| Cooper v. Aaron | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued September 11, 1958 Decided September 12, 1958 | |
| Full case name | William G. Cooper, et al., Members of the Board of Directors of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Independent School District, and Virgial T. Blossom, Superintendent of Schools v. John Aaron, et al. |
| Citations | 358U.S.1 (more) 78 S. Ct. 1401; 3L. Ed. 2d 5; 1958U.S. LEXIS 657; 79 Ohio L. Abs. 452 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Suspension of order granted, 163F. Supp.13 (E.D. Ark 1958); reversed, 257F.2d33 (8th Cir. 1958);cert. granted,358 U.S. 29 (1958). |
| Subsequent | Opinion announced September 29, 1958 |
| Holding | |
| This Court cannot countenance a claim by the Governor and Legislature of a State that there is no duty on state officials to obey federal court orders resting on this Court's considered interpretation of theUnited States Constitution inBrown v. Board of Education (1954). | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Warren, joined byunanimous |
| Concurrence | Frankfurter |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV;Supremacy Clause | |
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958),[1] was alandmark decision of theSupreme Court of the United States that denied the school board ofLittle Rock, Arkansas the right to delay racialdesegregation for 30 months. On September 12, 1958, theWarren Court delivered a decision that held that thestates are bound by the Court's decisions and must enforce them even if the states disagree with them, asserting thejudicial supremacy established inMarbury v. Madison (1803). The decision in this case upheld the rulings inBrown v. Board of Education andBrown II that had held that the doctrine ofseparate but equal wasunconstitutional.
In the wake ofBrown v. Board of Education (1954), the school district ofLittle Rock, Arkansas formulated a plan todesegregate its schools. Meanwhile, other school districts in the stateopposed the Supreme Court's rulings and did not make any attempts to desegregate their schools.[2]: 348 TheArkansas state legislature amended thestate constitution in 1956 to oppose desegregation and then passed a law relieving children from mandatory attendance atintegrated schools.
Caught between the Arkansas voters and the federal government, GovernorOrval Faubus agreed to file a lawsuit in state court to enjoin the school board's integration plan.[2]: 350
On September 3 1957, the school board filed suit in theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, seeking to delay their plan, but the district court ordered them to proceed.[3]: 91 In response, Faubus ordered the National Guard to physically block theLittle Rock Nine from entering the school.[2]: 352 On September 20, the federal district court enjoined Faubus from obstructing desegregation orders.[4] Faubus withdrew the National Guard, and according to some accounts, encouraged the mob violence that followed.[2]: 345
State government officials continued to fan the flames. The actions of the Arkansas governor, especially deploying the National Guard to obstruct desegregation, and rumors that he encouraged vigilantism, most likely escalated the state's conflict with President Eisenhower. Eisenhower demanded that the mob disperse immediately, and deployed federal troops when that order was ignored.[5]: 451 [6]
On February 20, 1958 the school board filed a petition in the district court seeking to delay desegregation because of the danger and disruption to education that would be caused by the public's hostility to the desegregation plan.[5]: 453 The district court granted the school board's request, finding there was "chaos, bedlam and turmoil" at the school, threats of violence against black students, unrest that had an adverse impact on the school's educational purpose, and that the school board could not be expected to carry out the desegregation plan without "military assistance or its equivalent".[7] TheUnited States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed to hear the case after theNAACP, represented byThurgood Marshall, appealed. Once the court of appeals handed down its decision in favor of the defendants, the school board appealed to the Supreme Court, which met in a rare summer session to hear arguments.[5]: 452
During oral arguments JusticesHarlan andFrankfurter noted that the record supported a conclusion that official state actions had instigated much of the local unrest. The attorney for the school board said it was "a head-on collision between the Federal and State Governments" that was beyond the school board's control.The Supreme Court was not inclined to tolerate the state government's challenge of its authority.[8]: 398 The NAACP emphasized the stack of defiant legislative measures awaiting the governor's signature in Arkansas as evidence of officially-sanctioned lawlessness in the state. The President supported this view as well, and his administration argued asamicus for a decision based on the Supremacy Clause.[8]: 399
On September 12, 1958, the Supreme Court issued an opinion jointly authored by all nine Justices—the only instance of that occurring on record—but primarily drafted byJustice Brennan. The Court noted that the school board had acted in good faith, asserting that most of the problems stemmed from the official opposition of theArkansas state government toracial integration. Nonetheless, it was constitutionally impermissible to maintain law and order by depriving the black students of theirequal rights under the law.[8]: 387
More importantly, the Court held that theSupremacy Clause ofArticle VI made theUS Constitution the supreme law of the land andMarbury v. Madison (1803) made the Supreme Court the final interpreter of the Constitution.[9] This point was targeted by critics of the decision, most famouslyAlexander Bickel, who wrote inThe Least Dangeous Branch that Supreme Court decisions only bind the parties before the Court.[8]: 388
The Court rejected the contention that the Arkansas legislature and Governor were not bound by theBrown decision. The Supreme Court also rejected the doctrines ofnullification andinterposition in this case, which had been invoked by segregationists. Segregation supporters argued that the states have the power to nullify federal laws or court rulings that they believe to be unconstitutional and the states could use this power to nullify theBrown decision. The Arkansas laws that attempted to prevent desegregation were Arkansas' effort to nullify theBrown decision. The Supreme Court held that theBrown decision "can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation." Thus,Cooper v. Aaron held that state attempts to nullify federal law are ineffective.
Moreover, since public officials are required to swear anoath to uphold the Constitution (as per Article VI, Clause 3), the officials who ignored the supremacy of the Court's precedent in theBrown case violated their oaths.[10]Cooper also maintained that even though education is the responsibility of the state government, that responsibility must be carried out in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment.
Justice Frankfurter wrote separately to say that "[v]iolent resistance to the law" could not be endorsed by the law "to enthrone official lawlessness".
Despite all nine Justices signing the opinion,Justice Frankfurter published a separate, concurring, opinion. He was, however, dissuaded from announcing it the same day as the main opinion by Justices Brennan andBlack, who felt a unanimous decision would emphasize how strongly the Court felt about the issue. Frankfurter's opinion did not directly contradict the majority opinion, but it did reemphasize the importance of judicial supremacy and expressed disdain for the Arkansas State Legislature's actions.[8]
Some legal scholars criticized the Court's rationale inCooper. Perhaps the most famous criticism of the case was that of formerUS Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese, in a law review article entitledThe Law of the Constitution.[11] There, Meese accused the Court of taking too much power for itself by setting itself up as the sole institution responsible for the interpretation of the Constitution. He wrote that while judicial interpretation of the Constitution binds the parties of the case, it should not establish a supreme law of the land that must be accepted by all persons.
Alexander Bickel said rhetoric invoking the Supremacy Clause was illusory: "[T]he decisive issue. . . going beyond the fictions ofMarbury v. Madison, was the correctness of the Court's desegregation opinion."[8]: 390
Cooper v. Aaron articulated the principle that the Supreme Court's decisions are final, overriding all state and public officials.
Chief JusticeJohn Marshall wrote inMarbury,declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by the Court and the country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system. 358 U.S. 1, 18
it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. U.S. (1 Cranch) at 177
