Brian McShane and Dan Schroder
Civil Rights cases cheat sheet
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
-The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.
-Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?
7 votes for Ferguson, 1 vote(s) against
-Decided that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.
Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
-A black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas, whose president was Theophilus Painter, on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. At the time, no law school in Texas would admit blacks.
-The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to qualify, both because of quantitative differences in facilities and intangible factors, such as its isolation from most of the future lawyers with whom its graduates would interact. The court held that, when considering graduate education, intangibles must be considered as part of "substantive equality."
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (I) (1952)
-Black children were denied admission to public schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to the races. The white and black schools approached equality in terms of buildings, curricula, qualifications, and teacher salaries.
-Does the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprive the minority children of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment?
-9 votes for Brown, 0 vote(s) against
- Despite the equalization of the schools by "objective" factors, intangible issues foster and maintain inequality. Racial segregation in public education has a detrimental effect on minority children because it is interpreted as a sign of inferiority. Separate but equal is inherently unequal in the context of public education. The unanimous opinion sounded the death-knell for all forms of state-maintained racial separation.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (II) (1954)
-After its decision in Brown I which declared racial discrimination in public education unconstitutional, the Court convened to issue the directives which would help to implement its newly announced Constitutional principle. Given the embedded nature of racial discrimination in public schools and the diverse circumstances under which it had been practiced, the Court requested further argument on the issue of relief.
-What means should be used to implement the principles announced in Brown I?
-The Court held that the problems identified in Brown I required varied local solutions. Local school authorities and the courts which originally heard school segregation cases, were to implement the principles which the Supreme Court embraced in its first Brown decision.
Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Board (1964)
-Virginia initiated a coordinated policy known as massive resistance to maintain segregationist policies. Numerous public schools had been closed through the tactics of massive resistance, but Prince Edward County took the unusual and extreme measure of closing all of its public schools after being ordered to integrate the public schools under its jurisdiction in June 1959.
-Ruled that the County School Board of Prince Edward County's decision to close all local, public schools and provide vouchers to attend private schools were declared constitutionally impermissible and violations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
-In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings returned to Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's antimiscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail (the trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the Lovings would leave Virginia and not return for 25 years).
-Did Virginia's antimiscegenation law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
-The Court held that distinctions drawn according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and were subject to "the most rigid scrutiny" under the Equal Protection Clause. The Virginia law, the Court found, had no legitimate purpose "independent of invidious racial discrimination." The Court rejected the state's argument that the statute was legitimate because it applied equally to both blacks and whites and found that racial classifications were not subject to a "rational purpose" test under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also held that the Virginia law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Under our Constitution," wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren, "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."
U. S. v. Virginia (1996)
-The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution. The United States brought suit against Virginia and VMI alleging that the school's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional insofar as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. Virginia, in response to the Fourth Circuit's reversal, proposed to create the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL) as a parallel program for women. On appeal from the District Court's affirmation of the plan, the Fourth Circuit ruled that despite the difference in prestige between the VMI and VWIL, the two programs would offer "substantively comparable" educational benefits. The United States appealed to the Supreme Court.
-Does Virginia's creation of a women's-only academy, as a comparable program to a male-only academy, satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?
- VMI's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional. Failed to show "exceedingly persuasive justification" for VMI's gender-biased admissions policy, Virginia failed to support its claim that single-sex education contributes to educational diversity because it did not show that VMI's male-only admissions policy was created or maintained in order to further educational diversity. Virginia's plan to create the VWIL would not provide women with the same opportunities as VMI provides its men and so it failed to meet requirements of the equal protection clause.
Davis v. Monroe County School Board (1999)
-Aurelia Davis sued the Monroe County Board of Education (the "Board"), on behalf of her fifth grade daughter LaShonda, alleging that school officials failed to prevent Lashonda's suffering sexual harassment at the hands of another student. Davis claimed that the school's complacency created an abusive environment that deprived her daughter of educational benefits promised her under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX).
-Can a school board be held responsible under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, meant to secure equal access of students to educational benefits and opportunities, for "student-on-student" harassment?
-There is an implied private right to education under Title IX, private damage actions may lie against schools that act with deliberate indifference to harassment that is severe enough to prevent victims from enjoying educational opportunities. As such, consistent with the Spending Clause, the Title IX guidelines that Congress attached to its school funds obligate all recipient schools to comply or face the pain of legal action. The Court also observed that the Board acted with deliberate indifference, since it ignored several complaints by Davis, and that the harassment in question was serious and systematic.