Legal Cases: III

I. Era of Jim Crow

II. NAACP legal strategy

III. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

IV. Brown v. Plessy

V. Post-Brown

VI. Affirmative action

I. Era of Jim Crow

“An injustice anywhere is a

threat to justice everywhere.”

(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

A. Gong Lum v. Rice (1927)

B. Mendez v. Westminster (1947)

“There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with a few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union…are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.” Justice Harlan (Plessy 58).

I. Era of Jim Crow

“An injustice anywhere is a

threat to justice everywhere.”

(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

A. Gong Lum v. Rice (1927)

B. Mendez v. Westminster (1947)

Mendez v. Westminster• Segregation of Mexican-American children in

Orange County Schools

• Justification: to instruct in English language and American values

• In fact– Inferior facilities– No academic curriculum

• Ruled a violation of the “due process” clause

• Plessy did not apply

II. NAACP legal strategy

A. v. Civil rights protests

B. Equalization strategy

C. Anti-segregation strategy

World War II

1. Revulsion against Nazi racism

2. Black military service

3. Black migration from South in response to war economy

4. Northern service men stationed in the South

5. Cold War rhetoric

III. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

A. Plaintiff's argument (285)

B. 14th Amendment's intention (285)

C. Living constitution

D. Role of education (286)

E. Intangible factors (286-7)

F. Separate is unequal (287)

IV. Brown v. Plessy

A. Undoes effect

B. Not on legal precedent, but evidence

concerning reasonableness

C. New evidence (290-1, fn. 11)

D. Role of language:

"generates" (287)

Plessy majority

--formal qualities of law itself

Harlan dissent

--true intention of law

Brown court

--effect/affect of law (287)

V. Post-Brown

A. How enforce?

"All deliberate speed"

B. Not "color-blind"

de jure segregation

(legal)

v.

de facto segregation

(in fact)

VI. Affirmative action

A. Regents of Univ. of Calif. v. Bakke (1978)

B. Proposition 209

C. Paradox of affirmative action

D. Double meaning of Color-blind

Paradox of Brown:

Separate but equal cannot be equal.

v.

Paradox of affirmative action:

"In order to get beyond racism,

we first must take account of

race.” (Justice Blackmun)

Double meaning of Color-blind:

Impartiality: a refusal to allow skin color to affect how people

are treated

v.

A defect: the inability to see the real conditions of people of

color in the USA

World War II

1. Revulsion against Nazi racism

2. Black military service

3. Black migration from South in response to war economy

4. Northern service men stationed in the South

5. Cold War rhetoric

Plessy majority

--formal qualities of law itself

Harlan dissent

--true intention of law

Brown court

--effect/affect of law (289)

Paradox of Brown:

Separate but equal cannot be equal.

v.

Paradox of affirmative action:

"In order to get beyond racism,

we first must take account of

race.” (Justice Blackmun)

Double meaning of Color-blind:

Impartiality: a refusal to allow skin color to affect how people

are treated

v.

A defect: the inability to see the real conditions of people of

color in the USA