Public Racial Discrimination After Plessy v. Ferguson

Public Discrimination: Discrimination by the government or government employees.
- Examples: Laws passed by the legislature (like in Plessy v. Ferguson), actions by police officers or public school teachers.
Private Discrimination: Discrimination by private businesses or individuals not working for the government.
- Example: Discrimination in private businesses like theaters and inns, as seen in the Civil Rights Cases.
The court approaches public and private discrimination differently.
This video focuses on public racial discrimination after Plessy v. Ferguson.

Established in Plessy v. Ferguson, leading to government-required segregation and racial discrimination.
Overturning Plessy required either a constitutional amendment or a reversal by the Supreme Court.
A constitutional amendment was deemed politically impossible, requiring approval from 38 states.

Thurgood Marshall's Background:
- Denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School due to his race.
- Attended Howard University Law School, graduating first in his class.
- Sued the University of Maryland for denying his admission and won.
Marshall worked for the NAACP, defending falsely accused black defendants and aiming to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, specifically concerning segregation in public education.
Strategy: Bring a series of cases to the Supreme Court to challenge the logical basis of Plessy.

Lloyd Gaines, a qualified black applicant, was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School because it only admitted white applicants.
Missouri offered to pay for Gaines to attend law school in another state, claiming this was separate but equal.
The Supreme Court ruled that states cannot avoid offering services to non-whites by sending them out of state, but it did not overturn Plessy.
The court stated that denying a Negro resident the same legal education within the state that a white resident receives is a denial of equality.
This case obligated states to provide graduate education for black students.

Heman Sweatt, a qualified black applicant, was denied admission to the University of Texas Law School solely based on his race.
Texas created a separate law school for black students in Austin, but Sweatt refused to attend and filed a lawsuit.
The Supreme Court sided with Sweatt, arguing that the separate law school was far from equal to the University of Texas Law School, but the court did not overturn Plessy.
The court looked at tangible inequalities:
- The law school for Negroes had no independent faculty or library.
- Teaching was to be carried on by four members of the University of Texas law school faculty.
- Few of the 10,000 volumes ordered for the library had arrived nor was there any full time librarian.
- The school lacked accreditation.
The court also noted intangible factors which contribute to inequality:
- Reputation of the faculty.
- Experience of the administration.
- Position and influence of the alumni.
- Standing in the community.
- Traditions, and prestige.
The court argued that the separation itself negatively impacted the quality of education because black students would not have the opportunity to interact with whites, who constituted 85% of the state's population and included most lawyers, witnesses, jurors, judges, and other officials.

George McLaurin, an African American man, was admitted to the University of Oklahoma graduate education program to avoid a lawsuit.
The university imposed restrictions on him:
- Required to sit apart at a designated desk in an anteroom adjoining the classroom.
- Designated desk on the Mezzanine floor of the library, but not to use the desks in the regular reading room.
- Designated table and to eat at a different time from the other students in the school cafeteria.
Oklahoma argued that McLaurin enjoyed tangible equality because he had access to all the same facilities as the white students, but the Court disagreed.
The Supreme Court found that even if tangible equality existed, intangible inequality also violates the constitution.
The court noted that his training will be unequal to that of his classmates.
State imposed restrictions which produce such inequalities cannot be sustained.

Gaines, Sweatt, and McLaurin meant that states had to provide graduate education for non-white students and had to do so in the same institution.
These cases laid the groundwork for overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, which finally happened in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).