The South: Muted Voice

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Last week, for the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court spoke on the subject of Negro sit-ins at Southern lunch counters. But the court's voice was muted. All nine justices agreed to set aside the 1960 convictions of 16 Negro college students arrested while trying to break the segregation barrier in Baton Rouge eateries. The court's opinion, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, dealt only with the fact that there had been no evidence that the students were guilty, as charged, of having violated a Louisiana disturbing-the-peace statute that prohibits anyone from acting "in such manner as to unreasonably and foreseeably disturb the public." (The state law has since been amended so as to include sit-inners specifically.)

Basing its decision on such narrow grounds, the court gave no hint as to what its reaction might be to the appeals now pending before it from other sit-in demonstrators who have been convicted on other charges throughout the South. And last week Baton Rouge cops arrested 72 more Negro students. Among the charges: obstructing "the free, convenient and normal use" of a sidewalk.