8
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
Brown Decision Paved Way
Hundreds of spectators
showed up to hear the
landmark Brown v. Board
of Education decision.
By Kathryn McLamb
Staff Writer
Nine U.S. Supreme Court justices sat
in front of about 300 spectators, half of
whom were black, to hear opening argu
ments in the Brown v. Board of
Education case in December 1952.
Another 500, half of whom were also
black, waited in the corridor outside the
courtroom as lawyers inside began their
appeal for integration of public schools.
Brown v. Board of Education marked
a judicial milestone with its overturning
of the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson,
which established the principle of “sep
arate but equal,” long used to justify seg
regation in public facilities.
“We conclude that in the field of pub
lic education the doctrine of ‘separate
but equal’ has no place,” the court opin
ion, written by Chief Justice Earl
Warren, stated. “Separate education
facilities are inherently unequal.”
The case originated when Oliver
Brown sued the Topeka Board of
Education because his daughter, Linda
Brown, was denied admittance to an all
white elementary school, forcing her to
travel 21 blocks to an all-black school.
Brown sought the aid of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People in his case, which was
appealed to the Supreme Court at the
same time as five other segregation
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cases.
The Supreme Court chose to consol
idate the cases into one, which was then
tried under the Brown \ Board of
Education heading.
First-round arguments in the Brown
case began in the 1952 Supreme Court
term, but the court deferred decision
until the 1953 term.
The justices requested additional
information for the rearguing, including
information on the role of the 14th
Amendment in segregation.
Lawyers for Brown, all from the
NAACP, tried to eslablish that the
framers of the 14th Amendment would
not have condoned segregation through
the Equal Rights clause.
“Our Constitution has no provision
across it that all men are equal but that
white men are more equal than others,”
said Jim Nabritjr., NAACP lawyer.
State lawyers responded to NAACP
arguments by accusing the organization
of merely trying to gain publicity and
excitement.
But NAACP lawyers used this argu
ment in their favor.
“As (State Attorney John W.) Davis
said yesterday, the only thing the
Negroes are trying to get is prestige,”
said Thurgood Marshall, head NAACP
lawyer.
“Exactly correct. Ever since the
Emancipation Proclamation, the Negro
has been trying to get... the same status
as everybody else regardless of race.”
In addition to the lawyers’ arguments
on the constitutionality of segregation,
the Supreme Court also invited the U.S.
Department of Justice to present an
opinion in the reargument.
I-
.
w# If#
Looking Back, Facing Forward
“li is ihe position of the Department
of Justice that segregation in public
schools cannot be maintained under the
Uth Amendment,” said Assistant
Attorney General J. I,ee Rankin.
After establishing the court’s right to
overturn segregation on constitutional
grounds, the NAACP solidified its argu
ment by addressing the harm that seg
regation caused black children.
The court found the argument con
vincing enough to include in the final
opinion.
“To separate (blacks) from others of a
similar age and qualifications soleh
because of their race generates a feeling
of inferiority as to their status in the
community that may affect their hearts
and minds in a way unlikely to evei be
undone,” the unanimous opinion stated.
In a final, passionate appeal to the
justices, Marshall spoke of the absurdity
of segregation in communities where
black and white children had interaction
outside of school.
“You can have (blacks and whites)
going to the same state universities and
the same college, but if lhe\ go to ele
mentary and high school, the world will
fall apart?” Marshall questioned.
Five months after the dose of argu
meats, on May 17. 1951, about 30 news
men were called from the pressroom to
enter the court chambers for the reading
of the final opinion.
I he Supreme Court chose to ovei
turn the “separate but equal” doctrine in
favor of integration of public schools bv
a vote of 9-0.
The City Editor can be reached
at dtydesk@unc.edu.
WACHOVIA
Let’s get
BROWN V. BOARD
From Page 1
the minds of society.
“The decision of Brown v. Board of
Education was obviously wonderful and
totally consistent with the ideology of
our founding fathers of being equal in
studying and being educated together,”
he said. “Separate but equal is not
acceptable.”
Shelton said the ruling the Supreme
Court delivered was necessary for the
education of young people, but it was
not being used to its fullest potential.
“If we allow ourselves to drift back,
we will repeat a history we aren’t proud
of,” he said. “We still have a ways to go
and it’s not suggesting (the ruling) hasn’t
been helpful. We all agree we should be
one society - at least those of us of
sound mind.”
Shelton said that while the Brown
decision made segregation illegal, he
thought that urban communities
remained segmented.
“Even though the law of the land and
the spirit of the nation requires an equal
society, we still have areas with less
financial) resources,” he said. “For
example in St. Louis, Mo., the city is
divided into north and south. The north
is predominately black, and the south is
white.”
In St. Louis, the school board allo
cates more funding to the southern
schools than their northern counterparts
that are historically black, Shelton said.
However, he said this was not isolated
simply to St. Louis but was a trend
across the country.
i he impact of Brown v. Board of
Education has been broad, and the
influence of integration has spread in
many directions, said N.C. Rep. Warren
Oldham, 1) Forsyth, who worked in
schools when the case was making Fus
ion Fie agreed that integration did not
have as strong of an impact in urban
areas as it did in rural towns.
“The effects (of integration) can vary
according to different localities,” he said.
“ There are small areas where the popu
lation is not as large and in these small,
inferior schools for African-Americans,
complete integration had taken place,
and these schools were dissolved.”
Oldham questioned whether true
integration had taken place in the larg
er, urban N.C. counties like
Mecklenburg, Wake and Forsyth, where
housing patterns caused students to be
bused away.
