After arguing before the Supreme Court last week, Jerris Leonard refused to pose for photographers with a lawyer who had supported his plea. "That is one honor I will decline," said Leonard, who is chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. His reluctance was understandable. Leonard had just become the first Government lawyer ever to ask the high court for a delay in school desegregation. His unaccustomed ally was John C. Satterfield of Mississippi, the most prominent segregationist lawyer in the country.
Together, Leonard and Satterfield were fighting suits brought by the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund, which asked the...