Supporting standards comprise
35% of the U. S. History Test
9 (I)
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) Describe how litigation such as the landmark
cases of Brown v. Board of Education, Mendez v.
Westminster, Hernandez v. Texas, Delgado v.
Bastrop I. S. D., Edgewood I. S. D. v. Kirby, &
Sweatt v. Painter played a role in protecting the
rights of the minority during the civil rights
movement
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 1 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education
played a role in protecting the rights of the
minority during the civil rights movement
Marker placed at Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans on
February 12, 2009 commemorating the arrest of Homer Plessy on
June 7, 1892 for violating the Louisiana 1890 Separate Car Act.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments
•S
Thirteenth Amendment—Congressional
passage January 1865; ratification December 1865
Prohibited slavery in the U.S.
•C
Fourteenth Amendment—Congressional
passage June 1866; ratification July 1868 gave
right of citizenship to freedmen
•V
Fifteenth Amendment—Congressional
passage February 1869; ratification March 1870
prohibited denial of franchise or the vote because
of race, color, or past servitude
Segregation in American
Education—Plessy v. Ferguson
•
•
•
•
•
•
John H. Ferguson (1806-1887), the Orleans Parish
criminal court judge who ruled in the original case
John Marshall Harlan, the only Supreme Court Justice
who ruled in favor of Homer A. Plessy
The Supreme Court (7-1) upholds a Louisiana law
requiring separate
railroad cars for Blacks and whites
The ruling gave impetus to a host of Jim Crow laws that
began
to be introduced in the South
The Background
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), is a landmark U. S. Supreme Court ruling
upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial
segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but
equal.”
The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority
opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent
written
written by
by Justice
Justice John
John Marshall
Marshall Harlan.
Harlan. “Separate but equal”
remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the
1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee
of Citizens, a committee dedicated to repeal Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890),
which had
which
had brought
brought the
the suit
suit and
and had
had arranged for Homer Plessy’s arrest on
on June
June 7,
7,
1892, in an act of civil disobedience in order to challenge Louisiana’s segregation
law, replied, “We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is
law,
sacred.”
Plessy was
Plessy
was born
born aa free
free man
man and was an “octoroon” (someone of
seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent).
However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus
required to sit in the “colored” car.
On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first class ticket at the Press Street
Depot and boarded a “whites only” car. After Plessy
Plessy took
took aa seat
seat in
in the
the
whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it, and sit instead in
the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by
the detective. As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was
taken off the train at Press and Royal streets. Plessy was remanded
for trial in Orleans Parish.
The
The defense built its case on violations of Plessy’s rights under
under the
the
Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery, and the Fourteenth
Amendment, which guarantees the same rights to all citizens of the
United States, and the equal protection of those rights, against the
deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
Justice John Marshall Harlan, who decried the excesses of the Ku
Klux Klan, wrote a scathing dissent in which he predicted the court’s
decision would become as infamous as that of Dred Scott v. Sanford
(1857). As heralded as this dissent may be, in which Harlan called for
a “color-blind” constitution, it should be noted that he did not view
all races as equal.
The case helped cement the legal foundation for the
doctrine of separate but equal, the idea that segregation
based on classifications was legal as long as facilities were
of equal quality. However, Southern state governments
refused to provide blacks with genuinely equal facilities
and resources in the years after the Plessy decision. The
states not only separated races but, in actuality, ensured
differences in quality. In January 1897, Homer Plessy
pleaded guilty to the violation and paid the fine.
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark U. S.
Supreme Court ruling in which the Court declared state
laws establishing separate public schools for black and
white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned
the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which allowed statesponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public
education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren
Court’s unanimous (9–0) decision
decision stated
stated that
that “separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As
As aa result,
result,
de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This
ruling paved the way for integration and was a major
victory of the civil rights movement.
The plaintiffs in Brown asserted that this system of racial separation,
while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of
both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior
accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans.
Racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that
required racial segregation to the 16 that prohibited it.
The named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, was a parent, a
welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, an assistant
pastor at his local church, and an African American. He
was convinced to join the lawsuit by Scott, a childhood
friend. Brown’s daughter Linda, a third grader, had to
walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe
Elementary, her segregated black school one mile away,
while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks
from her house.
As directed by the NAACP leadership, the parents each attempted to
enroll their children in the closest neighborhood school in the fall of
1951. They were each refused enrollment and directed to the
segregated schools.
The District Court ruled in favor of the Board of
Education, citing the U.S. Supreme Court precedent set
in Plessy v. Ferguson. The case of Brown v. Board of
Education as heard before the Supreme Court
combined five cases. All were NAACP-sponsored cases.
The Kansas case was unique among the group in that
there was no contention of gross inferiority of the
segregated schools’ physical plant, curriculum, or staff.
