Federal Involvement with Student Desegregation

Abstract

In 1969, activist Thomas N. Todd, one of the lawyers handling the Justice Department’s faculty desegregation efforts against Chicago, resigned. Although Todd had the opportunity to bring the first criminal case (United States v. Gorman) against a Chicago policeman for denying an individual’s civil rights while in the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago, Todd indicated that he was interested in working on larger issues than what the Justice Department was currently pur-suing.1 He believed that the Justice Department should also focus on student desegregation, inequitable school funding, poor facilities at black schools, and the bias certification process for teachers and prin-cipals. Similarly, Leon Panetta, Nixon’s first Office of Civil Rights (OCR) director, was forced to resign in 1970. Panetta began his polit-ical career as an assistant to California senator Thomas H. Kuchel in 1966 and assistant to HEW secretary Robert Finch in 1969 before being tapped to briefly head OCR in 1970.2 The Washington Daily News featured a front-page headline “Nixon Seeks to Fire HEWS Rights Chief for Liberal Views.”3 Though Republican, Panetta was viewed as a liberal for his “tough stand on school desegregation.”4 Panetta’s response was, “I had just been fired from a $30,000-a-year Government job for taking that job too seriously.”5 The resignations of both Todd and Panetta highlighted Nixon’s calculated response to civil rights. Nixon favored a restrained approach to desegregation and those moving too quickly or wanting more civil rights and desegregation efforts were at odds with his administration.