A Free and Equal Public Education Wasnt Always

A Free and Equal Public Education Wasn’t Always Available to Everyone. Let’s take a journey back to the 1950’s. Sit back, enjoy and learn about the History of education in the U. S. with regards to minorities.

1950 and before: was it really that long ago that education was segregated? Think about this: Who was standing next to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee? Jesse Jackson He’s not that old, he just had a child out of wedlock. Now you know why people are still upset about the events that took place in the 50’s and 60’s. For many it is still fresh.

Can You Think of Two People Who Were Assassinated Due to Human Rights? Abraham Lincoln, the Kennedy's, and Malcolm X to name a few. Once again, education has not always been free and available to everyone. Many many people had to die in order to provide minorities as well as the poor the opportunity to attend equal schools.

So how did school become integrated instead of continuing to be segregated? Most people believe school integration began with a famous case called “Brown V. Board of Education Topeka, KS”. However, it began way before that. It actually started with a little known but famous case called “Plessy V. Ferguson”

Plessy v. Ferguson This case is about a young black man who was riding on a train up north. When the train crossed the Mason Dixie line, he was told by the train conductor to move to the back of the train. He refused and was removed from the train. He sued the train company.

Unfortunately, Plessy did not win. The courts believe that as long as the facilities were equal, people could have separate facilities based on color. They ruled:

Plessy v. Ferguson “In 1896 the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts' decision in the case of Homer Plessy, a black man from Louisiana, challenged the constitutionality of segregated railroad coaches, first in the state courts and then in the U. S. Supreme Court. The high court upheld the lower courts noting that since the separate cars provided equal services, the equal protection clause of the 14 th Amendment was not violated. Thus, the "separate but equal" doctrine became the constitutional basis for segregation. ” Dudley, M. E. Brown v. Board of Education (1954). New York: Twenty-First Century Books, 1994.

The scary part is that Plessy did not look black. People hated black people so much that the law stated that if: you had at least 1/16 th black in you, you had to legally claim yourself as black.

It wasn’t until the 50’s that the case was put to the test again in the courts. Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka

Brown V. Board of Education A little girl wanted to go to a school that was close to her house instead of walking miles away to a school that was not adequate. Her father took the case to court and won. The judge ruled that separate was not equal.

On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the decision of the unanimous Court: "We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . . We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate 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 guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Dr. Hugh W. Speer, testified that: , ". . . if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum cannot be equal under segregation. "

Integration ``To separate children solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. "

Thurgood Marshall with James Nabrit Jr. and George E. C. Hayes after their victory in the Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court, May 17, 1954. Photograph courtesy of UPI / Corbis-Bettmann

Two Types of Segregation De Jure Segregation Based on a state law The Plessy v. Ferguson case was an example of this type of segregation. The law states it is ok to segregate. De Facto Segregation Certain factors cause segregation Economic conditions Housing patterns

Government Went Along Constitution never made mention about education. 13 th Amendment abolished slavery; 14 th Amendment (all persons born or naturalized in the U. S. have equal rights) May 17 th, 1954 the beginning of the end of segregation in the schools. (Eisenhower was the president)

San Antonio Independent School Dis. v. Rodriguez 411 U. S. 1 (1973) Facts of the Case In addition to being funded through a state-funded program, designed to establish a minimum educational threshold in every school, Texas public elementary and secondary schools rely on local property taxes for supplemental revenue. The San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), acting on behalf of students whose families reside in poor districts, challenged this funding scheme by arguing that it underprivileged such students because their schools lacked the vast property tax base that other districts utilized. The reliance on assessable property, SAISD claimed, caused severe inter-district disparities in per-pupil expenditures.

Question Presented Did Texas' public education finance system violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by failing to distribute funding equally among its school districts? No. The Court refused to examine the system with strict scrutiny since there is no fundamental right to education in the Constitution and since the system did not systematically discriminate against all poor people in Texas. Given the similarities between Texas' system and those in other states, it was clear to the Court that the funding scheme was not "so irrational as to be invidiously discriminatory. " Justice Powell argued that on the question of wealth and education, "the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages. "