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251

COOPER V. AARON

land." State officials may not disobey its commands. This case tests the power of the Supreme Court to enforce constitutional rights. It also tests federal authority over claims of "states' rights." The real contestants are President Eisenhower and Governor Faubus. But the actual parties are virtually unknown. William Cooper is president of the school board. John Aaron is first in alphabetical order of the black children whose parents sued the board. Richard Butler, an experienced Little Rock lawyer, argues for the board.

Butler: We believe that the manner and the methods employed by the United States Supreme Court in the two Brown decisions of 1954 and 1955 recognized the complexities of this problem, as had previous courts in determining issues of a similar nature. Both of the Brown decisions, in our opinion, reflect an understanding by this Court of the history of the Negro race and of the cultural patterns throughout this land.

We believe that this Court recognized that time was required for certain cultural patterns to change and that obviously this Court recognized the necessity or at least the desirability of referring those matters to the local district courts for innumerable problems which this Court recognized would arise, and some of which were enumerated in the decision.

"Deliberate speed," as used by this Court, is certainly not just a phrase coined on the spur of the moment or developed as a philosophy of opportunism to solve an immediate problem, but instead to us it was a carefully conceived philosophy of deliberation which, along with legal reasons for delay as outlined by this Court in the second Brown decision, allows for the flexibility and the delay provided in the decision by District Judge Harry J. Lemley. In effect, it provides for a transition from one era to another or from one set of standards to another.

Narrator: Butler asked for a stay of court orders while Arkansas lawmakers debated ways to block school integration. Chief Justice Warren did not conceal his doubts.

Warren: Has the school board determined what it will do toward desegregation or toward leaving the matter as it was last year, in the event this court declines to grant this stay?

Butler: No, sir. It has not decided because it's almost compelled to see what statutes are passed by the general assembly now in session and various other things, which it has no way of determining, and this school board no doubt will have to meet those situations as they arise, as they have had to do all the past year.