Atlanta Daily World

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY SUIT FILED

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.--(ANP)--The long legal fight for admittance to the University of Missouri School of Journalism was carried to federal district court here last Wednesday, by Lucile Bluford of the Kansas City Call. The suit asks $10,000 damages from S. W. Canada, university registrar, for "maliciously and illegally" refusing her application for enrollment last September. Also, the court is asked to declare her rights to attend the university under the equal protection clause of the constitution and asks an injunction preventing Canada from again denying her admission as long as there is no graduate journalism course offered at Lincoln university, the state's college for Negroes.

Last July, the state supreme court upheld Miss Bluford's right to enter the university if no other journalism course was made available to her--but ruled that she must first give Lincoln university a reasonable opportunity to supply the course. Following this, Atty. Gen. Roy McKittrick ruled that establishment of a graduate course at Lincoln by February 1, 1942, would be a 'reasonable' time under that decision. Lincoln university's president, Sherman D. Scruggs, announced last Tuesday that his school would open a graduate journalism course on February 1, acting under the legislative direction to provide educational opportunities equivalent to those at the state university where Negroes have never been admitted.

However, Miss Bluford charges that she applied at Lincoln last July 17 and September 18 and was told no such course would be available for the first semester of the 1941-42 school year. After each application at Lincoln, she stated
$10,000 Sought
(Continued from Page 1)
she applied at the University of Missouri and was rejected each time.
Her original suit against Canada for serious damages was denied in federal district court in 1940 on a similar charge which was based on his refusals. This was before the state supreme court's decision last summer.
For sometime prominent persons had decided to take the case to the United States Supreme court to determine whether the university can be closed to them. Efforts so far to enter the school have been met with increased appropriation by the legislature extending Lincoln University until the school has doubled in size. The latest answer is the journalism school, which is now under construction.
"New buildings and additions to the university are no answer to the question of whether Negroes have a right to avail themselves of the state university," said one prominent man here last Tuesday.