NAACP Lawyers File Segregation School Answers with Supreme Court
Press Release
November 16, 1953

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. NAACP Lawyers File Segregation School Answers with Supreme Court, 1953. e55882cc-bb92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/cab17aab-d686-4560-8c49-92d3360406ea/naacp-lawyers-file-segregation-school-answers-with-supreme-court. Accessed April 19, 2025.
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PRESS RELEASE NA ACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 107 WEST 43 STREET * NEW YORK 36, N. Y. ¢© JUdson 6-8397 ARTHUR B. SPINGARN THURGOOD MARSHALL President Director and Counsel WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER Secretary Assistant Counsel ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE r Press Relations recsurer FOR RELEASE: Immediately NAACP LAWYERS FILE SEGREGATION SCHOOL ANSWERS WITH SUPREME COURT November 16, 1953 WASHINGTON, D. Ce = Nove 16 -- The 14th Amendment was intended to destroy all caste and color legislation in the United States, attorneys for the NAACP contend today in their brief filed with the Ue S. Supreme Court in the pending public school segregation cases to be reargued December 7the The brief presents the NAACP answers to the five questions posed by the high court when it ordered the reargument last June 8th. The five cases =~ South Carolina, Kansas, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia -- come up for reargument before the high court December 7-8. The issue involved in all five cases is whether the states and the District of Columbia have the constitutional power to segregate white and.Negro students in separate schools in the elementary and secondary school levels. The District of Columbia case is being financed by a local group of Negro citizeng. NAACP attorneys, acting in behalf of the Negro children and parents in these cases, argue that segregation per se is discrimina~ tion.and a violation of the equal. protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The District of Columbia case is based on the due process clause of the Fifth Amend~ ments The school boards in the tower courts based their arguments mainly on the outdated, outmoded "separate but equal doctrine". They contend that the local provisions for separate schools are not in conflict with the Fourteenth and Fifth AmendmentSe er es QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Questions One and Two: 1. What evidence is there that the Congress which submitted and the State legislatures and conventions which ratified the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated or did not contemplate, under- stood or did not understand, that it would abolish segregation in public schools? 2. If neither the Congress in submitting nor the States in ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment understood that compliance with it would require the immediate abolition of segregation in public schools, was it nevertheless the understanding of the framers of the Amendment. (a) that future Congresses might, in the exercise of their power under Sec. 5 of the Amendment, abolish such segregation, or (b) that it would be within the judicial power, in light of future conditions to construe the Amendment as abolishing such segregation of its own force? Answers to Oné and Two: "There iSsample evidence that the Congress which submitted and the states which ratified the 14th Amendment contem- ¢ “pkated and understood that the amendment would deprive the states of the power to impose any racial distinctions in determining when, where and how its citizens would en- joy the various civil rights afforded by the states," it is argued in the brief." . . .the right to public school education was one of the civil rights with respect to which the states were deprived of the power to impose racial distinctions." The framers of the 14th Amendment were men... with a well defined background of Abolitionist doctrine dedi- cated to the "“equalitarian principles of real and complete equality for all men," the lawyers cited. The era prior to the Civil war was marked by determined efforts to secure recognition of the principle of complete 3. and real equality for all men within the existing constitutional framework of our Government." NAACP attorneys stated that the 39th Congress, framers of the 14th Amendment, "were formulating a constitutional provision setting broad standards for determination of the relationship of the state to the individual", but could not list all of the specific categories of existing and prospective state activity which were to come with~ in the constitutional don'ts. "In short," NAACP lawyers argue, "the 14th Amendment was designed to take from the states all power to enforce caste or class distinctions." The evidence as to the understanding of the states is equally convincing, the brief points out. The amendment was ratified in 1868 by the states, 18 years before the "separate but equal" doctrine came into existence. The lawyers for the Negro students say that the state is with- out power to “enforce distinctions based upon race or color in affording educational opportunities" in the public school. Question 3: On the Assumption that the answers to questions 2 (a) and (b) do not dispose of the issue, is it within the judicial power, in construing the Amendment, to abolish segregation in public schools? Answers to 3: "This Court (Supreme Court) in a long line of decisions has made it plain that the 14th Amendment prohibits a state from making racial distinctions in the exercise of governmental power." The Supreme Court has held time and again that if the state's power has been exercised in such a way as to deprive a Negro of a right which he would have freely enjoyed if he had been white, then that state's action violated the 14th Amendment. "This Court has made it plain that no state may use color or race as the axis upon which the state's power turns, and the con- duct of the public education systems has not been excepted from the ban," they arguee ote @ Questions 4 and 5 4, Assuming it is decided that segrepation in public schools violates the Fourteenth Amendrent, (a) would a decree necessarily follow providing that, within the limits set by normal geographic school districting, Negro children should forthwith ke admitted to schools of their choice, or (b) may this Court, in the exercise of its equity powers, permit an effective gradual adjustment to be brought about from existing segregated systems to a system not based on color distinctions? 