| Sweatt v. Painter, et al. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued April 4, 1950 Decided June 5, 1950 | |
| Full case name | Heman Marion Sweatt v. Theophilus Shickel Painter |
| Citations | 339U.S.629 (more) 70 S. Ct. 848; 94L. Ed. 1114; 1950U.S. LEXIS 1809 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Cert. to the Supreme Court of Texas |
| Holding | |
| Segregation as applied to the admissions processes forlaw school in the United States violatesEqual Protection Clause of theFourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities in legal education are inherently unequal.Texas Supreme Court reversed. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | Vinson, joined byunanimous |
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), was aUnited States Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 casePlessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case ofBrown v. Board of Education four years later.[1]
The case involved ablack man,Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to theSchool of Law of theUniversity of Texas, whose president wasTheophilus Painter, on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education.[2] The Supreme Court ruled in favor of law student Sweatt, reasoning that the state's racially separate law school was in fact unequal. Nonetheless, the Court limited its ruling in finding that it was not [yet] necessary to
reach [Sweatt]'s contention thatPlessy v. Ferguson should be reexamined in the light of contemporary knowledge respecting the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment and the effects of racial segregation.[2]
The decision was delivered on the same day as another case involving similar issues,McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, also decided in favor of integrated graduate education.[3]
Heman Sweatt was originally refused admission to the University of Texas Law School in 1946, solely on the grounds that he was black.[4] Texas' 126th district court inTravis County, Texas, instead of granting the plaintiff a writ ofmandamus, continued the case for six months in 1946 and 1947.[5] This allowed the state time to create a law school only for black students, which it established inHouston rather than inAustin.[6] The 'separate' law school and the college became theThurgood Marshall School of Law atTexas Southern University.[a]
The Dean of the Law School at the time wasCharles T. McCormick. He wanted a separate law school for black students.[7]
Texas Attorney General at the time wasPrice Daniel who advocated fiercely for racial segregation.
The trial court decision was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court deniedwrit of error on further appeal. Sweatt and theNAACP next went to the federal courts, and the case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court.Robert L. Carter andThurgood Marshall presented Sweatt's case.[2]
The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to qualify, both because of quantitative differences in facilities and experiential factors, such as its isolation from most of the future lawyers with whom its graduates would interact. The court held that, when considering graduate education, experience must be considered as part of "substantive equality."[2] The court's decision documented the differences between white and black facilities:
On June 14, 2005, the Travis County Commissioners voted to rename the courthouse as The Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse in honor of Sweatt's endeavor and victory.[8]
Works related toSweatt v. Painter at WikisourceLocated in:Austin, Texas | |||||||||
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