The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-06-22
Court Decisions
Strike AT Racial
Discrimination

Washington (LPA)-Congress so
far has successfully lodged action
on civil rights legislation but the
US Supreme Court in three unan-
imous decisions, June dealt racial
segregation a body blow.
The chief legal basis for segrega-
tion of Negroes had been the 1896
Plessy VS. Ferguson decision, in
which the court upheld a Louisiana
law segregating Negroes in Jim
Grow railroad coaches. The court
then held that segregation did not
violate the "equal protection"
clause of the Fourteenth Amend
ment, provided facilities for Neg
roes were equal to those for whites.
Thus arose the separate but equaP
doctrine, which has blocked most
!egal efforts to break down segre-
cation.
The court, in it's June decisions,
did not overtun that doctrine, as
the federal government and the
three Negro appellants requested.
Chief Justice Vinson said the court
did not need to rule on the request,
but the effect of the three decis-
ions, as practical matter, seem to
indicate the end of the doctrine.
What the court decided, specifi-
cally, was that in each of the three
cases, the appellants had not re-
ceived equal treatment" The full
exercise of equality of treatment"
may thus bring an end to segrega-
tion.
The three cases were those of
Elmer w. Henderson, Heman M.
Sweat, and G. w. McLaurin.
Henderson, then a field repre-
sentative of the wartime FEPC,
was refused service on a Southern
Railway diner on a trip to Birming-
ham on May IT, 1914. The Inter
state Commerce Commission upheld
the railroad, and in 1916 US dis
trict court in Maryland upheld the
ICC, ruling that neither the Consti-
tuition nor the ICC regulations bar
red such segregation.
The court ruled that in fact the
Southern Railway did not furnish
facilities to Negroes equal to those
for whites, and that this was a
violation of the Interstate Com
merce Act.
Sweat was denied admission to
the University of Texas law school
in 1916, and a US district court
ruled in his favor, since Texas pro-
vided no law school for Negroes.
But when the legislature agreed to
set up a school offering "substan-
TALLY equivalent" legal training,
the court dismissed the case.
Sweat was then invited to enroll
in the new school, consisting of
four basement rooms in downtown
Austin. He refused to attend any
such segregated school. The Sup
rene Court ruling means Texas
must admit Sweat to the white
law school.
MeLaurin was denied admission
to the Oklahoma University gradu-
ate school of education in 1948. He
sued, and on order of the board of
regents, was admitted, but was
forced to sit in an anteroom or hall
way outside the classroom, and his
use of the library and cafeteria
were restricted. The rules were re-
laxed later, but he was still denied
of treatment. The Supreme
Court ordered Oklahoma u. to|
abolish the segregation rules.
The government, and civil rights
groups, in arguing for reversal of
the Plessy VS. Ferguson decision,
had pleaded that segregation is in
itself discrimination, and that "sep-
and that equal" should mean
same.
Chief Justice Vinson took note
Of the broader issues" raised but
said the court was adhering "to thel
of deciding constitutional
questions only in the context of the
case before the court. ~
He added that therefore much of
he excellent research and detailed
presented in these cases
S unnecessary to their disposition"
The Plessy VS. Ferguson decision
was based on an l849 Supreme
Court ruling upholding Boston in
forcing a Negro girl to go to a
school. The girls attor-
ley was Charles Sumner, who later
vent to the US Senate, where he
helped draft and put through the
fourteenth Amendment and other
.ivil rights legislation.