Education: Report Card

¶ Deciding the second of the five original cases that led the U.S. Supreme Court to bar segregation in the public schools, a three-judge federal court in Richmond, Va. refused to force Prince Edward County to desegregate its schools this fall. Said the court: “It would not be practicable, because of the adjustment and rearrangement required for the purpose.”

¶ In a sweeping move to preserve Alabama’s segregated schools, the state senate approved a house bill to give local school boards “full and final authority” to assign individual pupils to whatever schools the members thought best.

¶Appointment of the week: Abraham Nemeth, 36, to the mathematics department of the University of Detroit and to a personal victory in a long and painful fight. Nemeth, born blind, started out to be a psychologist. He earned an M.A. at Columbia University, switched to mathematics. Working as a clerk by day, he studied at Brooklyn College at night, eventually quit his job to study full time at Columbia for his doctorate. Meanwhile, he devised a simplified code to help other blind math students. Last week, having filled in as an instructor at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, and having written 150 different campuses for a permanent job, Abraham Nemeth heard from Detroit that his ambition would be fulfilled at last.