Sweatt v. Painter, et al.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 4, 1950 Decided June 5, 1950
Full case name: Heman Marion Sweatt v. Theophilus Shickel Painter Citations: 339 U.S. 629; 70 S. Ct. 848; 94 L. Ed. 1114; 1950 U.S. LEXIS 1809 Prior history: Cert. to the Supreme Court of Texas
Holding
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that petitioner be admitted to the University of Texas Law School.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Hitz Burton, Tom C. Clark, Sherman Minton
Case opinions
Majority by: Vinson Joined by: unanimous

Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ... Congressman John Bingham of Ohio was the principal framer of the Equal Protection Clause. ... Frederick Moore Vinson (January 22, 1890 – September 8, 1953) served the United States in all three branches of government. ... Hugo Black Hugo LaFayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937 - 1971). ... Stanley Forman Reed ( December 31, 1884 – April 2, 1980) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. ... Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. ... William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ... Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892–October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954). ... Harold Hitz Burton (June 22, 1888 - October 28, 1964) was an American Senator and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Thomas Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899 – June 13, 1977) was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1949-1967). ... Sherman Minton, (October 20, 1890–April 9, 1965) was a Democratic United States Senator from Indiana and an associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ... Separate but equal was a policy enacted into law throughout the U.S. Southern states during the period of segregation, in which African Americans and Americans of European descent would receive the same services (schools, hospitals, water fountains, bathrooms, etc. ... Racial segregation characterised by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. ... Plessy redirects here. ...

The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the University of Texas School of Law on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. At the time, no law school in Texas would admit blacks. The Texas trial court, instead of granting the plaintiff a writ of mandamus, continued the case for six months allowing the state time to create a law school only for blacks. An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... The University of Texas School of Law is an ABA-certified American law school located on The University of Texas at Austin campus. ... A writ of mandamus or simply mandamus, which means we order in Latin, is the name of one of the prerogative writs and is a court order directing someone, most frequently a government official, to perform a specified act. ...

The trial court decision was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court denied writ of error on further appeal. Sweatt and the NAACP appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. W.J. Durham and Thurgood Marshall presented Sweatt's case. A writ of error coram nobis is a writ which is used to inform a court (usually an appeals court) of facts not on the record despite due dilligence by the party filing the writ (the petitioner). ... The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, generally pronounced as EN Double AY SEE PEE) is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. ... For people and institutions etc. ...

The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to measure up because of quantitative differences in facilities and intangible factors such as its isolation from most of the future lawyers with whom its graduates would interact.

The documentation of the court's decision includes the following differences in facilities between the University of Texas Law School and the separate law school for blacks. The University of Texas Law school had 16 full-time and 3 part-time professors and the separate law school had 5 full-time professors. The University of Texas Law School had 850 students and a law library of 65,000 volumes. The separate school had 23 students and a library of 16,500 volumes. Fordham Law School Library, also a Government Document Depository. ...

The court held that, when considering graduate education, intangibles must be considered as part of "substantive equality."

Today

Lead attorney on Sweatt, Judge Robert L. Carter with the dean of Fordham Law School, William Treanor

The 'separate' law school and the college is the modern-day Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. The law school is known as the Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (859x871, 76 KB) The author of this photo is me, David Shankbone. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (859x871, 76 KB) The author of this photo is me, David Shankbone. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Fordham Law atrium from Lowenstein Plaza Fordham University School of Law, commonly known as Fordham Law, is a part of Fordham University and is one of eight ABA approved law schools in New York City. ... William Treanor, right, with Judge Robert L. Carter. ... Texas Southern University is one of the largest historically black universities in the USA. Located in Houston, Texas, the university was established on March 3, 1947 by the Texas Legislature and it was initially named Texas State University for Negroes. ... The Thurgood Marshall School of Law is an ABA accredited law school in Houston, Texas, that awards J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence). ...

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 339
• Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla. - 332 U.S. 631 (1948)
• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents - 339 U.S. 637 (1950)

This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 339 of the United States Reports: , 339 U.S. 1 (1950) , 339 U.S. 9 (1950) , 339 U.S. 33 (1950) , 339 U.S. 56 (1950) , 339 U.S. 87 (1950) , 339 U.S. 96 (1950... Holding Court membership Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley Blount Rutledge, Harold Hitz Burton Case opinions Majority by: Per Curiam Laws applied U.S. Const. ... McLaurin v. ...

References

State of Texas vs. NAACP case records, 1911-1961 1945-1961. Description: photocopied documents. 2 microfilm reels. Summary: Records document the 1956-1957 lawsuit that, in effect, outlawed the NAACP in Texas until the 1960s and also reflects the progress of the civil rights movement from the late 1940s to the 1960s.

Byron and Rannie Cook Papers, 1944-1962, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Summary: Correspondence, newspapers, clippings, broadsides, ephemera, speeches, programs, notes, platforms, annual reports, printed material, magazines and artifacts relate to the Cook's involvement with the National Alliance of Postal Workers (Houston Chapter), the NAACP in Houston, service at the U.S. Post Office at Houston, the Progressive Party, the Henry Wallace presidential campaign, Leonard Sweatt, Heman Sweatt, John Butler and with unions.

The items above and other important material can be found in the University of Texas Library system at this link: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/librarymap/cah.html

External links

• "Sweatt v. Painter" on Wikisource.
• Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com
• Sweatt v. Painter archive
• Info on Case Churchill site