Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 (1899), properly J. W. Cumming, James S. Harper, and John C. Ladeveze, Plaintiffs in Error v. County Board of Education of Richmond County, State of Georgia, was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
It is a landmark case, for it allowed the segregation of
races in American schools. The supreme court over turned their
decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
In 1897, the board levied a tax in Richmond County, Georgia.
With this tax it supported only the white schools. Colored parents
and tax payers objected to this tax, and filed a lawsuit. The case was fought in Georgia up to the supreme court of Georgia, after that
it became before the federal Supreme Court to rule
on the constitutionality.
The case was lost by the plaintiffs, and this decision gave legal
standing to the segregation of schools.
The decision defends this, among others, with an economic argument.
It claims that there are much more colored children than
white children in that area. And schooling could not be afforded
for everybody. Hence it framed the decision to be a choice between education
60 white children or no education for anybody.
The constitutional issues were dealt with simply by referring
to the state. Quoting from the decision:
- Under the circumstances disclosed, we cannot say that this
- action of the state court was, within the meaning of the
- Fourteenth Amendment, a denial by the state to the plaintiffs
- and to those associated with them of the equal protection of the
- laws or of any privileges belonging to them as citizens of the
- United States. [...]
- the education of the people in schools maintained by state
- taxation is a matter belonging to the respective states, and any
- interference on the part of Federal authority with the management
- of such schools cannot be justified except in the case of a clear
- and unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land.
The 'hostility to the colored population' is addressed in the final remark as follows:
- If, in some appropriate proceeding instituted directly for that purpose,
- the plaintiffs had sought to compel the board of education,
- out of the funds in its hands or under its control,
- to establish and maintain a high school for colored children,
- and if it appeared that the board's refusal to maintain such a school
- was in fact an abuse of its discretion and in hostility
- to the colored population because of their race,
- different questions might have arisen in the state court.
See also
