Brown v. Board of Education was the landmark Supreme Court case that ended racial segregation in schools in 1954. | Terms of Use, Copyright 2012-2022 www.mendezetalvwestminster.com. Although the case has garnered more attention in recent years, it is still largely unknown. Chicano children were given shabbier books and equipment than their white peers and were taught in more crowded classrooms. So what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP did in Brown is they extended that and they said, we want to knock down the whole concept of separate but unequal. It doesnt matter. Employment opportunities for Mexican Americans were severely limited. Together, they sent a letter to the board of education demanding that the schools be integrated. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The decision was remarkable for several reasons. When the school board refused to change its policies, Gonzalo joined four other plaintiffsWilliam Guzman, Frank Palomino, Thomas Estrada and Lorenzo Ramirezfrom nearby Santa Ana County school districts and filed a lawsuit in federal district court known as Mendez v. Westminster. Mendez v. Westminster: Paving the Way to School Desegregation. Login or create an account to save resources to your bookmark collection. centre of the court case Mendez v. Westminster, in which a federal court ruled in the mid-1940s that the school segregation of Hispanic children was unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit ruling in 1947 was another victory for Mendez and his fellow plaintiffs, but not nearly the slam dunk that the anti-segregation movement hoped it would be. Mendez v. Westminster would become a landmark decision in 1946 because it was both a federal case and was the first ruling to hold that school segregation itself is unconstitutional and violates the 14th Amendment. While geometry and biology were taught at the Anglo schools, classes at the Mexican schools focused on teaching boys industrial skills and girls domestic tasks. The Mndezes were among the few Chicano tenant farmers in Orange County. Immigrants from Mexico waged many battles against such discriminatory treatment, often risking their jobs in fields and factories and enduring threats of deportation. Most Latinos at the time held low-paying jobs as field workers. Sylvia Mendez, one of Gonzalo and Felicitass children who was turned away from her local school because of her ethnicity. Click here for a list. 56 minutes. By that time, Gonzalo had a reputation in the county as a champion orange picker, and he commanded a slightly higher wage than other field workers. A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin | Contact us, A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, Abbott lifts border restrictions on one part of border but says slowdowns will continue elsewhere, Houstons rising Democratic star defends staff indicted in Texas Rangers investigation. Their victory set off a wave of excitement among civil rights advocates nationwide, including the NAACPs Thurgood Marshall,2 who saw Mendez as a pathway to overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and ending separate but equal once and for all. Beltway Bulletin: Who Cares What You Think? A longtime contributor to HowStuffWorks, Dave has also been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. ", Sylvia Mendez - Image credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District. In fact, the very first legal victory against segregation in America was in San Diego County in 1930, when Mexican American parents in the Lemon Grove School District organized a boycott and successfully sued the schools for integration. If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. By William Elwood. In 1946 federal courts decided Mendez v. Westminster. Postal Service. We strive for accuracy and fairness. And every school board or school district would try to use different arguments. Presidents Message: FBA Takes Its Priorities to DC, International Courts Reporter Series: Salih Mustafa Convicted of War Crimes in Kosovo, Mendez v. Westminster: The Mexican-American Fight for School Integration and Social Equality Pre-Brown v. Board of Education. By now, the Mndez lawsuit was drawing national attention. The Mexican and American schools were often side by side, separated only by a field or an electrified fence. The Mexican American kids held recess in an empty, dirt-floored lot in plain sight of the sparkling playground at the American school. Even if a Latino child had the same academic qualifications as a white child, Kent stated, he would never allow the Latino child to enroll in an Anglo school. 26,000 high school and college students came to Washington, D.C. to demand the end of segregated schools. 1946) (No. So it became basically a template for future challenges that also proved successful. Together, they sent a letter to the board of education demanding that the schools be integrated. It was very much in the economic interest of the agricultural elite and the Anglo community at large to keep these people in a second-class position, says Philippa Strum, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, who wrote a book on the Mexican American anti-segregation movement in California. The school would have to admit all of the Chicano children in the community or none of them.The Mndezes hired a civil rights attorney, David Marcus, who had recently won a lawsuit on behalf of Mexican Americans in nearby San Bernardino seeking to integrate the public parks and pools. By Duncan Tonatiuh. