Beginning in 1936, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund decided to take over the case of Lloyd Gaines, a graduate student from Lincoln University (an all-black college) who applied to the University of Missouri Law School but was rejected because of his race. The state of Missouri gave Gaines the choice of attending an all-black law school he would build (Missouri didn`t have all-black law schools at the time) or let Missouri help pay him to attend a law school in a neighboring state. Gaines rejected both options and decided to sue the state to attend University of Missouri Law School by enlisting the services of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 1938, his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and in December of that year, the court sided with him. The six-member majority stated that since there is currently no “black” law school in the state of Missouri, the “equality clause” requires the state to provide legal training to Gaines within its borders. In other words, since the state legally trained white students, it could not send black students like Gaines to school in another state. Disappointed that the University of Maryland Law School rejected black applicants solely because of their race, Thurgood Marshall (who himself was rejected by that law school because of its policy of racial acceptance) decided to challenge this practice in Maryland`s court system. In a Baltimore court in 1935, Marshall argued that Donald Gaines Murray was just as qualified as white applicants to attend University of Maryland Law School, and that he had been rejected solely because of his race. In addition, he argued that since the “black” law schools Murray would otherwise have to attend were nowhere near the same academic calibre as the university`s law school, the university violated the principle of “separate but equal.” In addition, Marshall argued that the differences between “white” and “black” law schools were so great that the only remedy would be to allow students like Murray to attend the university`s law school.
The Baltimore City Court agreed, and the university appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals. In 1936, the Court of Appeal also ruled in Murray`s favour and ordered the law school to admit him. Two years later, Murray graduated. Despite the Plessy Supreme Court decision and similar cases, many people continued to lobby for the repeal of Jim Crow and other racially discriminatory laws. One particular organization that fought for racial equality was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909. For the first 20 years of its existence, it sought to persuade Congress and other legislative bodies to pass laws that would protect African Americans from lynching and other acts of racism. However, beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP`s Legal Defense and Education Fund turned to the courts to make progress in combating legally sanctioned discrimination. From 1935 to 1938, the legal branch of the NAACP was headed by Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston, along with Thurgood Marshall, developed a strategy to attack Jim Crow laws by attacking them where they were perhaps weakest – in education. While Marshall played a crucial role in all of the cases listed below, Houston was head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, while Murray v.
Maryland and Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada has been decided. After Houston returned to private practice in 1938, Marshall became head of the fund and used it to investigate cases of Sweat v. Maler and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education. Although the Declaration of Independence declared that “all men are created equal,” this declaration would not be enshrined in law in the United States until after the Civil War (and presumably not fully fulfilled for many years thereafter). In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, eventually ending slavery. In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by stipulating, among other things, that no state may deprive anyone of “due process” or “equal protection of the law.” Finally, the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) further strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by prohibiting states from denying anyone the right to vote on the basis of race. Applicants must be active members of the Pennsylvania Bar with their primary residence in Pennsylvania. In addition, candidates should be familiar with the legal practices and procedures of the state or federal courts in Pennsylvania. Learn about civil rights heroine Rosa Parks and four other women who were also forced off city buses, and how their courage led to a Federal Court decision to eliminate bus segregation.
For more information, visit the Library of Congress` Rosa Parks Collection. When the Supreme Court justices met to decide the case, they realized that they were deeply divided on the issues raised. While most wanted to overthrow Plessy and declare segregation in public schools unconstitutional, they had various reasons for doing so. Unable to find a solution before June 1953 (the end of the Court`s mandate 1952-1953), the Tribunal decided to reconsider the case in December 1953. In the meantime, however, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and was replaced by the governor. Count Warren of California. After the case was heard again in 1953, Chief Justice Warren was able to do something his predecessor had failed to do, and that was get all justices to accept a unanimous decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On May 14, 1954, he delivered the opinion of the Tribunal and stated: “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of `separate but equal` has no place. Segregated educational institutions are inherently unequal. When the Supreme Court was seized of the cases in 1952, it took all five cases as Brown v.
School Board. Marshall personally represented the case before the Court. Although he raised various legal issues in the appeal, the most common was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal and therefore violated the “equality protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In addition, relying on sociological tests such as that of sociologist Kenneth Clark and other data, he argued that segregated school systems tend to make black children feel inferior to white children, and therefore such a system should not be legally allowed. Unfortunately, following the Plessy decision in the early twentieth century, the Supreme Court continued to uphold the legality of Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination. In Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899), for example, the court refused to issue an injunction preventing a school board from spending taxpayers` money on a white high school when the same school board voted to close a black high school for financial reasons. Furthermore, in Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), the court upheld a school`s decision to exclude a person of Chinese descent from a “white” school. Emboldened by its victory in the Gaines case, the NAACP continued to address legally sanctioned racial discrimination in higher education.
In 1946, an African-American named Heman Sweat applied to the “white” law school at the University of Texas. Hoping that Sweat wouldn`t have to go after the “white” law school if there was already a “black” school, the state hastily set up an underfunded “black” law school elsewhere on the university`s campus. At this point, Sweat enlisted the services of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and sued for admission to the university`s “white” law school. He argued that the education he received at “black” law school was not of the same academic calibre as the education he would receive if he attended a “white” law school. When the case reached the United States. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed in 1950, citing glaring inequalities between the university`s law school (the School for Whites) and the hastily created school for blacks. In other words, the “black” law school was “separate” but not “equal.” As in Murray, the court concluded that the only appropriate remedy for this situation was to admit Sweat to the university`s law school. Prior to the establishment of the committee, legal education in the Philippines was largely left unsupervised. However, on December 23, 1993, Republic Act No.
7662 or the Legal Education Reform Act of 1993 was enacted by Senator Edgardo Angara.