Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that
justified and permitted racial segregation as not being in breach of
the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which guaranteed
equal protection under the law to all citizens, and other federal civil rights
laws. Under the doctrine, government was allowed to require that services,
facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education,
employment, and transportation be separated along racial lines, provided
that the quality of each group's public facilities was equal. The phrase was
derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the
phrase "equal but separate." The doctrine was confirmed in the Plessy
v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation.
Though segregation laws existed before that case, the decision emboldened
segregation states during the Jim Crow era, which had commenced in 1876 and
replaced the Black Codes, which had restricted the civil rights and civil
liberties of African Americans with no pretense of equality during the
Reconstruction Era. 17 states had various institutionalized separation
laws. The doctrine was overturned by a series
of Supreme Court decisions starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
However, the overturning of legal separation laws in the United States was
a long process that lasted through much of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s involving
many court cases and federal legislation.
Origins The American Civil War brought slavery
in the United States to an end. Following the war, the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteed equal protection
under the law to all citizens, and Congress established the Freedmen's
Bureau to assist the integration of former slaves into Southern society.
After the end of Reconstruction in 1877, former slave-holding states enacted
various laws to undermine the equal treatment of African Americans, although
the Fourteenth Amendment as well as federal Civil Rights laws enacted during
reconstruction were meant to guarantee it. However Southern states contended
that the requirement of equality could be met in a manner that kept the races
separate. Furthermore, the state and federal courts tended to reject the
pleas by African Americans that their Fourteenth Amendment rights were
violated, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to federal, not
state, citizenship. This rejection is evident in the Slaughter-House Cases and
Civil Rights Cases. After the end of Reconstruction, the
federal government adopted a general policy of leaving racial segregation up
to the individual states. One example of this policy was the second Morrill Act.
Before the end of the war, the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act had provided
federal funding for higher education by each state with the details left to the
state legislatures. The 1890 Act which implicitly accepted the legal concept of
separate but equal for the 17 states which had institutionalized segregation.
Provided, That no money shall be paid out under this act to any State or
Territory for the support and maintenance of a college where a
distinction of race or color is made in the admission of students, but the
establishment and maintenance of such colleges separately for white and
colored students shall be held to be a compliance with the provisions of this
act if the funds received in such State or Territory be equitably divided as
hereinafter set forth. Prior to the Second Morrill Act, 17
states excluded blacks from access to the land grant colleges without
providing similar educational opportunities. In response to the Second
Morrill Act, 17 states established separate land grant colleges for blacks
which are now referred to as public historically black colleges and
universities. In fact, some states adopted laws prohibiting schools from
educating blacks and whites together, even if a school was willing to do so..)
Under the 'separate but equal doctrine', blacks were entitled to receive the same
public services and accommodations such as schools, bathrooms, and water
fountains, but states were allowed to maintain different facilities for the
two groups. The legitimacy of such laws under the 14th Amendment was upheld by
the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537. The
Plessy doctrine was extended to the public schools in Cumming v. Richmond
County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528. Although the Constitutional doctrine
required equality, the facilities and social services offered to
African-Americans were almost always of lower quality than those offered to
white Americans; for example, many African American schools received less
public funding per student than nearby white schools. In Texas, the state
established a state-funded law school for white students without any law
school for black students. In 1892, Homer Plessy, who was of mixed
ancestry and appeared to be white, boarded an all-white railroad car
between New Orleans and Covington, Louisiana. The conductor of the train
collected passenger tickets at their seats. When Plessy told the conductor he
was 7/8ths white and 1/8th black, he was advised he needed to move to a
coloreds-only car. Plessy said he resented sitting in a coloreds-only car
and was arrested immediately. One month after his arrest, Plessy
appeared in court before Judge John Howard Ferguson. Plessy's lawyer, Albion
Tourgee, claimed Plessy’s 13th and 14th amendment rights were violated. The 13th
amendment abolished slavery, and the 14th amendment granted equal protection
to all under the law. The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v.
Ferguson established the phrase "separate but equal". The ruling
"[required] railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that
State to provide equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and colored
races…". Accommodations provided on each railroad car were required to be the
same as those provided on the others. Separate railroad cars could be
provided. The railroad could refuse service to passengers who refused to
comply, and the Supreme Court ruled this did not infringe upon the 13th and 14th
amendments. The "separate but equal" doctrine
applied to railroad cars and to schools, voting rights, and drinking fountains.
Segregated schools were created for students, as long as they followed
"separate but equal". The notion that they were equal though has been
controversial. For example, the majority of all black schools received old
textbooks, used equipment, and poorly prepared or trained teachers. A study
conducted by the American Psychological Association found that black students
were emotionally impaired when segregated at a young age. Furthermore,
many black students were forced to associate with "white dolls" or colors
similar, but lighter, than their own skin. State voting right restrictions,
such as literacy tests and poll taxes created an environment that made it
almost impossible for blacks to vote. This era also saw separate drinking
fountains in public areas. The "Separate but Equal" doctrine was
eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Brown v.
Board of Education in 1954. But African Americans were still not equal; poorer
services and restrictions on voting rights still limited them throughout the
United States, and they still were not granted more political and social power
than before. Rejection
The repeal of such restrictive laws, generally known as Jim Crow laws, was a
key focus of the Civil Rights Movement prior to 1954. In Sweatt v. Painter, the
Supreme Court addressed a legal challenge to the doctrine by a student
seeking admission to a state supported law school in Texas. Because Texas did
not have a law school for blacks, the lower court delayed the case until Texas
could create one. However, the Supreme Court ordered that the student be
admitted to the white law school on the grounds that the separate school failed
to qualify as being "equal," 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 same day, the Supreme Court in McLaurin v.
Oklahoma State Regents ruled that Oklahoma segregation laws which required
a graduate student working on a Doctor of Education degree to sit in the
hallway outside the classroom door did not qualify as 'separate but equal.'
These cases ended 'separate but equal' in graduate and professional education.
In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, attorneys for the NAACP referred to
the phrase "equal but separate" used in Plessy v. Ferguson as a custom de jure
racial segregation enacted into law. The NAACP, led by the soon-to-be first black
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, was successful in challenging the
constitutional viability of the separate but equal doctrine, and the court voted
to overturn sixty years of law that had developed under Plessy. The Supreme
Court outlawed segregated public education facilities for blacks and
whites at the state level. The companion case of Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497
outlawed such practices at the Federal level in the District of Columbia. The
court held: We conclude that, in the field of public
education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought
are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Even though the constitutionality of separate but equal in education had been
overturned, it would be almost ten more years before the Civil Rights Act of
1964 would extinguish the application of separate but equal in all areas of
public accommodations such as transportation and hotels. Additionally,
in 1967 under Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court declared
Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924",
unconstitutional, and invalidating all anti-miscegenation laws in the United
States. Although federal legislation prohibits racial discrimination in
college admissions, the historically black colleges and universities continue
to teach student bodies that are 75% to 90% African American. This however does
not indicate racial discrimination within college admissions in those
schools. It perhaps speaks more to student preference. In 1975, Jake Ayers
Sr. filed a lawsuit against Mississippi, stating that they gave more financial
support to the predominantly white public colleges. The state settled the
lawsuit in 2002, directing $503 million to three historically black colleges
over 17 years. See also
Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States
Jim Crow Laws Civil union
References Further reading
Roche, John P.. "The Future of "Separate but Equal"". Phylon 12: 219–226.
External links A film clip A Study of Educational
Inequalities in South Carolina is available for free download at the
Internet Archive Cornell Legal Information Institute