Separate but not Equal: The Supreme Court's First Decision on Racial Discrimination in Schools

Abstract

In 1899, three years after the “separate but equal” decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, the U. S. Supreme Court for the first
\ntime confronted the problem of racial discrimination in education.
\nWriting for a unanimous court, Justice John Marshall Harlan,
\nwhose recently refurbished reputation rests chiefly on his liberal
\nopinions in Negro rights cases, decided in effect that the judiciary
\nwould do no more to guarantee equality in public services than it
\nhad to stop legalized segregation. " ... the education of the people
\nin schools maintained by state taxation is a matter belonging to the
\nrespective States," the justice, who was rarely a protector of states'
\nrights, concluded, "and any interference on the part of Federal
\nauthority with the management of such schools cannot be justified
\nexcept in the case of a clear and unmistakable disregard of rights
\nsecured by the supreme law of the land. We have here no such case
\nto be determined …. " Attracting even less attention at the time
\nthan Plessy did, the case of Joseph W. Cumming, James S. Harper,
\nand John C. Ladeveze v. School Board of Richmond County, Ga.
\nhas never received the attention Plessy gained in the wake of the
\noutlawing of segregation in the 1954 Brown decision.
\n