TABLE 7.1
Children Participating in the National School Lunch Program, 1947–85 (in millions)
Source: “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress,” School Food Service Research Review 13, no. 1 (Spring 1989): Table 11, p. 38. United States Census Bureau, The 2007 Statistical Abstract, The National Data Book, School Enrollment, No. HS-20, Education Summary, Enrollment, 1900–2001 and Projections, 2001.
The impact of the new lunch budget was dramatic. To continue receiving federal subsidies, local school districts, particularly those in low-income communities, had to vastly increase their free meal service. In Pennsylvania, for example, the number of free meals jumped from 25,000 per month to almost 2.8 million.49 Philadelphia provided 10,000 meals in fifty schools. The city of Dallas increased the number of free lunches from a mere 2,000 to over 14,000 within a year.50 In St. Louis, the percentage of free lunches increased from four to over 60 within a year.51 Providence added 1,000 free meals a day; Wilmington, Delaware, 600; and Portland, Oregon, 2,400. Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Oklahoma City began to serve free lunches to poor children. Chicago opened a central kitchen to provide lunches for thirty-eight inner-city schools without cafeteria facilities (see Table 7.1).52
But increased federal funding for free lunches did not immediately alter the way school lunchrooms operated. For one thing, the federal mandate did not contain sufficient new funds for general lunchroom operation. This meant that local districts and states had to come up with their own funding sources in order to be able to feed all children identified as poor in their districts. Because most school lunch programs relied on children’s fees to cover costs, many administrators simply tried to raise meal prices for paying children. Under the new federal rules, however, the maximum that any school could charge for lunch was 20 cents.53 The second problem was that while the federal government mandated that free lunches be available to all poor children, the Department of Agriculture was slow to articulate eligibility standards and even slower to issue operating guidelines about how poor children were to be treated.54
Grass-roots activists, taking up the CSLP findings, demanded that the states assume a more prominent role in providing free lunches to poor children. States for too long had relied on surplus food and children’s fees. “The real secret to expanding the ability of schools to serve lunch to all those who need it but cannot afford it, and ultimately perhaps to make school food service universal,” John Kramer, executive director of the National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States, noted, “is to prompt State governments to put up their fair share of the cost.” This would happen, he believed, only if state and local governments “are either confronted by an outraged, politically potent citizenry or are subject to federally imposed stringent matching rules.”55 Most states, however, dragged their feet when it came to appropriating funds for school lunches. As a result, anti-poverty groups across the country mounted demands for new state funding. In Illinois, Jesse Jackson led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket in a demonstration to the state legislature in Springfield. The Committee for the Hungry Child in Detroit, the Mingo County, West Virginia, Hot Lunch Strike Committee, and the Tucson, Arizona, Free Lunch Committee challenged local officials to feed poor children. In Houston, high school students organized themselves and threatened to boycott the schools. Coalitions in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa launched coordinated campaigns during the summer of 1969 to demand state funding for free lunch programs.56
ELIGIBILITY STANDARDS AND THE RIGHT TO LUNCH
Frustrated by the slow pace of change in school lunchrooms, the Poor People’s Campaign, along with the Citizen’s Crusade, threatened a national mobilization for the “right to lunch” and promised “an endless string of litigation directed at securing a meal for every needy pupil in every community in the Country.”57 Across the country grass-roots groups began to agitate for free lunch programs. By the end of 1969, the National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition documented lawsuits throughout the country. These suits focused national attention on two issues: the reluctance of local officials to put resources into school lunches and the continued paternalism and discrimination that characterized rules regarding which children were eligible for free lunches. Even moderate anti-hunger groups were frustrated with local and state officials who refused to supplement federal dollars with local funds in order to provide services for poor children. At the same time, anti-hunger activists, influenced by a newly emerging welfare rights movement, focused increasingly on issues of dignity and fair treatment by public officials.58
The call for a right to lunch mirrored a growing welfare rights movement during the late 1960s. Demanding not only access to government benefits but respect and dignity as well, this movement directly challenged federal bureaucratic offices and regulations. Women on welfare organized the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) to mobilize welfare recipients and to educate women regarding eligibility standards and application procedures for food stamps, Aid to Dependent Children, and other federal benefits. In 1969 the group put out a pamphlet entitled “The New School Lunch Program Bill of Rights,” which listed the following “rights”:
