Vandiver Hall

In 1959 U.S. District Court judge Frank Hooper ruled Atlanta's segregated public school system unconstitutional and ordered it integrated. Hooper, however, delayed the implementation of the order for one year to give state authorities time to develop a desegregation plan. This decision presented a problem to state leaders who, after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, had determinedly resisted desegregation by passing measures designed to fight the integration of Georgia's schools, including a constitutional amendment forcing the governor to cut off state funding to any school that desegregated. As the governor struggled with the decision of either effectively closing the public school system or implementing the widely unpopular option of desegregation, Bell developed the idea of putting the question to Georgia's citizens, thus having them, in effect, make the decision for Vandiver.
Before the legislature had a chance to vote, however, a new crisis forced Vandiver to make a decision regarding segregation. In January 1961 a federal judge ordered that two black students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, be admitted to the University of Georgia. Citing state law, Vandiver issued a statement ordering the university closed. The next day, a federal judge reversed the governor's decision, creating the potential for a showdown between the state and federal governments. (The university did not actually close since Vandiver never signed the closure order and university president O. C. Aderhold never received official word from the governor's office to close the school.)
Choosing to avoid further confrontation with the federal government, Vandiver backed away from massive resistance and, in a speech before the assembly on January 18, introduced a bill that repealed laws designed to cut off funds for both the university and public schools, and that also adopted the recommendations of the Sibley Commission. The bill passed on January 31, and the Atlanta school system officially desegregated the following autumn. Although the Sibley Commission helped to prevent the violence that accompanied desegregation in other Deep South states, it also provided tactics that local school boards could use to slow down the desegregation process. As a result, serious attempts at desegregation across the state would not begin until the late 1960s.

African American students Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes first applied to the University of Georgia in the summer of 1959 but were denied, according to the university, based on lack of space. After several other unsuccessful applications, lawyers Donald Hollowell, Horace T. Ward, and Constance B. Motley filed a federal lawsuit against the university on behalf of the students. On January 6, 1961, federal judge William A. Bootle ordered the university to admit the students and to stop rejecting applicants solely based on race. Governor Vandiver and state officials responded by citing the 1956 appropriations act preventing the state from funding integrated schools. Judge Bootle issued a temporary restraining order against Vandiver on January 10 preventing him from cutting off university funding and on January 13 declared the appropriations act unconstitutional. After a basketball game the evening of January 11 in which the University of Georgia lost to Georgia Institute of Technology, students rioted outside of Myers Hall, the dormitory where Hunter lived. The university suspended Hunter and Holmes "for their own protection" and sent them back to Atlanta that evening. Judge Bootle ordered the students readmitted January 13, and they returned to campus on January 16.