Boston's Support 'for Mrs. Hicks: Bigotry or the Fear of Changes?

The widespread support for Boston School Committeewoman Mrs. Louise Day Hicks is the result of a vague popular resentment toward "unsettling change," not of outright racial bigotry, according to a study conducted by Thomas F. Pettigrew, professor of Social Psychology.

Pettigrew and two associates, Dr. Thomas Crawford and J. Michael Ross, found that "behind resistance to school desegregation lies the greater fear of neighborhood desegregation; and even beyond that, fear that the old, good ways of life will change if the Negroes move in."

But their study, published in Trans-Action, a magazine put out by Washington University in St. Louis, also found that a vast majority of Bostonians feel that keeping tax rates down is an issue of higher priority than maintaining de facto school segregation.

Economic Interest

When racial attitudes and economic interest conflict, "even the most committed stand-patter can suddenly come to see things in a new light," they wrote.

run for mayor.

Pettigrew noted that most of Mrs. Hicks supporters have little at stake when they vote for her. Seventy-five per cent of her backers, according to the study, "do not or will not have children attending Boston public schools."

The authors, all of whom seemed to oppose the stand taken by Mrs. Hicks, felt that the withholding of state funds from the city will not be enough to induce any substantial change in the strength of her position.

They tentatively proposed several possible remedies:

* extra funds for programs actively promoting school de-segregation.

* cooperation from the suburbs to expedite the transportation of students from crowded ghetto schools in the city.

* state and federal financial aid to suburbs willing to cooperate in such programs.