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). So for instance, you had an educational expert and a sociologist testify in the Mendez case that separating these school children teaches them that theyre not as worthy teaches Mexican Americans that you dont deserve the same thing as these other children because of your last name, because of your skin color, because of your ethnicity. In the little spare time she had, she organized a group of local Latino parents to support the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Most of the school board members were wealthy citrus farmers whose livelihoods depended on Mexican American labor. Even though Thurgood Marshalls name was on the amicus brief filed by the NAACP in the Mendez trial, it was his assistant special counsel Robert Carter who drew up the arguments. She was awarded the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. The whole idea that educational segregation necessarily implied inferiority and therefore interfered with the ability of students to learn. The NAACP and other groups eagerly waited for Orange County school officials to file an appeal that would bring the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. If a man has very much sense or education either, he is not going to stick to this kind of work. In many communities, they were only permitted to swim one day a week at the public pool, just before it was cleaned and drained. The Mexican schools gave special instruction to students who didnt speak English and who were unfamiliar with American values and customs. Important: In putting this website together, we have also benefited greatly from the research of educators, journalists, and scholars who have written about this case. By Winifred Conkling. Brown v. Board of Education was the landmark Supreme Court case that ended racial segregation in schools in 1954. And also the fact that it creates this sense of inferiority for the children. case is important not only for the precedent it set for later court cases, such as. Thurgood Marshall argued the landmarkBrown v. Board of Education of Topekabefore the U.S. Supreme Court, presenting the same social science and human rights theories he outlined in hisamicus curiaebrief for theMndezcase. Seven years later, the NAACP did find a successful test case to reversePlessy v. Ferguson. An opportunity to overturnPlessywould have to wait. David Marcus files Order to Show Cause and Affidavit for hearing in re-contempt citation against El Modena School District on behalf of LULAC member Alexander Llevanos. Every day, he and David Marcus drove across Orange Countys patchwork of vegetable farms and citrus groves, stopping in thecolonias. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage.". Westminster (1946), concerned the right of elementary-school student Sylvia Mendez and other Mexican Americans to attend whites-only local schools in Orange county, California. Texas Standard: Tell us a little bit more about this practice of establishing separate schools for Latino children. The White Citizens Council and Ku Klux Klan launched full-scale rioting in Clinton, Tennessee in response to school desegregation. In the fall of 1944, Soledad Vidaurri took her children and those of her brother, Gonzalo Mndez, to enroll at the 17th Street School in Westminster, California. He was at the NAACP at the time as a lawyer, I believe. The Mendez family had recently moved from nearby Santa Ana to Westminster, and Sylvias father, Gonzalo, expected that his daughter would attend the Westminster School, as he did in his youth. IN THE STRUGGLE FOR DESEGREGATION BY MARIA BLANCO. So why was Mendez v. Westminster, despite its precedent-setting decision, largely lost to legal history? , but also because it is a clear example of members of the Mexican American community taking the lead to fight for their rights and winning. From the introduction toMendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights. Many parks, hotels, dance halls, stores, eateries and barbershops were off-limits. Many Anglo educators did not expect, or encourage, Chicano students to advance beyond the eighth grade. As legal scholar Philippa Sturm and others have noted, claims of Mexican inferiority were grounded in racist pseudoscience of the time that deemed Mexicans to have different mental characteristics and an aptness for manual labor but not intellectual pursuits.4 It was, thus, no surprise that school districts across Southern California created separate Mexican schools to teach Mexican-American children skills suited to their needs and to Americanize them5 Separate school facilities were Anglo societys answer to the Mexican problem.6. Under oath, Kent said he believed people of Mexican descent were intellectually, culturally and morally inferior to European Americans. Felcitas said later that she never forgot Kents hate-laced testimony. Furthermore, they assertedlikely with Plessy in mindthe Mexican children received an equal education and had access to equal facilities. On day one, Marcus called to the stand an adverse witness, James L. Kent, the school superintendent for Garden Grove. Sylvia Mendez went on to earn degrees in nursing and became the Assistant Nursing Director of the Pediatric Pavilion at the Los Angeles University of Southern California Medical Center. Thats a city in Orange County, California. Around the country, other minority groups were waging similar battles. 166, 171 (1995). But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! But this time, Gonzalo and Felcitas Mndez didnt plan to walk away. But dramatic social change was occurring on a national level following World War II, and Orange County school officials would find their position on segregation coming under increasing attack. In 1947, parents won a federal lawsuit against several California school districts that had segregated Mexican-American schoolchildren. Sadly, neitherMndez v. WestminsternorBrown v. Board of Educationled to the complete integration of American schools. Whats the relationship between the Mendez case and Brown v. Board of Education, where you had the ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional? Gonzalo Mendez insisted that not only his children, but all Mexican-American students be given a quality education equal to their Anglo neighbors. In 1945, one couple in California won a significant victory in their struggle to secure the best education for thousands of Chicano children. The case successfully ended de jure segregation in California and paved the way for integration and the American civil rights movement.. Mendez grew up during a time when most southern . why was the case of Mendez v. Westminster filled. This series will report on jurisdictional elements, developments in active cases,. On March 18, 1946, Judge Paul McCormick ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the basis that the social, psychological, and pedagogical costs of segregated education were damaging to Mexican American students. But slowly the plaintiffs built their case. But its also unconstitutional because these separate schools are actually very unequal. Decision in favor of plaintiffs. That decision spurred other related changes in the Southwest region of the United States, and that change all stemmed from the pebbleor the legal decision