5. On the assumption on which questions 4(a) and (b) are based, and assuming further that this Court will exercise its equity powers to the end desecrived in question 4(b), (a) should this Court formulate detailed decrees in these cases3 (b) aif so what specific issues should the decrees reach} (c) should this Court appoint a special master to hear evidence with a view to recomrending specific terms for such decrees; (d) should this Court remand to the courts of first instance with directions to frame cecrees in these cases, and, if so, what general directions should the decrees of this Court include and what procedures shovld the courts of first instance follow in arriving at the specific terms of more detailed decrees? Answers 4 and 5: The attorneys contend that the Court does have the power to rule that segregated schools violate the 14th Amendment and know no reason why the Court should postpone its decision. They call on the Court to abolish the segregated school system and issue a decree immediately. "In accordance with instructions of this Court we have addressed ourselves to all of the plans for gradual adjustment which we have been able to find, None would be effective, "In the absence of any such reasons the only specific issue which appellants can recommend to the Court that the decrees should reach is the substantive one presented here, namely, that ate appellees should be required in the future to discharge their obligations as state officers without drawing distinctions based on race and color. Once this is done not only the local communi- ties involved in these several cases, but communities throughout the South, would be left free to work out individual plans for conforming to the then established precedent free from the statutory requirement of rigid racial segregation." "These rights are personal because each appellant is assert- ing its individual constituticnal risht to grow up in our democratic society without impress of state-imposed racial segre- gation in the public schools," the attorneys asserted. The NAACP conclusion states: "Under the applicable decisions of this Court the state constitutional and statutory provisions herein involved are clearly unconstitutional, horeover, the historical evidence surrounding the adoption, submission and ratification of the Fourteenth Amend~ ment compels the conclusion that it was the intent, understanding, and contemplation that the Amendment proscribed all state imposed racial restrictions, The Negro children in these cases are arbitrarily excluded from state public schools set apart for the dominant white groups, Such a practice can only be continued on a theory that Negroes, qua Negroes, are inferior to all other Ameri- cans. The constitutional and statutory provisions herein challenged cannot be upheld without a clear deterwinaticn that Negroes are inferior and, therefore, must be segregated fror other human beings, Certainly, such a ruling would destroy the intent and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment and the very equalitarian basis of our Govern- ment," (More) = 1G a: The reargument was originally scheduled before the United States Supreme Court on October 12, but was postponed at the request of the Attorney General who asked for an extension of time. The filing of the 240-page brief, with 525 footnotes brings to an end twenty-two hectic weeks of intensive research and study on the part of 130 lawyers and experts scattered across tie country, headed by Thurgood Narshal1, NAACP Special Counsel and Director of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and his assistant, Robert L. Carter. Preparation of the brief was coordinated by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund staff consisting of Constance Baker Motley, Jack Greenberg, Elwood Chisolm, David Pinsky, U. S. Tate, Daniel E, Byrd, and June Shagaloff, with the assistance of Marvin Karpatkin and Julia Baxter. In addition to the staff, other attorneys and legal experts who-'worked on the brief were: Charles L. Black, Jr., William T. Coleman, Jr., Charles T. Duncan, George E. C. Hayes, George Hh. Johnson, William R. Ning, Jr., James MN. Nabrit, Jr., Frank D. Reeves, John Scott, Jack B. Weinstein, Charles S. Scott, Spottswood W. Robinson, III, and Harold R. Boulware. Also Professor Walter Gell- horn of Columbia University School of Law; Loren Miller, Los Angeles, California; and Professor John Frank, Yale University School of Lawe Included among the other experts were Dr. John A. Davis, associate professor of Government at City College of New York; Dr. able Smythe, Economist, Shiga University, Hikone City, Japan; Dr. Alfred H. Kelly, Professor of Constitutional History, Wayne University; Howard Jay Graham, Law Librarian of Los Angeles County Bar Association; Dr. Horace li. Bond, President of Lincoln University; Dr. C. Vann Woodward, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University; Marion Wright, Professor of Education at Howard University, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Professor of History at Howard University, Professor Ben Kaplan, Harvard Law School; Dr. Milton R. Konvitz, Cornell University and David Feller, of the C.1.0., Washington, D. C. Also, Dr. Charles R. Wesley, President of Wilberforce Univer- sity, Robert Kk, Carr, Professor of Political Science at Dartmouth College; Dr. Howard K. Beale, Professor of History at the Univer- sity of Wisconsin; Dr. Charles H. Thompson, Dean of Graduate School at Howard University; Dr. Charles S. Johnson, President of Fisk University; and Dr. Buell Gallagher, President of the City College of New York. Also Professor Kenneth Clark of City College of New York; Dr. Rayford Logan, Howard University; Lillian Dabney, Baltimore, Maryland. Suan =