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State University of Iowa Human Rights Committee first annual report and correspondence, 1963

An Analysis of the Kastenmeier Omnibus Civil Rights Bill Page 5

TITLE IX

   Section 901 is a precautionary measure. Arrests and convictions because of peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins or other civil rights activities now appear on the records of many of those participating in the civil rights movement. This section ensures that those records will not be turned against the participants in their dealings with the Federal government. Federal jobs Federal licenses and Federal rights, including the right to vote, will be awarded without regard to an applicant's civil rights record. The origin of this section is in H.R. 6300 (Congressman Moorhead).

Section 903 deals with the right of "removal" --  of transferring a case from the State court, where it had begun, to the nearest Federal court. For the Negro defendant, the benefits of the Federal forum are numerous. The Federal judge is likely to be far better equipped legally and far more impartial racially than the State judge. Even if the Federal judge errs, the Negro has an immediate appeal as of right to the Circuit Court of Appeals. If, on the other hand, the proceedings remain in the State court, the Negro must, at considerable expense of time and money, exhaust the State appellate process before he can request review by a Federal court; and even that review lies at the option of a Supreme Court too busy to take up all the cases set before it. 

More grievously, the State courts in civil rights cases are often perverted from their judicial function and made over into a weapon in the arsenal of white power. .This is a truth infuriating to the Negro. Bail is used as a device to bankrupt the Negro movement. "They tried to shoot us to death," Aaron Henry of the Mississippi NAACP said recently.  "Now they are spending us to death."  mass short-term jail sentences following indefensible convictions are used to quelch demonstrations and incarcerate leaders. In Danville, Va., last month, the corporation court sentenced demonstrators to 45 days in jail, and then refused to stay those sentences pending appeal. Since the higher court was not to sit during that 45-day period, appeal was empty.

Of all the civil rights bills introduced this session, only H.R. 7702 takes steps to rectify this situation. The approach is to amend the existing civil rights removal statute, which has a 97-year history of non-use.  The statute allows removal in two generic situations: (1) When a defendant is being prosecuted for an act which he performed under color of constitutional authority, and (2) when a defendant is faced with an unfair and unconstitutional trial on account of his race.

The approach has two aspects: (A) a manifesto declaring that removal shall be liberally sustained (an early line of Supreme Court cases had construed the statute restrictively); (B) a clause making reviewable an order of remand (which retransfers the case back to the state court). The remand order has not been reviewable by appeal since 1887 and not frozen into the statute, and southern district judges given carte blanche control. As exact rules for its new use will be developed through decisions of the Federal courts. That is as it should be, for removal raises problems of federalism not readily susceptible to one-stroke legislative determination.

TITLE X

   The Federal government should not subsidize segregation: that is the simple principle underlying this title. Such a subsidy continuously occurs as Federal funds flow into programs administered in the South. Sometimes the benefits of the program are enjoyed on a separate but equal basis (for example, hospitals built with Federal aid under the Hill-Burton Act). More often, it is separate and unequal, as most or all of Federal financing is

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TITLE IX Section 901 is a precautionary measure. Arrests and convictions because of peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins or other civil rights activities now appear on the records of many of those participating in the civil rights movement. This section ensures that those records will not be turned against the participants in their dealings with the Federal government. Federal jobs Federal licenses and Federal rights, including the right to vote, will be awarded without regard to an applicant's civil rights record. The origin of this section is in H.R. 6300 (Congressman Moorhead). Section 903 deals with the right of "removal" -- of transferring a case from the State court, where it had begun, to the nearest Federal court. For the Negro defendant, the benefits of the Federal forum are numerous. The Federal judge is likely to be far better equipped legally and far more impartial racially than the State judge. Even if the Federal judge errs, the Negro has an immediate appeal as of right to the Circuit Court of Appeals. If, on the other hand, the proceedings remain in the State court, the Negro must, at considerable expense of time and money, exhaust the State appellate process before he can request review by a Federal court; and even that review lies at the option of a Supreme Court too busy to take up all the cases set before it. More grievously, the State courts in civil rights cases are often perverted from their judicial function and made over into a weapon in the arsenal of white power. .This is a truth infuriating to the Negro. Bail is used as a device to bankrupt the Negro movement. "They tried to shoot us to death," Aaron Henry of the Mississippi NAACP said recently. "Now they are spending us to death." mass short-term jail sentences following indefensible convictions are used to quelch demonstrations and incarcerate leaders. In Danville, Va., last month, the corporation court sentenced demonstrators to 45 days in jail, and then refused to stay those sentences pending appeal. Since the higher court was not to sit during that 45-day period, appeal was empty. Of all the civil rights bills introduced this session, only H.R. 7702 takes steps to rectify this situation. The approach is to amend the existing civil rights removal statute, which has a 97-year history of non-use. The statute allows removal in two generic situations: (1) When a defendant is being prosecuted for an act which he performed under color of constitutional authority, and (2) when a defendant is faced with an unfair and unconstitutional trial on account of his race. The approach has two aspects: (A) a manifesto declaring that removal shall be liberally sustained (an early line of Supreme Court cases had construed the statute restrictively); (B) a clause making reviewable an order of remand (which retransfers the case back to the state court). The remand order has not been reviewable by appeal since 1887 and not frozen into the statute, and southern district judges given carte blanche control. As exact rules for its new use will be developed through decisions of the Federal courts. That is as it should be, for removal raises problems of federalism not readily susceptible to one-stroke legislative determination. TITLE X The Federal government should not subsidize segregation: that is the simple principle underlying this title. Such a subsidy continuously occurs as Federal funds flow into programs administered in the South. Sometimes the benefits of the program are enjoyed on a separate but equal basis (for example, hospitals built with Federal aid under the Hill-Burton Act). More often, it is separate and unequal, as most or all of Federal financing is