Interview with Stuart B. Carter
(WDBJ Television, Roanoke, VA)

Delegate Stuart B. Carter of Botetourt County, opposed the Gray Commission plans on the floor of the Senate largely because of the tuition grants or grant-in-aid provisions of the report. Carter considered the private school and tuition grant plans unfair to the poorer classes. The costs of these schools, he argued in this interview, will prevent poor families from educating their children. Furthermore, Carter considered the grant in aid plan unconstitutional. Carter considered the pupil assignment plan of the Gray Commission report consitutional as long as it did not in every case prevent black enrollment in white schools. Carter pointed out that there was disagreement about what Section 129 of the Virginia Constitution really required to satisfy the provision for an open and efficient public system. He argued that the public had no assurances that there will be any free and public schools in the counties that use the grant-in-aid system and set up private schools. In this circumstance Carter foresaw that Governor Thomas B. Stanley and others would interpret Section 129 so widely that these counties would not be required to have free and open public schools.