Week 7 Case Brief
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University of Phoenix *
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724
Subject
Law
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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Uploaded by Bobbie1975
In the case of Sweatt v. Painter, the petitioner Heman Marrion Sweatt was denied admission to the state-
supported University of Teas Law School based on his race. Heman Sweatt believed this violated his Fourteenth Amendment Equal Justice Rights 339 U.S. 636.
In the case of Sweatt v. Painter, the facts state that state law restricted access to the university to blacks. When Sweatt applied to the university, he was automatically rejected because he was African American. Sweatt filed a lawsuit against the university, asking the courts to order his admission. To avoid accepting his application, the university opened a separate but equal facility for law students of color. Sweatt argued that the state law school for Negros could never be equal to the University of Texas Law School because there was little interaction provided with law students and professors, no law review, and it lacked the prestige of the University of Texas Law School, which has developed its reputation over a long period of years. The NAACP and Sweatt argued that it was “separate” but not “equal.”
On June 5
th
, 1950, The U.S. Supreme Court reached its final decision. The Court’s decision in the Sweatt v.
Painter case held that the legal education offered to Heman Sweatt was not substantially equal to the education he would receive if he enrolled at University of Texas Law School. The Fourteenth Amendment
provides citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States” and provides all citizens with equal protection under the laws. Because the University denied Heman’s admittance to the Laws School it directly violated Hemans Fourteenth Amendment Rights. Therefore, the ruling of the Court required that Heman be admitted to the University of Texas Law School 343 U.S. 631-636. In this case the Court decided that the legal education offered to Herman Sweatt was not substantially equal to the education that he would receive if admitted to the University of Texas Law (399 U.S. 629, 1950). The Law School for Negros did offer colored law students services that were substantially equivalent to those services offered to white law students. However, the Courts rule unanimously that Sweatt and other eligible African American students could enroll in the University of Texas Law School due to failure to provide access to an equal legal education. Chief Justice Fred Vinson’s opinion stated that even if the facilities could be made equal, there were intangibles, such as the reputation of the University of Law School, the network of alumni, and the attraction of great authorities of the law that could not be duplicated. This case did not end the segregation in public schools at the time it applied only to higher education institutes. However, the precedent was set for the NAACP to continue to argue that separate but equal in
all public educational institutions violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Ravick, 1956).
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