![]() The requirement of the clause was for equal facilities within the state. ![]() In 1938, the Court began to move away from “separate but equal.” It held that a state that operated a law school open to whites only and did not operate any law school open to African-Americans violated an applicant’s right to equal protection, even though the state offered to pay his tuition at an out-of-state law school. 1669 And no violation of the Equal Protection Clause was found when a state law prohibited a private college from teaching whites and African-Americans together. It held, for example, that a Chinese student was not denied equal protection by being classified with African-Americans and sent to school with them rather than with whites, 1668 and it upheld the refusal of an injunction to require a school board to close a white high school until it opened a high school for African-Americans. Subsequent cases following Plessy that actually concerned school segregation did not expressly question the doctrine and the Court’s decisions assumed its validity. Laws permitting, and even requiring their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in exercise of their police power.” 1666 The Court observed that a common instance of this type of law was the separation by race of children in school, which had been upheld, it was noted, “even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced.” 1667 “The object of the mendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. 1665 Plessy concerned not schools but a state law requiring “equal but separate” facilities for rail transportation and requiring the separation of “white and colored” passengers. Ferguson 1664 adopted a principle first propounded in litigation attacking racial segregation in the schools of Boston, Massachusetts. 1661 In addition, “hough the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution.” 1662 Educationĭevelopment and Application of “Separate But Equal”.- Cases decided soon after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment may be read as precluding any state-imposed distinction based on race, 1663 but the Court in Plessy v. It not only gave citizenship and the privileges of citizenship to persons of color, but it denied to any State the power to withhold from them the equal protection of the laws, and authorized Congress to enforce its provisions by appropriate legislation.” 1660 Thus, a state law that on its face discriminated against African-Americans was void. was designed to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment, whenever it should be denied by the States. At the time when they were incorporated into the Constitution, it required little knowledge of human nature to anticipate that those who had long been regarded as an inferior and subject race would, when suddenly raised to the rank of citizenship, be looked upon with jealousy and positive dislike, and that State laws might be enacted or enforced to perpetuate the distinctions that had before existed. cannot be understood without keeping in view the history of the times when they were adopted, and the general objects they plainly sought to accomplish. The true spirit and meaning of the amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment “is one of a series of constitutional provisions having a common purpose namely, securing to a race recently emancipated, a race that through many generations had been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy. ![]() No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |