Essay on "Supreme Court Decisions Constitution"

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[EXCERPT] . . . .

1946, Heman Sweatt, an intelligent and well qualified African-American man, at the behest of the National Association of Colored Peoples (NAACP), applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law. In so doing, however, he ran squarely into the lingering effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). There, the Court established the "Separate but Equal" Doctrine, opining that "the [Equal Protection Clause of the] Fourteenth Amendment & #8230;could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social…equality. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures" (Id. At 544).

One of the states to which the Supreme Court referred, of course, was Texas. for, under Article VII, Section 7 of the contemporaneous version of the Constitution of the State of Texas, "[s]eparate schools [were to] be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provision…made for both (Tex. Const. art. 7, § 7, 1876). Although Mr. Sweat, admittedly, fulfilled every requisite qualification for admission to the school, his application was denied solely on the basis of that state constitutional provision Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 631 (1950).

In response, the NAACP, under the guidance of future Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, brought suit in state court on behalf of Mr. Sweatt, alleging that, since no comparable law school existed within the State of Texas for African-American students, Mr. Sweatt could not be denied admission, but rather must be admitted to the University (Id.). On first impression, the trial court judge, while recognizing that denying the plaintiff the opportunity to gain a legal education, while granting it to others, deprived him of the equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, nevertheless, continued the case for six months to provide the State, and University of Texas President, Theophilus S. Painter, an opportunity to satisfy the mandates of the Plessy decision (Id. At 631- 632). The University took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded and quickly adopted an order providing for the establishment of a law school for African-American students (Id.). Although this school was not functional at the end of the original six-month continuance, the trial court found sufficient the State's intent and ruled in favor of the defendants (Id.).

As Mr. Sweatt, and the NAACP, planned their appeal in state appellate court, the University set about creating its parallel institution for African-American students.

The resulting, interim " law school, to be named the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes, was to be located in the basement of a state office building in Austin, and open early in 1947, with no independent faculty or library (Id. At 633).

Mr. Sweatt refused to enroll (Id.).

The Texas Court of Civil Appeals set aside the trial court's judgment and remanded the case back to the trial court, where a hearing was held on the issue of whether the educational facilities at the newly established school were substantially equal to those of the University of Texas Law School (Id. At 632). This would continue to be the salient issue for the remainder of the case. At the conclusion of this hearing, the trial court held that the upstart school did, indeed, offer Mr. Sweatt "privileges, advantages, and opportunities for the study of law substantially equivalent to those offered by the State to white students at the University of Texas;" and the Texas Court of Civil Appeals affirmed in Sweatt v. Painter, 210 S.W.2d 442 (1948).

On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Sweatt, and the NAACP, squarely presented, and convincingly argued, that the new facility set up by the state was, in no way, the equal of the University of Texas School of Law, and represented little more than a desperate attempt at appeasement (Sweatt, 339 U.S. 629, 632-634, 1950). The State, meanwhile, maintained that the separate but equal mandates of Plessy… READ MORE

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