Legal Cases III: Reading Questions

Plessy v. Ferguson (169-176)

1. When was the NAACP founded? What was one of its primary goals (170)?

2. How did the NAACP use the precedent of the 1886 case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins (170)?

3. What was the first part of the NAACP’s legal strategy (170-1)?

4. When did the NAACP mount its legal campaign against the “separate” in “separate but equal” (171)?

5. Does Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declare the Constitution “color-blind” (172)?

6. In 1978 what did the Court decide in the Bakke case (172)? Does Bakke allow for quotas in affirmative action programs (173)? What, according to Justice Blackmun, is the paradox of affirmative action (175)?

7. What are two meanings of the "color-blind" metaphor (174-6)?

Mendez v. Westminster (1947)

1. How is World War II related to Mexican-American protests against segregated schools (282)?

2. How did the Orange County School Board justify the segregation of Mexican-American children (282)?

3. What was the outcome of Mendez (282)?

4. Why doesn't Plessy apply to Mendez (282)?

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

1. The first argument of this case occurred in 1952. Re-argument occurred 1954. Much of the re-argument concerned the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment in respect to segregated schools. What does the Court decide about that intention (285)?

2. Why doesn't the Court confine itself to considering "tangible" factors in deciding whether or not segregated schools are equal? What does it look at instead (286)?

3. What role, according to the Court, does public education play in US society (286)?

4. What, according to the Court, is the effect of segregated schools on black children? How does the Court support its conclusion (287 and 290-1 n.11)?

5. What does the Court decide about segregated schools of any kind (287)?

Discussion Questions

See the Plessy book (190-2).

1. Consider questions16, 17 in the Plessy book.

2. The majority of the scientific community in the late nineteenth century supported theories of white supremacy. Those scientific beliefs indirectly justified the Court's ruling in Plessy. In Brown the Court turned to new evidence from social scientists to prove that segregated schools produced a sense of inferiority in black children. Should we trust that evidence any more that the scientific evidence of the late nineteenth century? What would happen if new social science evidence suggested that segregated schools had a positive effect on children of various races?

3. In Mendez Justice McCormick advocated "assimilation through integration." He argued that "Commingling of the entire student body instills and develops a common cultural attitude among the school children which is imperative for the perpetuation of American institutions and ideals." . Do you agree with Justice McCormick's assimilation model? Are there other models available? What are their strengths and weaknesses? (See, for instance, B.T. Washington's metaphor of the hand [Plessy 122].)