oh! the cases we've won... and lost...

Somehow I managed to get through high school and college without ever taking a single class on government or law. I say this as if my institutions of higher learning were negligent, but actually it was I who tried very hard to AVOID the subject, by taking classes in economics and the Holocaust and the Deaf Community when I could have learned about the US Constitution. Now in my Cultural Diversity of Education class, I am learning about the myriad cases for civil and educational rights that came before district and state courts -- some even reaching the Supreme Court. They are FASCINATING.

We started with Mendez v Westminster School District (1945), the case that un-segregated schools in the entire Southwest USA -- CA, AZ, NM, and TX -- and also served as a precursor to Brown v Board of Education. This case was HUGE!!! It took place in ORANGE COUNTY!!! It desegregated FOUR STATES!!! Yet, I have never heard of it before. And neither had my PhD in History mother, eleventh grade US History student brother, or PhD in Education and former elementary school principal father. I don't mention this to mean that my family is wholly ignorant, just that this case is not very well known. Even amongst a family with twenty-six combined years of university scholarship.

In one of my readings about Brown v Board, there are many references to other civil and educational rights cases. Thanks to Wikipedia! The Free Encyclopedia!, I now feel educated. And amazed! And incredulous that some of these things actually happened! For example:

In Cummings v Richmond County Board of Education (1899), the district raised taxes to support the public schools. Excuse me, I mean the White public schools. When the "colored people" and taxpayers complained, they were told that there were less White kids than Black kids, and therefor the district could only afford to pay for the education of the White kids. This arguement worked in court! !!!!!

Fast forward fifty years. In Sweatt v Painter (1950), a Black man was rejected from the University of Texas Law School on the basis of his race. He argued that there was no "separate but equal" facility available to him, as there was no Black Law School in Texas. THE JUDGE PUT THE CASE ON HOLD WHILE THEY ESTABLISHED A BLACK LAW SCHOOL IN TEXAS. Sweatt brought his case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the new Law School was inferior to U of T, and therefor separate but not equal. He won.

That same year, in McLaurin v Oklahoma State Regents, a Black student was rejected from the University of Oklahoma also on the basis of his race. He sued using the Fourteenth Ammendment, and U of O had to accept him. But they made sure that they gave him "separate but equal" facilities. He got his own seperate-but-equal row of desks in lecture, his own seperate-but-equal table in the caf, and his own seperate-but-equal table in the library. This was not exactly a gateway to social acceptance. The US District Court DENIED his petition to remove the separate-ness. Thankfully, the Supreme Court reversed this decision.

AND THERE ARE MANY MORE.

I almost want to go to law school.

Almost.