1. The right to have every school operate a school lunch program.
2. The right that all poor school children receive their lunches for free or at a reduced price.
3. The right to make sure that children receiving free or reduced price lunches and breakfasts will not be discriminated against in any way.
4. The right to be told by school district officials about the rules and administration of the school lunch program.
5. The right to prevent school administrators from prying into your personal life, or asking irrelevant questions when your children apply for free lunches.
6. The right to get your free lunches immediately, without being investigated or forced to prove eligibility.
7. The right to appeal a denial of free lunch benefits or any other administrative decision that adversely affects a student.
8. The right to have the appeal decided fairly and by an impartial referee.
9. The right to a good and nutritious school lunch.
10. The right to fair and equal treatment, free from discrimination based on race, poverty, color or religion.
11. The right to assure that children and families of children receiving free school lunches have the same constitutional rights as everyone else.
The pamphlet offered specific information on free lunch eligibility including income and family size, provided guidelines for filling out the federal application forms, and gave phone numbers to call if federal or state officials did not comply or if applicants were not treated with dignity and respect. It also suggested things to do “in case your rights are violated,” including organizing hearings and pressuring local politicians and state agencies. If all else failed, the Bill of Rights advised, “bring law suits.”59
The results of the widespread mobilization for free lunches were mixed. In Illinois, Jesse Jackson’s coalition forced the state legislature to appropriate $5.4 million for free lunches. The Baltimore, Maryland, FOOD (Feeding Our Own Deprived) Committee, made up of “clergy, junior leaguers, and just plain folks,” pressured the governor to contribute $1.5 million in state funds for free lunch programs. In Memphis, where the school board had never contributed local funds to children’s lunches, a broad-based citizens’ coalition ranging from welfare rights activists to Junior Leaguers forced the school board to appropriate $150,000 of its Title I funds to provide lunches for poor children.60 Gary, Indiana, and Wichita, Kansas, began entirely new free lunch programs, and Detroit promised to provide food service in seventy schools where no lunch programs had existed before.61 John Perryman, lauding the grass-roots efforts, said, “For the first time in history we have had the courage to say that matching funds for the federal dollars shall not come alone from the nickels and dimes of the children, but
also from state matching funds.”62
The free lunch mandate challenged longstanding interpretations of the National School Lunch Program’s mission. In California, for example, a newly emboldened conservative movement pushed for dramatic reductions in state spending. When the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a $4 million subsidy for school breakfast and lunch programs, the recently elected governor, Ronald Reagan, cut all but $500,000 and earmarked this for a pilot program rather than for general use by poor children.63 California Rural Legal Assistance immediately sued the state in U.S. District Court, contending that the 1946 School Lunch Act promised every needy child a free lunch. T. W. Martz, Stanislaus County counsel, rejected that interpretation, insisting that the state was under no obligation to provide free lunches to all children on welfare. It had never been the intent of the School Lunch Act, Martz asserted, to provide free meals to all needy children. Martz appealed to the School Lunch Act’s now aging sponsor Richard Russell, who agreed that free lunches had been intended “to go to the neediest children” only “to the extent of available funds.” Russell bemoaned the program’s recent transformation, saying, “I have always favored leaving as much control as possible to the local school boards and it never occurred to me that the welfare department or the courts would undertake to classify the individual children as participants.”64 The California Rural Legal Assistance attorney declared this interpretation to be an example of “insensitivity, indifference, ineptness, and inertia.” The only way a needy child could be assured of a free, nutritious lunch in California, he asserted, “is to be arrested for a serious crime and confined to a juvenile detention center” where meals were provided.65 Ultimately, the free lunch provisions were upheld and the court ordered the Secretary of Agriculture to provide food for children in sixteen California counties that had refused to establish lunch programs.
