Sweatt v. Painter

339 U.S. 629 (1950), argued 4 Apr. 1950, decided 5 June 1950 by vote of 9 to 0; Vinson for the unanimous Court. Sweatt v. Painter is a landmark decision in the history of United States race relations. Although the ruling was a more narrow holding than the decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), it nonetheless made clear that the separate but equal standard established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was unattainable—at least in state‐supported higher education. By implication, the principle was not achievable in any area of public life.

Heman Marion Sweatt was a Houston, Texas, mail carrier intent on becoming a lawyer. Having been denied admission to the University of Texas law school in 1946 because he was an African‐American, Sweatt sought the assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and its chief legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall. An involved legal battle ensued while Texas scrambled to establish an accredited law school for African‐Americans within the state, as required by the Supreme Court in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938).

Speaking for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson concluded that a newly created state law school for African‐Americans in Texas was in no objective way equal to the University of Texas Law School. Even if it were, Vinson wrote, it would still lack the nonmeasurable elements that made a distinguished law school, among which were faculty reputation, alumni prestige, tradition, and history, a test no recent school could meet. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment thus required Sweatt's admission to the previously all‐white state university law school. The decision made clear that statutory segregation was doomed, whether by piecemeal dismemberment or one sweeping judicial thrust.

See also Race and Racism.

— Augustus M. Burns III

• 339 U.S. 629 (1950)
• Vote: 9–0
• For the Court: Vinson

Herman Marion Sweatt was a post office worker in Houston, Texas, who wanted to become a lawyer. He applied for admission to the law school of the University of Texas. Sweatt's application to this racially segregated law school was turned down solely because he was black.

Sweatt turned for help to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its chief legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall, who would later become an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The NAACP and Sweatt filed suit to demand his admission to the University of Texas. The trial court judge continued, or postponed, the case for six months to give the state government time to set up a law school for black people that could admit Herman Sweatt. At the end of the six-month period, the judge dismissed Sweatt's suit because the state was setting up a law school to which he could be admitted.

Sweatt, however, was not satisfied. He claimed that the new law school for blacks would be greatly inferior to the University of Texas law school. But the Texas courts decided that the two law schools—one for whites and the other for blacks—were “sub-stantially equivalent.” Sweatt and the NAACP appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Issue

This case was a test of the “separate but equal” doctrine established by the Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Did the separate Texas law schools—one for white students and the other for blacks—satisfy the 14th Amendment requirement that “No state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”?

Opinion of the Court

The Supreme Court decided in favor of Sweatt. Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson concluded that the new law school for black students could not be equal to the University of Texas law school, which had a long tradition, a highly regarded faculty, and ample resources. The racially segregated law schools of Texas violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Significance

This decision was a clear rejection of the long-standing “separate but equal” doctrine set forth in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and it pointed the way to a more sweeping decision against that doctrine that occurred four years later in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

See also Brown v. Board of Education; Civil rights; Equality under the Constitution; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Plessy v. Ferguson; Segregation, de facto and de jure

Sweatt v. Painter, et al.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 4, 1950 Decided June 5, 1950
Full case name	Heman Marion Sweatt v. Theophilus Shickel Painter
Citations	339 U.S. 629 (more) 70 S. Ct. 848; 94 L. Ed. 1114; 1950 U.S. LEXIS 1809
Prior history	Cert. to the Supreme Court of Texas
Holding
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that petitioner be admitted to the University of Texas Law School.
Court membership
Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas Robert H. Jackson · Harold H. Burton Tom C. Clark · Sherman Minton
Case opinions
Majority	Vinson, joined by unanimous

Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson.

The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the University of Texas School of Law on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. At the time, no law school in Texas would admit blacks.

The Texas trial court, instead of granting the plaintiff a writ of mandamus, continued the case for six months. This allowed the state time to create a law school only for blacks, which it established in Houston, Texas, rather than in Austin. The 'separate' law school and the college became today's Texas Southern University; the law school is known as the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

The trial court decision was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court denied writ of error on further appeal. Sweatt and the NAACP appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. W.J. Durham and Thurgood Marshall presented Sweatt's case.

The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to qualify, both because of quantitative differences in facilities and intangible 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, intangibles must be considered as part of "substantive equality." The documentation of the court's decision includes the following differences identified between white and black facilities:

• the University of Texas Law School had 16 full-time and 3 part-time professors, while the black law school had 5 full-time professors.
• the University of Texas Law School had 850 students and a law library of 65,000 volumes, while the black law school had 23 students and a library of 16,500 volumes.
• the University of Texas Law School had moot court facilities, an Order of the Coif affiliation, and numerous graduates involved in public and private law practice, while the black law school had only one practice court facility and only one graduate admitted to the Texas Bar.

Lead attorney on Sweatt, Judge Robert L. Carter with the dean of Fordham Law School, William Treanor

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 339
• Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla. - 332 U.S. 631 (1948)
• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents - 339 U.S. 637 (1950)

References

State of Texas vs. NAACP case records, 1911-1961 1945-1961. Description: photocopied documents. 2 microfilm reels. Summary: Records document the 1956-1957 lawsuit that, in effect, outlawed the NAACP in Texas until the 1960s and also reflects the progress of the civil rights movement from the late 1940s to the 1960s.

Byron and Rannie Cook Papers, 1944-1962, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Summary: Correspondence, newspapers, clippings, broadsides, ephemera, speeches, programs, notes, platforms, annual reports, printed material, magazines and artifacts relate to the Cook's involvement with the National Alliance of Postal Workers (Houston Chapter), the NAACP in Houston, service at the U.S. Post Office at Houston, the Progressive Party, the Henry Wallace presidential campaign, Leonard Sweatt, Heman Sweatt, John Butler and with unions.

The items above and other important material can be found in the University of Texas Library system at this link: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/librarymap/cah.html

External links

• Works related to Sweatt v. Painter at Wikisource
• Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com
• Sweatt v. Painter archive

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