The district court found substantial equality as to all
such factors.
The
The NAACP’s chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall—who was later
appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967—argued the case
before the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs. Assistant attorney
general Paul Wilson—later distinguished emeritus professor of law at
the University of Kansas—conducted the state’s ambivalent defense
in his first appellate trial. On May 17, 1954, these men, members of
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in
public schools is unconstitutional.
Warren convened a meeting of the justices, and presented to
them the simple argument that the only reason to sustain
segregation was an honest belief in the inferiority of Negroes.
Warren further submitted that the Court must overrule Plessy
to maintain its legitimacy as an institution of liberty, and it must
do so unanimously to avoid massive Southern resistance. He
began to build a unanimous opinion.
The key holding of the Court was that, even if segregated black and
white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers,
segregation by itself was harmful to black students and
unconstitutional. They found that a significant psychological and
social disadvantage was given to black children from the nature of
segregation itself, drawing on research conducted by Kenneth Clark
assisted by June Shagaloff. This aspect was vital because the question
was not whether the schools were “equal,” which
which under
under Plessy they
nominally should have been, but whether the doctrine of separate was
constitutional.
constitutional. The justices answered with a strong “no.”
“Segregation with
with the
the sanction
sanction of
of law,
law, therefore,
therefore, has
has aa tendency
tendency to
to [retard]
[retard]
the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive
them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated
school system. . . . We conclude that, in the field of public education, the
doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate
Separate educational
educational
facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and
others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by
reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of
the laws
the
laws guaranteed
guaranteed by
by the
the Fourteenth
Fourteenth Amendment.”
Amendment.”
In 1955, the Supreme Court considered arguments by the schools
requesting relief concerning the task of desegregation. In their
decision,
decision, which
which became
became known
known as
as “Brown II” the
the court
court delegated
delegated
the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts
with
with orders that desegregation occur “with all deliberate speed.”
Supporters of the earlier decision were displeased with this
decision. The language “all deliberate speed” was seen by critics as
too ambiguous to ensure reasonable haste for compliance with the
court's instruction. Many Southern states and school districts
interpreted “Brown II” as legal justification for resisting,
delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in
some cases for a decade or more—using such tactics as closing
down school systems, using state money to finance segregated
“private” schools, and “token” integration where a few carefully
selected black children were admitted to former white-only
schools but the vast majority remained in underfunded, unequal
black schools.
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 2 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Mendez v. Westminster
played a role in protecting the rights of the
minority during the civil rights movement
Mendez v. Westminster
Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District of
Orange County, et al, was a 1946 federal court
case that challenged racial segregation in
Orange County, California schools. In its
ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
held that the segregation of Mexican &
Mexican American students into separate
“Mexican schools” was unconstitutional.
Five Mexican-American fathers, (Thomas Estrada, William Guzman,
Gonzalo Mendez, Frank Palomino, and Lorenzo Ramirez) challenged
the practice of school segregation in the U. S. District Court in Los
Angeles. They claimed that their children, along with 5,000 other
children of “Mexican” ancestry, were victims
victims of
of unconstitutional
unconstitutional
discrimination by being forced to attend separate “schools for
Mexicans” in
in the
the Westminster,
Westminster, Garden
Garden Grove,
Grove, Santa
Santa Ana,
Ana, &
& El
El
Modena school districts of Orange County. The plaintiffs were
represented by an established Jewish American civil rights attorney,
David Marcus.
Jackson County
Funding for the lawsuit was primarily paid for initially by the
Courthouse,
of the
lead
plaintiff Gonzalo Mendez who site
began the lawsuit
when his
three children were denied entrance to their local Westminster
school.
Both the lower court
&Westminster
the Ninth Federal District Court
Mendez
v.
of Appeals in San Francisco, ruled that the segregation practices
violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
Trial
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 4 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Hernandez v. Texas played a
role in protecting the rights of the minority
during the civil rights movement
Hernandez v. Texas
Hernandez v. Texas (1954) was a landmark U. S. Supreme Court case
that ruled that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the
U. S. had equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution.
Pedro Hernandez, a Mexican agricultural worker,
was convicted for the murder of Joe Espinosa.
Hernandez’s legal team set out to demonstrate that
the jury could not be impartial unless members of
non-Caucasian races were allowed on the juryselecting committees; no Mexican American had
been on a jury for more than 25 years in Jackson
County, Tx., the county in which the case was tried.
Chief Justice Earl Warren & the
Court unanimously ruled in favor
of Hernandez, requiring that he
be retried with a jury composed
without regard to ethnicity. The
Court held that the Fourteenth
Amendment protects Americans
regardless of racial heritage.
