Bolling v. Sharpe

Infobox SCOTUS case
Litigants=Bolling v. Sharpe
ArgueDateA=December 10
ArgueDateB=11
ArgueYear=1952
ReargueDateA=December 8
ReargueDateB=9
ReargueYear=1953
DecideDate=May 17
DecideYear=1954
FullName=Spottswood Thomas Bolling, et al.,Petitioners, v. C. Melvin Sharpe, et al.
Citation=74 S. Ct. 693; 98 L. Ed. 884; 1954 U.S. LEXIS 2095; 53 Ohio Op. 331
USVol=347
USPage=497
Prior=Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Subsequent=
Holding=Racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia is a denial to Negro children of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
SCOTUS=1953-1954
Majority=Warren
JoinMajority="unanimous"
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. amend. V

"Bolling v. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497 (1954) was an influential United States Supreme Court landmark case dealing with civil rights concerning segregation in public schools. It is considered a 'companion' case to "Brown v. Board of Education", 347 U.S. 483 (1954) because while Brown addressed school desegregation in the context of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to the states so it was insufficient to answer the question of the validity of school segregation in the federal District of Columbia.

Background

Beginning in late 1949, a group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC, calling themselves the Consolidated Parents Group, petitioned the Board of Education of the District of Columbia to open the nearly completed John Phillip Sousa Junior High as an integrated school. The school board denied the petition and the school opened, admitting only whites. On September 11, 1950, Gardner Bishop, Nicholas Stabile and the Consolidated Parents Group attempted to get eleven African-American students (including the case's plaintiff, Spottswood Bolling) admitted to the school, but were refused entry by the school's principal.

This case setup up the theory of "reverse incoporation"

James Nabrit, a professor of law at the historically black Howard University filed suit on behalf of Bolling and the other students in the District Court for the District of Columbia seeking assistance in the students' admission. When the court dismissed the claim, the case was granted a writ of certiorari by the Supreme Court. It's worth noting that while Nabrit's argument in "Bolling" rested on the unconstitutionality of segregation, the much more famous "Brown v. Board of Education" (decided on the same day) argued that the idea of 'separate but equal' facilities mandated by "Plessy v. Ferguson", 163 U.S. 537 (1896) was a fallacy as the facilities for black students were woefully inadequate. Though the schools attended by the plaintiffs of "Bolling" were certainly in exceedingly poor shape, that issue was not addressed. The lead attorney for Bolling was George Edward Chalmer Hayes‎.

The decision

The court, led by newly confirmed Chief Justice Earl Warren decided unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs. In his opinion, he noted that while the 14th Amendment, whose Equal Protection Clause was cited in "Brown" in order to declare segregation unconstitutional did not apply in the District of Columbia, the Fifth Amendment did apply. Thus setting up the theory of "reverse incoporation" While the 5th Amendment which was applicable in D.C. lacked an equal protection clause, Warren held thatCquote|...the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. While equal protection is a more explicit safeguard against discrimination, the Court recognized thatCquote|...discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process. Referring to the technicalities raised by the case's location in the District of Columbia, the Court held that, in light of their decision in "Brown" that segregation in state public schools is prohibited by the constitution, it would be Cquote|...unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.

Finally holding that Cquote|...racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia is a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the 5th Amendment... the Court restored both "Bolling" and "Brown" to the docket until they could reconvene to discuss how to effectively implement the decisions.

Controversy

Some scholars have argued that the Court's decision in "Bolling" should have been reached on other grounds. For example, Judge Michael W. McConnell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit wrote that Congress never "required that the schools of the District of Columbia be segregated." [cite book
last=Balkin
first=J. M.
coauthors=Bruce A. Ackerman
others=et al.
title=What Brown v. Board of Education should have said : the nation's top legal experts rewrite America's landmark civil rights decision
url=http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN081479890X&id=gL1YYW3MOyAC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22required+that+the+schools+of+the+District+of+Columbia+%22&sig=wX2PNy9QJTPfRCmpvFb1lb96qck
accessdate=2008-05-15
year=2001
publisher=New York University Press
isbn=0814798896 9780814798898
oclc=47721772
pages=p. 168
chapter=Part II] According to that rationale, the segregation of schools in Washington D.C. was unauthorized and therefore illegal.

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 347

References

*caselaw source
case="Bolling v. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497 (1954)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./347/497/
findlaw=http://laws.findlaw.com/us/347/497.html
other_source1=LII
other_url1=http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct-cgi/get-us-cite?347+497
* [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN081479890X&id=gL1YYW3MOyAC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22required+that+the+schools+of+the+District+of+Columbia+%22&sig=wX2PNy9QJTPfRCmpvFb1lb96qck Michael W. McConnell in "What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said" 168 (Jack M. Balkin ed., N. Y. Univ. Press 2001)]