Sweatt v. Painter

Appellant
Heman Marion Sweatt
Appellee
Theophilis Shickel Painter
Appellant's Claim
That the refusal of the University of Texas to admit him to its law school violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
W. J. Durham and Thurgood Marshall
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Price Daniel and Joe R. Greenhill
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, Harold Burton, Tom C. Clark, William O. Douglas, FelixFrankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Sherman Minton, Stanley Forman Reed, Fred Moore Vinson (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
5 June 1950
Decision
The Supreme Court ordered the university to admit Sweatt.
Significance
While not overruling the segregation imposed by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) outright, the Court went some distance toward outlawing official segregation by stating that the university could not possibly create an all-black lawschool that was "separate but equal."
Heman Marion Sweatt was an African American mailman living in Houston, Texas,who wanted to go to law school. When he was rejected by the all-white University of Texas School of Law for entrance during the February 1946 term, it was solely because he was black. At that time, no law school in the state admitted black students.
Sweatt then brought suit against Theophilis Painter and other members of theuniversity board of regents, requesting that the court issue an order compelling them to admit him. The court agreed with Sweatt that in denying him the chance to obtain a legal education, the university was denying him his right to equal protection of the laws, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. But instead of ordering that Sweatt be admitted, the court held his case over forsix months to allow Texas to create a separate law school for blacks. When the six months had expired, the court again declined to issue an order for Sweatt's admission, owing to the fact that the university had vowed to open a separate but equal law school for blacks in two months' time.
Sweatt appealed this ruling to the Texas Court of Civil Appeals. While his appeal was pending, the university did open a separate law school for blacks, but Sweatt refused to register. His case was sent back to the trial court, which determined that the new law school offered an education equivalent to thatenjoyed by white law students at the University of Texas. With that, the trial court dismissed Sweatt's case. Sweatt, with the backing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the help of theirpremier attorney, Thurgood Marshall, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review.
Court Finds that "Separate" Facilities Cannot be "Equal"
Marshall, who would himself later become a Supreme Court justice, realized that Sweatt left the Court with an easy way out. They could hand Heman Sweatt ahollow victory by declaring that Texas's all-black law school was not equal,while at the same time declining to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy, which had been the law of the land since 1896, held that "separatebut equal" treatment of the races was constitutionally permissible. In the 1940s, the NAACP had begun a vigorous campaign to overturn Plessy, andalthough Sweatt brought the organization nearer to its goal, Marshallhad accurately predicted how the Court would rule. Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Vinson concluded:

[Sweatt] may claim his full constitutional right; legal education equivalent to that offered by the Stateto students of other races. Such education is not available to him in a separate law school as offered by the State. We cannot, therefore, agree with respondents that the doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson . . . requires affirmance of the judgment [of the state court]. Nor need we reach petitioner's contention that Plessy v. Ferguson should be reexamined in the light of contemporary knowledge respecting the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment andthe effects of racial segregation.

In another case decided the same day, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950), the Court edged somewhat closer to overturning Plessy. George McLaurin, an African American citizen of Oklahoma, had been admitted into an all-white graduate school, but he was obliged to remain segregated from his fellow students. In ruling that this treatment handicapped McLaurin, the Court in effect held that once blacks are admitted to white schools, there can be no racial discrimination within the institution. It would be four more years before the Supreme Court overturned Plessy inthe watershed case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). After the Court decided Brown and the cases that grew out of it, there could be nomore officially sanctioned segregation in public education--or in any publicinstitutions.
Related Cases

• Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
  
• Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948).
  
• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for a Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950).
  
• Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).