Lincoln School Desegregation Today (Part II): The Dodson Report

Lincoln School Desegregation Today: Part I - Early Gerrymandering

The Dodson Report

The school district decided to hire experts to study the situation. A team of distinguished educators, psychologists and sociologists was created and headed by Dr. Dan Dodson, an expert on integration. They did an exhaustive study. In December 1957 the group delivered its report called "Racial Imbalance in Public Education New Rochelle, New York". The report was unkind to the school district and said that it had been "derelict in its duties, and remiss in its attitudes". The Dodson Report also said the New Rochelle situation was very similar to the Brown decision. And that the situation generated "a feeling of inferiority as to their (black students) status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.'"

Dodson pointed out that "change in New Rochelle was necessary; new facilities were required. Thus, the Board was faced with the necessity of dealing with the racial problem at once. Procrastination had to give way to action".

Apartments on Park Place

"Obviously the racial imbalance in the school is related to the housing patterns. The housing patterns, however, cannot be changed overnight. The school district boundaries can." Dodson commented on "What seems to be a lack of willingness on the part of the Board to move district lines" and found that "Acquiescence's has heightened concern as to the 'status' of one school as against another with the result that there is almost a 'phobia' about the district lines in several of the schools surrounding Washington, Lincoln and Columbus." (Crisis in the Public Schools, based on the Reports by Dan Dodson, page 25).
The report goes on -- "The panel believes the Board of Education has adhered too rigidly to establish district lines for elementary schools. It has tended to make under-use of some facilities at the expense of over-crowding in others. This policy has reinforced the 'status appeal' of some schools and depreciated others. It has helped fragment the community into neighborhoods identified by school attended and make more provincial the experience of all children".

Regarding the topic of rebuilding Lincoln School, the report said "To do so would further reinforce the segregation of Negroes." and recommended against it.

Other experts participated. The director of the State Education Department's division of intercultural relations, Theron A. Johnson, said that he had found the New Rochelle Lincoln School to be racial segregated. He eventually testified at trial that he was called in to study the situation in the Lincoln school in December, 1956. He said that although the New Rochelle School Board had requested the study, "it asked that the first report .. be withdrawn when it became known that it criticized segregation". He explained that "when a school was known as a 'Negro school' it was regarded by the community and the pupils as inferior." (NY Times article, "Witnesses Tell of Bias in School", November 24, 1960.

So the parents are agitated, Brown vs. the Board of Ed is settled by the US Supreme Court, and a team of experts recommends immediate desegregation. A future post will continue the history.

Multi-family houses on Park Place

Lincoln School Desegregation Today (Part III): Frustration Grows