Securing state funding for school lunches solved only half of the problem. Eigibility and dignity were different matters entirely. Free lunch children in all parts of the country were still required to stand in separate lines, eat different meals, and, in some instances, work for their lunches. In Kansas City, hunger activists took the school board to court, challenging its policy of requiring poor children to work for their meals.66 In Chicago, Jesse Jackson charged that local officials “established eligibility rules, administrative policies, budgetary limitations, and school reimbursement procedures” that were inconsistent with the federal requirement of providing free meals to all needy children. In a similar lawsuit, the Boston Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights charged the school board with “non-response” to federal guidelines.67
The major stumbling block in the way of enforcing national standards for eligibility and service in school lunch programs were entrenched patterns of racism and states’ rights interests. When it came to public schools and education, even congressional liberals were reluctant to go very far with federal standards. The Department of Agriculture and its congressional oversight committees had long refrained from becoming involved in the behavior of school officials. When anti-hunger activist Charles Remsberg questioned Department of Agriculture official Keith Keely about the “obvious departures” from federal guidelines, Keely replied, “We don’t tell them [local officials] how to do it. We can’t dictate to them.”68 The program’s founders, Allen Ellender and Richard Russell, in particular, had insisted that school lunch programs steer clear of any involvement in educational issues for fear of threats to the racially segregated school system. Both Russell and Ellender still sat on key committees and did what they could to contain calls to turn school lunches into poverty programs.
Allen Ellender now chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee and vigorously rejected the idea that a federal agency should set the terms for local operation of school lunch programs. He insisted that local officials knew best how to administer the program and how to decide which children were needy. In a revealing exchange with Martha Grass, a Marland, Oklahoma, welfare rights activist, Ellender clearly found her demands incomprehensible. When Grass asked the senator why poor kids were not receiving free lunches, Ellender told her it was a matter of state assistance. Grass refused to accept that argument. Ellender admitted that “there is something out of place at the local level.” But, he added, “don’t blame the Federal government.” Grass pressed him on who was responsible for feeding poor children, but Ellender responded with a constitutional disquisition saying it was the executive branch, not Congress, that had the responsibility to administer the laws. Grass clearly did not care which branch of government provided free lunches as long as poor children were fed at school. “You have so many branches,” she told the senator, “no wonder we are going hungry.”69 Ellender was frustrated and confounded by local authorities who, as he saw it, simply chose not to sufficiently supplement federal resources. When, for example, the Boston School Board failed to meet federal guidelines for free lunches, Ellender could not understand why an affluent city like Boston did not put sufficient funds into “helping the poor.” Why, he asked welfare rights activist Patrice Twigg, would “you expect the Federal Government to barge in and force the States to operate school lunch programs?” Twigg tried to explain the city’s at-large electoral system in which advocates for the poor had little chance of winning electoral majorities. What is more, she said, local administrators often do not recognize the poor “as being people.” Ellender dismissed Twigg’s complaint asking why, if local activists were unhappy with local officials, they did not simply “throw them out of office?” Twigg fired back, “We need someone from the Federal level.”70
Despite Ellender’s long support for the National School Lunch Program, he had never intended to see it turn into a poverty program. Indeed, in his view, the new demands for free lunches were undermining what had been a highly successful agricultural surplus program that also provided nutrition for children. In truth, Ellender did not believe in free lunches. He was convinced that people who demanded free meals were basically free-loading on the government. This attitude, predictably, drew the ire of welfare activists and free lunch advocates. Gloria Atchinson, a member of the Detroit Committee for the Hungry Child, for example, challenged the senator’s characterization of poor people as free-loaders. “Most people,” she said, “have a lot of pride and they want to be able to pay for their lunches.” However, she insisted, even if poor parents could not pay for their children’s lunches, they deserved to be treated respectfully by their government and by public officials.71
