Gebhart v. Belton
| Decision Date | 28 August 1952 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 15-18,s. 15-18 |
| Citation | 91 A.2d 137,33 Del.Ch. 144 |
| Parties | GEBHART et al. v. BELTON et al. GEBHART et al. v. BULAH et al. BELTON et al. v. GEBHART et al. BULAH et al. v. GEBHART et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
H. Albert Young, Atty. Gen., and Louis J. Finger, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellants and cross-appellees.
Louis L. Redding, of Wilmington, and Jack Greenberg, of New York City, for appellees and cross-appellants.
Two cases, alike in respect of basic principles of law, but differing in respect of the facts, were filed in the court below by certain citizens of Negro blood, seeking the admittance of the plaintiffs 1 to public schools maintained for white pupils only. The first case, brought against the members of the State Board of Education and certain other school officials, concerns the claim of the plaintiffs, Ethel Louise Belton and others, residents in the Claymont Special School District in New Castle County and all of high school age, to be admitted to the high school maintained in that district for white pupils. The second case, brought against the members of the State Board of Education and certain other school officials, concerns the claim of the plaintiff, Shirley Barbara Bulah, a resident of Hockessin, New Castle County, to be admitted to School No. 29, an elementary school at Hockessin maintained for white pupils.
The relief sought in each case is a declaratory judgment that the provisions of the Delaware Constitution and laws requiring segregation in the public schools are in contravention of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, and also an injunction restraining the defendants from denying the plaintiffs admittance to the schools maintained for white pupils.
The cases were consolidated and tried before the Chancellor, who rendered a judgment denying the prayers of the complaints for a declaratory judgment but enjoining the defendants from refusing the plaintiffs admittance to the schools for whites. 87 A.2d 862.
It appears from the pleadings and testimony that the following issues were made below and determined by the Chancellor and are here for review:
I. Do the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to deny to any citizen the equal protection of the laws forbid segregation of pupils in the public schools on the basis of color?
II. If state-imposed segregation is not in itself unlawful, are the educational facilities afforded by the State to the plaintiffs substantially equal to those afforded white pupils similarly situated?
Upon the authority of applicable decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States the Chancellor resolved the first question in the negative. Upon a review of the evidence pertaining to the second question he held, first, as to the plaintiffs Ethel Louise Belton and others, that the educational facilities afforded them, i.e., those of the Howard High School in the City of Wilmington, maintained for Negro pupils, are substantially inferior to those of the Claymont High School; and second, as to the plaintiff Shirley Barbara Bulah, that the educational facilities afforded her, i.e., elementary school No. 107 at Hockessin, maintained for Negro pupils, are substantially inferior to those of School No. 29.
We take up these questions in the above order.
Article X of the Constitution of the State of Delaware provides in part as follows:
Paragraph 2631, Revised Code of Delaware 1935 provides as follows:
Do these provisions, in so far as they require segregation in the public schools based on race or color, offend against the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, forbidding any state to deny to any citizen the equal protection of the laws?
The leading case in the Supreme Court of the United States approving the right of a state to establish separate school systems for whites and Negroes is Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256. That case involved directly only segregation required by Louisiana law in railway passenger coaches. Mr. Justice Brown, however, supported his conclusion that the statute before the court was constitutional by pointing to state statutes establishing separate schools as affording a 'common instance' of the validity of segregation laws, and observed that such statutes for separate schools had 'been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced.' 16 S.Ct. 1140. Even if this holding could be deemed dictum, the subsequent case of Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, 48 S.Ct. 91, 93, 72 L.Ed. 172, admits of no such distinction. In that case a citizen of Chinese ancestry was denied admission to a state school maintained for white pupils because she was of the 'yellow race' and was deemed to be 'colored'. Stating the question presented to be whether a Chinese citizen is denied equal protection of the laws when he is classed among the colored races and furnished facilities for education equal to that offered to all, Chief Justice Taft said:
'Were this a new question, it would call for very full argument and consideration; but we think that it is the same question which has been many times decided to be within the constitutional power of the state Legislature to settle, without intervention of the federal courts under the federal Constitution.'
After citing numerous state decisions upholding segregation in the public schools, the Chief Justice quoted with approval the language of Mr. Justice Brown in Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, dealing with that subject, and concluded:
These cases, we think, are decisive of the question. Moreover, in the recent decisions of Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 70 S.Ct. 848, 94 L.Ed. 1114, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637, 70 S.Ct. 851, 94 L.Ed. 1149, the Supreme Court of the United States has refused to overrule Plessy v. Ferguson, though expressly urged to do so. 2 It is nevertheless argued that the cases of Plessy v. Ferguson and Gong Lum v. Rice, supra, are without force today and that we...
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