School Desegregation Court Cases: Mendez v. Westminster and Brown v. Board

This activity can be used during a unit on civil rights, school desegregation, or Hispanic or Latinx history. Students should already be familiar with the impact of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. For grades 9-12. Approximate time needed is 30-45 minutes.

To begin, ask students to define “separate but equal” in their own words. Ask them to share examples of “separate but equal.” You may wish to review the Brown v. Board of Education decision and implementation of that ruling.

After having this discussion, divide the class into small groups. Ask each group to divide up the petition that is featured in this activity so that each student reads one to three pages (the document is nine pages total). Instruct students to open the activity and click on “View Primary Source Details” to see all of the pages, then to navigate to their respective pages. (Alternatively, the activity can be assigned individually to be completed at home or in school.)

Each group member should report back to their group on the content of what they read. Then as a group, they should answer the discussion questions provided beneath the document on the activity page:

• Who are the petitioners in the case? [Answer: Orange County Latino parents whose children were barred from attending their neighborhood schools and were instead forced to attend schools reserved for children of “Mexican and Latin” descent]
• Who are the respondents in the case? [Answer: Four local school districts in Orange County, California: Westminster, Garden Grove, and El Modeno school districts, and the City of Santa Ana]
• On what grounds do the petitioners state that their children are unable to attend certain schools? [Answer: Solely because of their “Mexican or Latin descent”]
• Specifically what rights do the petitioners state have been violated? [Answer: Schools were violating students’ civil rights by segregating students of “Mexican and Latin” ancestry in separate schools, and their rights as citizens as provided by the Constitution, and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in particular.]
• What do the petitioners request be done to rectify the situation? [Answer: That the schools be compelled to admit all students to all schools, and not be allowed to exclude any students]

Pause students’ group work to conduct a full-class discussion of students’ responses.

Ask students to return to the activity and click on “When You’re Done,” where they will be tasked with the following:

• Compare the Mendez v. Westminster case (1947) with what you know about the later Brown v. Board of Education case (1954).
  • What are some similarities?
  • What are some differences?
• In Mendez, the federal judge (in a U.S. District Court) agreed with the parents and ordered the school districts to stop segregating students. He stated that there was no justification in the laws of California to segregate Mexican children and that doing so was a “clear denial of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”
  • Do you think the outcome of the Mendez case influenced the Brown case? Why or why not?

Discuss students’ responses to these questions. You may also provide the following additional background information:

In the Fall of 1944, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez tried to enroll their children in the Main Street School in Orange County, California, which Gonzalo had attended as a child. However, the school district had redrawn boundary lines that excluded Mexican neighborhoods. The Mendez children were assigned to Hoover Elementary School, which was established for Mexican children.

 

Other Latino parents faced similar situations with their children. With the help of the United Latin American Citizens (LUCAC), they joined with the Mendez family and sued four local school districts in Orange County for segregating their children and 5,000 others. The landmark case came to be known as Mendez v. Westminster School District.

 

During the U.S. District Court trial, Orange County superintendents used stereotypical imagery of Mexicans to explain the basis of school policy. One declared, “Mexicans are inferior in personal hygiene, ability, and in their economic outlook.” He further stated that their lack of English prevented them from learning Mother Goose rhymes and that they had hygiene deficiencies – like lice, impetigo, tuberculosis, and generally dirty hands, neck, faces, and ears – warranting their separation.

 

The attorney for Mendez, David Marcus, called in expert social scientists as witnesses to address the stereotypes. He had 14-year-old Carol Torres take the stand to counter claims that Mexican children did not speak English. Felicitas Mendez also gave testimony about her family life: “We always tell our children they are Americans.” Marcus also challenged the constitutionality of education segregation based on the 14th Amendment.

 

U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. McCormick concurred with the petitioners, issuing an injunction against the school districts’ segregation policies. The school districts filed an appeal, partly on the basis of a states’ rights strategy. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court upheld the District Court ruling in 1947, and the Orange County school districts dropped the case.

 

Mendez v. Westminster School District landed an important blow to school segregation in California. And it underscored that the struggle for civil rights in America crossed regional, racial, and ethnic lines. Amicus curiae briefs were filed in this case by the NAACP (coauthored by Thurgood Marshall, who would later be the attorney to argue Brown v. Board of Education) and several other civil rights organizations, including the American Jewish Congress, the ACLU, the Japanese American League and the National Lawyers Guild. The case resulted in the California legislature passing the Anderson bill, a measure that repealed all California school codes mandating segregation. The bill was signed by Governor Earl Warren (who would go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and deliver the unanimous ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board).