The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has appealed a judge’s decision not to apply nationally an injunction that would temporarily halt tax exemptions to racially discriminatory private schools until the matter is settled in Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Feb. 4, U.S. District Judge George Hart reaffirmed a 1971 injunction, in the case now known as Green v. Regan, forbidding the irs to grant tax-exempt status to segregationist schools in Mississippi. But Judge Hart declined to apply the order to other states until the Supreme Court has acted on the government’s request that a tax-exemption case pending before the Court, which involves Bob Jones University in South Carolina and the Goldsboro (N.C.) Christian Schools, be declared moot.
Norman Chachkin, deputy director of the Lawyers’ Committee, a private organization based in Washington, said no date has been set for hearing of the appeal.
The irs has said it intends to grant exemptions to Bob Jones University and the Goldsboro schools pending the outcome of the case and the legislation, but will not consider any new applications for tax-exempt status until Congress has acted on the President’s bill. A Justice Department lawyer said the government would honor the injunction applying to Mississippi.
