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During these demonstrations the board of trustees met, later sent Autherine a telegram notifying her: FOR YOUR SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF THE STUDENTS AND FACULTY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY, YOU ARE HEREBY SUSPENDED FROM CLASSES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. But this action did little to pacify Tuscaloosa. That night another mob, made up in part of high-school students and workers from a local rubber factory, descended again on Carmichael's home, refused to leave even when Mrs. Carmichael assured them that the president was not at home. The mob threw gravel at the house, set off firecrackers, sent an egg whizzing past Mrs. Carmichael's head.
Tuesday. In spite of President Carmichael's efforts to explain why the trustees had forbidden Autherine to attend classes ("There might have been tragedy far greater than any we have seen"), the student legislature issued a stern reprimand. It denounced mob rule, demanded that university officials take strong action to restore the university's reputation. Why, asked Dennis Holt, president of the debating society, had the trustees suspended Autherine? "They did it because the mob forced them to. The mob won."
At week's end Lawyer Shores filed contempt-of-court charges against the trustees for suspending Autherine, and another contempt charge against Dean Healy for barring her from dormitories and dining halls. But whatever the legal outcome, Autherine Lucy faces an uncertain future at the university. The police had done little against the mobs; in three days of violence they had made only three arrests. Worse still, university officials had given no indication that they could stand up to pressure, or that they really cared whether or not their campus regained its moral leadership.
"God knows," said Autherine Lucy, "I didn't intend to cause all this violence and agitation among my fellow citizens and fellow students. I merely wanted an education ... I will keep fighting until I get one."
* Beginning, as far as the U.S. Supreme Court is concerned, with the Gaines case of 1938. In 1935, Lloyd Gaines, a citizen of Missouri and a graduate of Lincoln University (Missouri), tried to enter the University of Missouri law school and was turned down. The Supreme Court's decision: the university's contention that Negroes could get special scholarships to law schools outside the state was beside the point. If Missouri itself could not provide equal-and-separate facilities for Gaines, the university would have to take him in.