Brief for Appellees

1. The Kansas statute which permits cities of the first class to maintain separate grade school facilities for colored and white students does not per se violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The Court below found facilities provided for Negro children in the city of Topeka to be substantially equal to those furnished to white children. The appellants, in their specifications of error and in their brief, do not object to that finding. Under those circumstances and under authority of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, the inferior federal courts, and the courts of last resort in numerous state jurisdictions, and particularly the decisions of the Kansas Supreme Court, the appellants herein are not denied equal protection of the laws by virtue of their being required to attend schools separate from those which white children are required to attend.

The decision of the court below should be affirmed.

2. Irrespective of the question of the constitutionality of the Kansas statute, the trial court's findings of fact are insufficient to establish appellants' right to injunctive relief and to require reversal of the judgment below. The only finding of fact relied upon by appellants is Finding of Fact No. VIII. That finding is couched in general language and in effect simply shows that segregation in the public schools has a detrimental effect upon colored children and a tendency to retain or retard their educational and mental development and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system. The finding does not specifically show that any of the appellants have actually and personally suffered by reason of segregation in the public schools of Topeka nor that the mental development of any of the appellants in this case has been retarded; and the finding does not even purport to show discrimination against the appellants and in favor of any other students in the Topeka school system. It no where discusses the effect of segregation upon children of any race other than colored children. Therefore, the District Court's Finding of Fact No. VIII fails to show either that the appellants have suffered any personal harm, or that they are being deprived of benefits or subjected to detriments which do not equally apply to other students in the Topeka school system. Thus, the appellants have failed to secure findings of fact sufficient to entitle them to injunctive relief or to a reversal of the judgment below.