Vaughn, Carmen and Leroy

Leroy and Carmen Vaughn, African American parents in Englewood, became central figures in a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case after they kept their daughter, Laurie, out of the fourth grade during the 1962 boycott of Lincoln School, which Black parents charged was racially segregated in fact. In a unanimous 7–0 decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a parent’s opposition to school segregation did not constitute a valid legal defense for violating the state’s compulsory school attendance law, reinstating the Vaughns’ appeal but rejecting the argument that evidence of segregation could excuse truancy. The Court held that even where segregation existed, parents were still legally required to send their children to school, drawing a sharp distinction between permissible legal challenges to segregation and unlawful forms of protest. The ruling came amid one of the most bitterly contested civil rights disputes in the North and underscored a central tension of the Englewood struggle: although state officials later acknowledged Lincoln School’s racial imbalance and ordered corrective action, Black parents were nevertheless fined and prosecuted for using direct action to force desegregation.