in Mendez v. Westminster. The Santa Ana school districts immediately appealed the decision, setting up a rematch in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. And, as others have noted, Mendez paved the way for Brown. On-the-Go, Inc., creates two models of traveling cases for laptop computers: the Programmer and the Executive. He previously was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California. Listen to the full interview in the audio player above. He said Mexicans should be segregated like pigs in pigpens, she recalled. Eight-year-old Sylvia Mndez, the daughter of plaintiffs Gonzalo Mndez and Felicitas Mndez. Rethinking Schools. Instead, the curriculum at the Mexican schools was designed, as one district superintendent put it, to help these children take their place in society. A number of parents testified as to their racist and discriminatory experiences with the school districts. April 14, 1947: Mendez v. Westminster Court Ruling - Zinn Education Project This Day in History April 14, 1947: Mendez v. Westminster Court Ruling Time Periods: Cold War: 1945 - 1960 Themes: Education, Latinx Sylvia Mendez, one of Gonzalo and Felicitas's children who was turned away from her local school because of her ethnicity. David Marcus, the attorney and the Mendez case, argued that the Mexican-descent children were being denied their 14th Amendment rights, specifically the equal protection clause. At the time, neither really considered the full impact of their legal victory; they were content just to have righted a wrong in their community and to have protected their childrens future. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. But the Mndezes immediately rejected his offer. Gonzalo was naturalized just a few years before, and because Felcitas was born in a U.S. territory, she was a citizen by birth. Cal. Latino veterans formed civil rights groups and demanded change. The petition, notably, did not allege race discrimination. Realizing other Chicano families in the community faced the same problem, the Mndezes organized a group of Mexican parents to protest the segregation of their children in the shabbier school. Westminster School District of Orange County et al (1946) is an historic court case on racial segregation in the California public school system. They employed less-experienced teachers than the Anglo schools. Both Felcitas and Gonzalo were forced to abandon their education in grade school in order to support their families. Amicus curiae briefs were filed in this case by the . Rather, enrollment decisions were based entirely on last names and skin color, as evidenced by the experience of the Mndez children and their cousins. The school districts appealed, claiming that the federal courts did not have jurisdiction over education, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately upheld McCormicks decision on April 14, 1947, ruling that the schools actions violated California law. Because the Mexican school was in worse-off condition, the books were the old school books from the white school. It is Mexican American and its Black schoolchildren. Robert Carter later described his brief in the Mendez case as a trial run for what became Brown v Board of Education, says Strum. He called a number of powerful witnesses to the stand, including Mexican American schoolchildren who testified of the poor conditions in their schools, and social scientists who provided evidence on how feelings of inferiority negatively impacted learning and development. Felcitas Gmez emigrated to America from Juncos, Puerto Rico, when she was 10. 4 Philippa Strum, Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights 19 (2010). It is important to recognize their struggles and commitments. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Mendez trial court victory. During the trial, defense attorney Joel Ogle pointed out the 1896 Supreme Court decision inPlessy v. Fergusongave legal sanction to racial segregation, provided the separate facilities for different races were equal. Worn down by his persistence, the school superintendent finally agreed to make an exception for the Mndez children and admit them to the Anglo school. When the NAACP heard about Judge McCormicks decision, which directly challenged the constitutionality of race-based school segregation, it saw a strong test case for challenging segregation nationwide. Both had emigrated to the United States as young children. The court ruled in favour of the Mexican American students, a decision that led to a 1947 law forbidding all, in such prominent cases as Mendez v. Westminster (1946), which ended the segregation of Mexican Americans in California schools. Film. The long legacy of segregation has left its mark on our current educational system, and integration and equity are issues schools are still grappling with today. Mendez was not just important for Mexican-Americans; it was and is important for all Americans. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reached this historic decision in the case of Mendez v. Westminster in 1947seven years before Brown. See Brief for Petitioners at 5, Westminster School Dist. Cal. In his case in chief, Marcus set out to prove that Orange County discriminated against Mexican-Americans solely because of their lineage and that any claim of language handicap was mere pretense. The court stopped short, however, of condemning the separate but equal doctrine ofPlessy v. Ferguson. The school boards argued that students of Mexican heritage would Americanize faster if taught separately. They left behind a successful ranch in Chihuahua and found jobs as day laborers in the citrus groves of southern California. BEFORE BROWN, THERE WAS MENDEZ:. They stood up against the establishment.. Image courtesy of the U.S. Cal. Constance Baker Motley Essay Competition- 3rd Place Winner. California school boards claimed that they put Mexican Americans in their own schools in order to help them. Given the times and given the level of racism that was already baked into policies that were talking about here, what sort of argument did the plaintiffs use to show that this type of segregation was in fact, unconstitutional? The eighth grade and Ku Klux Klan launched full-scale rioting in Clinton, Tennessee response!, Inc., creates two models of traveling cases for laptop computers: the Programmer and the Executive Marcus. 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