Hamm v. Virginia State Board of Elections
| Decision Date | 28 April 1964 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 3127. |
| Citation | 230 F. Supp. 156 |
| Parties | E. Leslie HAMM et al., Plaintiffs, v. VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
Allison W. Brown, Jr., Washington, D. C., and Otto L. Tucker, Alexandria, Va., for plaintiffs.
Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen., R. D. McIlwaine, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., William J. Hassan, Commonwealth's Atty., Arlington, Va., Ralph G. Louk, Commonwealth's Atty., Fairfax, Va., Earl F. Wagner, Commonwealth's Atty., Alexandria, Va., for defendants.
Before ALBERT V. BRYAN, Circuit Judge, and LEWIS and BUTZNER, District Judges.
Certain Virginia statutes and a section of her constitution are here attacked by plaintiff Negro and white citizens of the State as violative of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments of the Federal constitution. The laws assailed deal with records relating to: (1) voting, (2) property tax assessments, and (3) divorce. Plaintiffs allege that provisions in the first category "require lists of persons who are qualified voters in Virginia to be maintained on a racially segregated basis."1 The second category is averred to "provide for the maintenance on a racially segregated basis of public records pertaining to property ownership and taxation".2 The divorce statute in suit directs that every decree of divorce must recite the race of the spouses.3 Besides asking for a declaration of the invalidity of these statutory and constitutional provisions, plaintiffs also "seek an injunction restraining the various governmental officials named as defendants from enforcing, executing or administering their provisions."
The "separate but equal" racial doctrine was condemned a decade ago in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). Subsequent decisional law has made it axiomatic that no State can directly dictate or casually promote a distinction in the treatment of persons solely on the basis of their color. To be within the condemnation, the governmental action need not effectuate segregation of facilities directly. Cf. Anderson v. Martin, 375 U.S. 399, 402, 84 S.Ct. 454, 11 L.Ed. 430 (1964). The result of the statute or policy must not tend to separate individuals by reason of difference in race or color. No form of State discrimination, no matter how subtle, is permissible under the guarantees of the Fourteenth amendment freedoms. See, e. g., Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 721-26, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961); National Ass'n for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama, ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 463, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958).
Although the legislative history of the provisions presently under examination cannot adequately be traced, it is evident from the language employed that, save for the divorce decree statute, they serve no other purpose than to classify and distinguish official records on the basis of race or color. Separation of white and colored on the poll tax, residence-certificate and registration lists as well as on the assessment rolls renders these provisions invalid under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth amendment.
Of course, the designation of race, just as sex or religious denomination, may in certain records serve a useful purpose, and the procurement and compilation of such information by State authorities cannot be outlawed per se. For example, the securing and chronicling of racial data for identification or statistical use violates no constitutional privilege. If the purpose is legitimate, the reason justifiable, then no infringement results. The infirmity of the provisions just mentioned lies in their mandate of separation of names by race.
Vital statistics, obviously, are aided by denotation in the divorce decrees of the race of the parties....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Holloway v. City of Va. Beach
...funds in form of tuition grants for white students only because it was school segregation on the basis of race.); Hamm v. Virginia State Board , 230 F.Supp. 156 (E.D. Va. 1964) (three-judge court), aff'd sub nom. Tancil v. Woolls , 379 U.S. 19, 85 S.Ct. 157, 13 L.Ed.2d 91 (1964) (holding th......
-
Smith v. Board of Education of Morrilton Sch. Dist. No. 32
...significance, Tancil v. Woolls, 379 U.S. 19, 85 S.Ct. 157, 13 L.Ed.2d 91 (1964), affirming per curiam Hamm v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 230 F.Supp. 156, 158 (E.D.Va.1964); McLaughlin v. State of Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 192, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed.2d 222 (1964), we feel that the Board's......
-
Palmer v. Thompson
...and its involvement promotes the ultimate discrimination which is sufficient to make it invalid." In Hamm v. Virginia State Board of Elections, E.D.Va.1964, 230 F.Supp. 156, aff'd Tancil v. Woolls, 379 U.S. 19, 85 S.Ct. 157, 13 L.Ed.2d 91 (1964), the Virginia law under attack required that ......
-
Maxwell v. Stephens
...poll tax receipts and on the poll tax books are unconstitutional is a question not yet finally resolved. Hamm v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 230 F.Supp. 156, 157-158 (E.D.Va.1964), summarily affd. sub nom. Tancil v. Woolls, 379 U.S. 19, 85 S.Ct. 157, 13 L.Ed.2d 91, appears to cast some......
-
Reconnecting doctrine and purpose: a comprehensive approach to strict scrutiny after Adarand and Shaw.
..."black" and "white." (122) Tancil v. Woolls, 379 U.S. 19 (1964) (per curiam), aff'g Hamm v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 230 F. Supp. 156 (E.D. Va. (123) Hamm, 230 F. Supp. at 158. (124) Id. (125) Id. (126) See, e.g., Caulfield v. Bd. of Educ., 583 F.2d 605, 611-12 (2d Cir. 1978) ("[T]h......
-
Principles, practices, and social movements.
...379 U.S. 19 (1964), the Supreme Court affirmed per curiam the lower court decision from Hamm v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 230 F. Supp. 156, 158 (E.D. Va. 1964), invalidating laws that separated voting and property records based on race, but upholding a law requiring that divorce de......