Displacement of black teachers in the eleven southern states. Special Report.

In order to collect information on teacher displacement, the Race Relations Information Center surveyed white and black teachers and principals, teacher association executives, attorneys, civil rights and community leaders, state and federal officials, and journalists in 11 Southern states; the survey was conducted largely by phone. Several tentative general conclusions emerge. The number of black teachers being hired to fill vacancies or new positions is declining in proportion to the number of whites hired. Nonhiring is a form of displacement as serious as dismissal and demotion. Displacement is more widespread in small towns and rural areas than in metropolitan centers; in sections with a medium-to-heavy concentration of black citizens than in predominately white areas; and in the Deep South than in the Upper South. Finally, demotion of black principals and teachers is more prevalent than outright dismissal. The irony of displacement is that it has followed compliance with Federal laws designed to end discrimination. In the South in recent years, displacement of black professionals, and the diminishing of positions, pay, and prestige have accompanied each newly desegregated school despite legal decisions, the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and HEW guidelines.