DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Dorothy Schramm newspaper clippings, 1949-1955 (folder 1 of 2) | 1955-12-11 Des Moines Register Article: "Enforcing Iowa Civil Rights Law"

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Dorothy Schramm newspaper clippings, 1949-1955 (folder 1 of 2)

1955-12-11 Des Moines Register Article: "Enforcing Iowa Civil Rights Law"

[[Handwriting]]
12-11-55 DMR
A Marshalltown restaurant operator recently paid a $10 fine for refusing to serve a Negro. The case is one of the relatively few brought under the Iowa "Infringement of Civil Rights" statute.
The law guarantees all persons the "full and equal enjoyment" of "accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, restaurants, chophouses, eating houses, lunch counters, and all other places where refreshments are served, public conveyances, barbershops, bathhouses, theaters, and all other places of amusement."
Enforcement of the law requires someone willing to make an issue of discrimination and to carry the case through the courts. Proving discrimination is sometimes difficult. The penalty--a maximum fine of $100 and imprisonment for 30 days--doesn't necessarily deter repeaters.
The Iowa civil rights statute dates back to 1884. The penalty provisions were put in seven years later. One hundred dollars in those days was a fairly-stiff fine. Nowadays it doesn't amount to much, and frequently the fine is a good deal less than the maximum.
Fines and jail alone are not the basic answer to discrimination anyway. Being hauled into court frequently only makes the defendant bitter. Some of the biggest advances in human relations have been made by changing attitudes through the techniques of quiet education, conciliation and persuasion. most of the progress of the various state and municipal fair employment practices commissions is attributable to this approach.
A number of states have had such fine success in eliminating discrimination in employment that they have turned enforcement of their civil rights laws over to their fair employment practices commissions. Iowa would do well to give the thought to adapting some of the modern techniques of these commissions to its 1884 law.

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[[Handwriting]] 12-11-55 DMR A Marshalltown restaurant operator recently paid a $10 fine for refusing to serve a Negro. The case is one of the relatively few brought under the Iowa "Infringement of Civil Rights" statute. The law guarantees all persons the "full and equal enjoyment" of "accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, restaurants, chophouses, eating houses, lunch counters, and all other places where refreshments are served, public conveyances, barbershops, bathhouses, theaters, and all other places of amusement." Enforcement of the law requires someone willing to make an issue of discrimination and to carry the case through the courts. Proving discrimination is sometimes difficult. The penalty--a maximum fine of $100 and imprisonment for 30 days--doesn't necessarily deter repeaters. The Iowa civil rights statute dates back to 1884. The penalty provisions were put in seven years later. One hundred dollars in those days was a fairly-stiff fine. Nowadays it doesn't amount to much, and frequently the fine is a good deal less than the maximum. Fines and jail alone are not the basic answer to discrimination anyway. Being hauled into court frequently only makes the defendant bitter. Some of the biggest advances in human relations have been made by changing attitudes through the techniques of quiet education, conciliation and persuasion. most of the progress of the various state and municipal fair employment practices commissions is attributable to this approach. A number of states have had such fine success in eliminating discrimination in employment that they have turned enforcement of their civil rights laws over to their fair employment practices commissions. Iowa would do well to give the thought to adapting some of the modern techniques of these commissions to its 1884 law.