Bob Jones University v. United States

Private institutions have played an important role in American education. Private schools and universities were dominate in the United States until growth of state-sponsored school systems in the late nineteenth century. As public school desegregation policies came to the forefront in the mid-1950s, local efforts grew to preserve segregation or a least to delay racial integration, particularly in the South. Various states used different tactics, including partially funding the quickly growing number of private segregated schools. One Virginia county completely closed its public school system. The prevailing argument was racial discrimination in private institutions did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Segregation proponents claimed they were promoting public health and morals, and preserving the peace.

Federal policy soon became established that private schools with racially-biased policies could not receive public subsidies. Additionally, sectarian private schools could not even discriminate in their admissions based on the Civil Rights Act of 1866. However, "white flight" to private institutions substantially undermined desegregation in public schools as the American education system essentially became racially separate and unequal. Proposals for tuition tax credits, or vouchers, to support private schools in the 1990s propelled debate over the impact of private institutions on community-based racial desegregation goals.