Hernández v. Texas was the brown
Brown v. Board of Education. It
was the first time that MexicanAmerican lawyers appeared
before the United States Supreme
Court, and their victory
established a landmark in
Mexican-American civil rights.
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 4 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Delgado v. Bastrop I. S. D.
played a role in protecting the rights of the
minority during the civil rights movement
Until the late 1940s the public education system in Texas for Mexican
Americans offered segregated campuses with often minimal facilities
and a curriculum frequently limited to vocational training. The 1950
United States census showed that the median educational attainment
for persons over twenty-five was 3.5 years for those with Spanish
surnames and, by comparison, 10.3 years for other white Americans;
about 27 percent of persons over twenty-five with Spanish surnames
had received no schooling at all.
No substantive legal suit had been initiated since Del Rio
ISD vs. Salvatierraqv (1930), in which Mexican Americans
claimed they had been denied use of facilities used by
“other white races” in the same school. In 1948
1948 the
the League
League
of United Latin American Citizens, joined by the American
G. I. Forum of Texas, successfully challenged these
inequities of the Texas public school system in Delgado vs.
Bastrop ISD.
In 1947 the Ninth Circuit Court in California found that separation
“within one of the great races” without a specific state law requiring
the separation was not permitted; therefore, segregation of MexicanAmerican children, who were considered Caucasian, was illegal. In
Texas, following this ruling, the attorney general, in response to an
inquiry by Gustavo C. (Gus) Garciaqv, a Mexican-American attorney,
agreed that segregation of Mexican-American children in the public
school system by national origin was unlawful and pedagogically
justified only by scientific language tests applied to all students.
On June 15, 1948, LULAC (with Garcia as attorney) filed suit against
the Bastrop Independent School District and three other districts.
Representing Minerva Delgado and twenty other Mexican-American
parents, the suit charged segregation of Mexican children from other
white races without specific state law and in violation of the attorney
general’s opinion. In addition the suit accused these districts of
depriving such children of equal facilities, services, and education
instruction.
Judge Ben H. Rice of the United States District Court, Western
District of Texas, agreed and ordered the cessation of this separation
by September 1949. However, the court did allow separate classes on
the same campus, in the first grade only, for language-deficient or
non-English-speaking students as identified by scientific and
standardized tests applied to all.
The Delgado decision undermined the rigid segregation
of Mexican Americans and began a ten-year struggle
led by the American G.I. Forum and LULAC, which
culminated in 1957 with the decision in Herminca
Hernandez et al. v. Driscoll Consolidated ISD, which
ended pedagogical and de jure segregation in the Texas
public school system.
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 5 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Edgewood I. S. D. v. Kirby
played a role in protecting the rights of the
minority during the civil rights movement
EDGEWOOD
ISD V. KIRBY
In Edgewood Independent School District et al. v. Kirby et al.
(1989), a landmark case concerning public school finance,
the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund
filed suit against commissioner of education William Kirby
on May 23, 1984, in Travis County on behalf of the
Edgewood Independent School District, San Antonio, citing
discrimination against students in poor school districts.
The plaintiffs
The
plaintiffs charged
charged that
that the
the state’s methods of funding
public schools violated at least four principles of the state
constitution, which obligated the state legislature to
provide an efficient and free public school system.
Initially, eight school districts and twenty-one parents were
represented in the Edgewood case. Ultimately, however, sixty-seven
other school districts as well as many other parents and students
joined the original plaintiffs. The Edgewood lawsuit occurred after
almost a decade of legal inertia on public school finance following the
Rodríguez v. San Antonio ISD case of 1971, which asked the courts to
address unfairness in public school aid.
The Rodríguez plaintiffs ultimately lost in the
United States Supreme Court in 1973. The plaintiffs
in the
in
the Edgewood
Edgewood case
case contested
contested the
the state’s reliance
on local property taxes to finance its system of
public education, contending that this method was
intrinsically unequal because property values
varied greatly from district to district, thus creating
an imbalance in funds available to educate students
on an equal basis throughout the state.
In its opinion deciding the case (1989), the Texas Supreme Court
noted that the Edgewood ISD, among the poorest districts in the
state, had $38,854 in property wealth per student, while the Alamo
Heights ISD, which is in the same county, had $570,109 per student.
In addition, property-poor districts had to set a tax rate that
averaged 74.5 cents per $100 valuation to generate $2,987 per
student, while richer districts, with a tax rate of half that much, could
produce $7,233 per student.
These differences produced disparities in the districts’ abilities
These
to hire good teachers, build appropriate facilities, offer a sound
curriculum, and purchase such important equipment as
computers. In its original 1984 brief, MALDEF had declared
that such gaps amounted to the denial of equal opportunity in
and
an “increasingly complex and technological society,” and
asserted that this was contrary to the intent of the constitution’s
Texas Education Clause.
