fact discriminatory. The lawyers contacted demographers at the Bureau of the Census to provide data to determine if the majority of persons affected were Negro and too poor to pay the tuition. They sought information which could tell them, ideally, how many parents of children in Mississippi had left the state and what the economic position and racial characteristics of the children were.An attempt was made to get this information from already published sources, such as census reports and other research findings. These could give a hurried impression of the situation but could not deal directly with the issue of the whereabouts of parents not living with their children, since such a question had not been asked in the 1960 Census. An additional bit of information was obtained from the NAAGP Legal Defense and Education Fund in Jackson, Mississippi, from forms showing characteristics of persons actually affected by the law. But this limited sample did not provide evidence solid enough upon which to build a case.It was decided to rely on a retabulation of 1960 Census records to describe accurately the base population from which children with parents out of state would be drawn-namely, the children not living with either parent. This showed that of all school-age children living without either parent, 82 percent are Negro. The average Negro household, which contains at least one "parentless" child, houses 6.8 persons and has an annual income of $1,429. This allows less than $250 annually per person. Tuition for just one child eats up more than one person's yearly allotment. These data showed that the law, in fact, did discriminate racially, since most of the persons affected were Negro and too poor to pay tuition.This was one instance in which demographers were able to use their special skills in implementing public policy-notably, the law. |