Reports of free lunch protests and lawsuits revealed that discrimination in school lunchrooms was a national problem. Lawsuits against urban school districts, in particular, dramatically illustrated the extent to which public resources were unequally distributed even outside the racially segregated South. Particularly when it came to education, northern cities found themselves accused of “de facto” segregation and racial discrimination. In Boston, for example, a new city-wide electoral system, inaugurated during the 1950s, resulted in racial exclusion just as the black population of the city increased. By the middle 1960s, school desegregation proved as divisive in the North as it had been in southern states. As Detroit’s Superintendent of Public Schools, William Simons, observed, “there is only one local unit of government where the welfare of children is dependent upon the whims of the voters and that is the public schools.”72 Still, Leslie Dunbar, co-chair of the Citizens Board of Inquiry, insisted that the school lunch critiques, including “Hunger USA,” were pro-states’ rights. The reports, he pointed out, “might even stimulate states to do more for their needy citizens than the law requires.” At the very least, Dunbar hoped federal standards of eligibility would “require the observance of necessary minimums and would vest in every individual the right to such.”73
Despite ever more direct criticism by anti-hunger and civil rights activists, the Department of Agriculture only reluctantly issued standards and guidelines for free lunch programs. Indeed, it was not until 1971 that the Secretary o
f Agriculture released a clear set of guidelines. Reiterating the responsibility of every school participating in the National School Lunch Program to serve free meals to all poor children in its district, the department finally enumerated minimum income standards for free lunch eligibility and uniform reimbursement rates for federally subsidized meals.74 The initial income requirements for free meals was set at 100 percent of the federal poverty line. The federal standards, however, actually threatened to exclude many of the “near poor” from receiving free meals. In New York, for example, with one of the nation’s most generous free meal programs, the income eligibility cut-off was $4,250. Because federal funds would reimburse the state only for families under federal “poverty line,” which was only $3,940 that year, school officials estimated that several thousand children would be left out of the program. Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer warned, “No one who has followed this issue would have expected the Administration to interpret ‘needy’ to exclude people who are poor but not quite that destitute.”75 This, combined with the declining participation of full-paying children as the price of meals went up, threatened the entire structure of the school lunch program.
School lunch administrators greeted the free lunch guidelines with considerable ambivalence. While they generally endorsed the expansion of meal offerings to poor children, they feared lawmakers—and the public—would lose sight of the nutrition needs of all children, regardless of social status. Echoing the sentiments of early twentieth-century nutritionists and home economists, school administrators reminded lawmakers that malnutrition threatened all children, whether their families were rich or poor. Norma Goff, director of food service for Ridley Township, Pennsylvania, for example, told President Johnson that “children from families in an income bracket that can afford the school lunch frequently have poorer food habits than those coming from low income families.”76 Indeed, school lunch professionals increasingly worried that the attention to poor children was threatening the idea of universal child nutrition. When President Johnson threatened to cut the general school lunch budget, even as he approved funds for free meals, the ASFSA and the American Parents Committee mounted a national lobbying campaign urging the president not to feed the poor at the expense of other children. John Gehn, superintendent of the Gilman, Wisconsin, Joint School District No. 2, warned LBJ that “changing these fine programs to include only needy children would be a big mistake.” Gehn worried that the new guidelines would lead more children to be identified as “needy,” but that “it has been my experience that the less identification of this type the better it is for all concerned.”77 Jerry Peterson, superintendent of the Story City, Iowa, Community Schools, told the president, “It doesn’t make sense to create new programs … by taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another.”78 The message from school administrators was clear. They did not want the National School Lunch Program to turn into a program for poor children. In their view, all children needed a nutritious lunch.
School Lunch Politics Page 21
