Case ID: ohio-st_45/html/0555-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Board of Education v. The State.
    
      School and school districts — Separate schools for colored children — Revised Statutes, secs. 4008, 4013.
    (Decided February 28, 1888)
    Error to the Circuit Court of Butler County.
    The original action was a proceeding in mandamus by which the relator sought to compel the board of education of the village of Oxford, to admit his children to a common school within the district where he resided, from which, as he averred, they had been wrongfully excluded by the board. At the final hearing the court made a finding of facts, from which it appears that the children of the. relator belong to the colored race, and were excluded by the board under a resolution requiring all colored children to attend a separate school that had theretofore been established for them in the district •, that the board acted in good faith, and upon what it deemed to be for the best interests of education in the district; and, upon its finding, awarded a peremptory writ, to reverse which judgment this proceeding is prosecuted.
    
      
      Thomas Millihin, Alex. F. Hume and Palmer W. Smith, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Morey, Andrews & Morey, for defendant in error.
    
      The Board of Education of College Hill v. The State of Ohio ex rel. Wilson Hunter, on error to the Circuit Court of Hamilton County, was argued with this case. Attorneys for plaintiff in error, Davidson & Hertenstein; for defendant in error, Eugene Wambaugh.
    
   By the Court.

The power to establish and maintain separate schools for colored children was conferred on boards of education by section 4008, and not by section 4013 of the Revised Statutes. Whilst under the latter section power is conferred on boards of education to make such assignments of the youth of their respective districts, to the schools established by them, as will, in their opinion, best promote the interest of education in their districts, such power cannot be exercised with reference to the race or color of the youth; and section 4008 having been repealed by the act of the general assembly passed February 22, 1887 (84 Ohio L. 34), separate schools for colored children have been abolished, and no regulation can be made under section 4013, that does not apply to all children irrespective of race or color.

Judgment affirmed.