On April 29, 1987, State District Judge Harley Clark ruled in favor of
the plaintiffs.
the
plaintiffs. He
He found
found that
that the
the state’s public school financing
structure was unconstitutional and ordered the legislature to
formulate a more equitable one by September 1989. The state
appealed his decision to the Third Court of Appeals. On December
14, 1988, the appeals court justices reversed the lower court by a twoto-one decision on the grounds that education was not a basic right. It
further proclaimed that the present system of public school financing
was constitutional.
The plaintiffs appealed the decision, however, taking it
to the Texas Supreme Court on July 5, 1989. On
October 2 the court delivered a unanimous 9–0 decision
that sided with the Edgewood plaintiffs and ordered
the state legislature to implement an equitable system
by the 1990–91 school year.
Following the court’s order, the legislature
legislature met
met in
in four
four consecutive
consecutive
and often contentious special sessions to resolve the financing issue. It
ultimately called for a transfer of money from property-wealthy
school districts to poor ones to equalize the amount each district
spent to educate students. The press nicknamed this redistribution
scheme, and
scheme,
and similar
similar proposals
proposals suggested
suggested later,
later, the
the “Robin Hood”
plan.
On June 6, 1990, the legislature finally reached consensus
and approved a funding bill that would increase state
support to public schools by $528 million. Governor
William Clements signed it into law the following day. The
plaintiffs, however, were dissatisfied with the latest
legislation and asked for another hearing in the Travis
County District Court.
The legislature ultimately satisfied the court-mandated new financing
formulaby consolidating the 1,058 school districts into 188 County
Education Districts to assure that public money spent per student
would be equal. This would amount to $2,200 per student
immediately and rise to $2,800 in four years, the result of setting a
tax rate of 72 cents per $100 valuation, with an eventual increase to
$1.00 per $100 valuation. Governor Ann Richards signed the bill into
law on April 15, 1991.
After continuous protest on the issue from property-wealthy districts
the Supreme Court heard more arguments challenging the latest
method of school finance and concluded in a 7–2 decision on January
22, 1992, that the plan was illegal. It held that the legislature had
acted improperly in setting up the County Education Districts
because they were unlawful taxing units under the Constitution of
1876. The court ordered the legislature to devise a new plan by June
1, 1993, but in the meantime it allowed school funding to continue
through the CEDs.
On May 28, 1993, the legislature passed a multi-option plan for
reforming school finance. Under the plan, each school district would
help to equalize funding through one of five methods: (1) merging its
tax base with a poorer district, (2) sending money to the state to help
pay for students in poorer districts, (3) contracting to educate
students in other districts, (4) consolidating voluntarily with one or
more other districts, or (5) transferring some of its commercial
taxable property to another district’s tax rolls. If a district did not
choose one of these options, the state would order the transfer of
taxable property; if this measure failed to reduce the district's
property wealth to $280,000 per student, the state would force a
consolidation.
This plan was signed into law by Governor Richards on
May 31, 1993, and was accepted by Judge McCown. The
action guaranteed that schools would receive funding for
the 1993–94 academic year.
Supporting Standard (9)
The student understands the impact of the
American civil rights movement.
The Student is expected to:
(I) 6 Describe how litigation such as the
landmark case of Sweatt v. Painter played a role
in protecting the rights of the minority during
the civil rights movement
Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painter (1950) was a U. S. Supreme Court
case that
that successfully
case
successfully challenged the “separate but
equal” doctrine of racial segregation established
established by
by
the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was
influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board
of Education four years later.
The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who
was refused admission to University of Texas Law School,
whose president was Theophilus Painter, on the grounds that
the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. At
the time, no law school in Texas would admit black students, or,
in the language of the time, “Negro” students.
The state district court in Travis County, instead of granting the
plaintiff a writ of mandamus, continued the case for six months. This
allowed the state time to create a law school only for black students,
which it established in Houston, rather than in Austin. The ‘separate’
law school and the college became the Thurgood Marshall School of
Law at
at Texas
Texas Southern
Southern University
University (known then as “Texas State
Law
University for Negroes”).
The trial court decision was affirmed by the Court of
Civil Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court denied writ
of error on further appeal. Sweatt and the NAACP next
went to the federal courts, and the case ultimately
reached the U.S. Supreme Court. W. J. Durham and
Thurgood Marshall presented Sweatt’s case.
The Supreme Court reversed the lower court
decision, saying that the separate school failed
to qualify, both because of quantitative
differences in facilities and intangible factors,
such as its isolation from most of the future
lawyers with whom its graduates would
interact. The court held that, when
considering graduate education, intangibles
must be considered as part of “substantive
equality.” The documentation of the court’s
decision itemized numerous differences
identified.
Fini