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Shelton said the best way to continue
breaking down the walls of segregation
was to get students to know each other
by way of busing.
“Busing is a helpful tool, but we
should not lose sight (of the schools
themselves),” he said. “We have to
spend money on the schools, and we
have to spend money on the busing.”
Dawn Spivey, a spokesperson for
Southeast Equity, a Miami-based orga
nization that promotes racial and social
equality, said that as they tried to nar
row the achievement gap, disparities
and behavior around racial lines, they
were paying attention to the busing
issue. “We are watching the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg schools trials because of
the landmark busing civil rights case,
and it is showing how the tides have
turned,” she said.
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court
made the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
school system the first major urban area
in the nation that used busing as a
means to achieve racial balance. Last
year, a U.S. District Court judge ruled
that Charlotte had achieved racial bal
ance and ended the busing practice.
However, promoting racial equality
has not been limited to elementary,
middle and high schools. The issue of
affirmative action in colleges has also
been a point of contention.
Dr. Eugene Eaves, provost of N.C.
Central University, said equal opportu
nity was something to be merited and
affirmative action ensured equal access.
Texas, Florida and California have
both passed laws repealing affirmative
action, but the effects on admissions
practices among universities and
employers has yet to be determined.
“If we believe in diversity, then affir
mative action ought to still be the law of
the land,” Eaves said. “When the goal is
to offset underrepresentation, then you
can’t say it is altogether bad.”
Eaves said admitting students on
standardized tests alone would be a dis
service and that affirmative action was a
judgment call allowing institutions to
make better decisions. “Until we correct
a lot of things in the education system at
all levels, and until they are all equal,
affirmative action would help,” he said.
Even if schools are fully integrated in
regard to their student population,
minorities would not be receiving bene
fits if the faculty and administration are
not up to par, Oldham said.
“A detrimental conflict is the assign
ment and the selection of personnel
(and) getting minority teachers into the
®lje Soily (Tar Heel
schools,” he said.
Gladys Graves, director of the N.C,?
Teaching Fellows Scholarship Program;
with the N.C. Public Forum for
Education, said one of the effects of
Brown v. Board was a depletion of qual-;
ified teachers, especially the traditional
pool of minorities and women, who
were looking at new job opportunities.
“One thing that happened as a result
of the civil rights movement generated
after Brown v. Board of Education was'
that we opened opportunities,” she said.
Graves said that with the increase in
quality of education for minorities, the
top of the class was not going into teach
ing professions anymore. Instead, the
numbers of minorities in professions
such as medicine and law increased.
Graves said the question of who
would teach the children led to the
establishment of the N.C. Teaching
Fellows scholarship to make education
al professions more appealing.
“In the past, we didn’t resort to
recruitment,” she said. “This grew out of
Brown v. Board, and it had lots of pin
nacles in lots of areas.”
Graves said the inner-city schools
were not attracting quality teachers for
the minority-tilled classrooms. The
inexperience of the faculty correlated
with the lower test scores among blacks.
In january, the Journal of Blacks in
Fligher Education released an analysis
of black and white scholastic assessment
test scores, which found that the perfor
mance gap between these racial groups
ranged from 14 points in New
Hampshire to 409 points in the District
of Columbia. The JBHE attributed this
variation to the quality of education
available to black and white students.
The report stated that the gap was
lowest in states that had few racially seg
regated inner-city schools and highest in
those in which white students attended
elite private schools and the black stu
dents relied on a public education.
Shelton said that before these public
school systems could provide a better
quality education and teachers, the
funding had to be accessible. Shelton
said only 10 percent of funding for edu
cation is federal, leaving the other 90
percent to local taxes.
“We need to take a good strong look
at... local funding,” he said. “What has
a tendency to happen is that affluent
suburbs don’t complain. Poor areas
have poor incomes and very little taxes
going toward their schools. How (these
students) turn out is going to be a bur
den or a blessing to the economy.”
Shelton said programs during the
Reagan and Bush administrations were
not supportive of public education, and
the education funding in the budget
soon deteriorated.
He said President Clinton attempted
to raise additional federal funding, but
Congress was not receptive to an
increase for public, inner-city and rural
schools. Instead, it devised a system of
school vouchers. “School vouchers arc
remnants of why we needed Brown v.
Board,” Shelton said. “In the late ’sos
and ’6os, schools created vouchers.
These gave kids local education money
to go to private schools.”
In 1999, Newt Gingrich, former
speaker of the House, developed a pro
gram in which $22 million per year
went to vouchers. That same year,
Washington, D.C., public schools were
three weeks late opening because build
ing structures were unsafe, needing $ 11
million for repairs. “If we’d been smart
and used the money for public schools
instead of using vouchers to bail people
oul of them, we’d have sll million left
to do even more,” Shelton said.
He said that with the economic
resources available, the school systems
should be restructured even further in
regard to the length of the school day.
Although he said lengths of school
days, funding and teachers’ qualifica
tions did not appear to be connected
with the Brown v. Board ruling, they
were results of the integration and con
temporary racial issues.
Lengthening school days would help
with the crime rate by keeping youth off
the streets while their parents are still at
work in the evenings and provide the
lower income students, often minorities,
with more reputable schools, he said.
“We celebirate Brown v. Board of
education and protect it and keep it
strong,” he said. “(Equality is a) value
our society should hold very proudly
and we (need to) find ways to strength
en public schools and give students
options - real options and a quality
choice.”
The City Editor can be reached
at dtydesk@unc.edu.