Education: No Place to Mix

Coed Iris Alexander, a junior at the University of Wisconsin, had been to a campus party, after a football game. One of the boys she met there took her home, and they talked a while on the porch. When she said goodnight and stepped inside the door of her rooming house, her landlord told her to move out. To Landlord Arthur Rupe’s way of thinking, he had good reason: Iris’ escort was a Negro. A fellow roomer took Iris’ side, and Rupe ordered her out, too. “A private home,” said he, “is no place for inter-mixing races.”

The University of Wisconsin Cardinal called the landlord’s action “injustice of the vilest sort!” Iris, who is 20, and chairman of the campus social-relations committee, said she would take her case to court. She added: “I’m not afraid of sticking my neck out and getting my name smeared all over. I feel strongly.” In Manhattan, Iris’ mother gave her worried approval: “I know she has done right. . . . But I wish she’d let someone else tilt lances at windmills.”