''Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County'', 377 U.S. 218 (1964), is a case decided by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

that held that the County School Board of

Prince Edward County, Virginia Prince Edward County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,849. Its county seat is Farmville. History Formation and county seats Prince Edward County was formed in the Virginia Colony in ...

's decision to close all local, public schools and provide vouchers to attend private schools were constitutionally impermissible as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Background

In response to the court's holding in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'',

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

initiated a coordinated policy known as ''

massive resistance Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and ...

'' to maintain segregationist policies. A legislative package known as the Stanley Plan was enacted. Numerous public schools had been closed through the tactics of ''massive resistance''. However, when the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors was ordered to integrate the public schools under its jurisdiction in June 1959, it took the unusual and extreme step of not appropriating ''any'' money for the school system, forcing all public schools in the county to close for the next five years.''Griffin'', 377 U.S. at 223. Instead of funding public schools, Prince Edward County provided tuition grants for all students, regardless of their race, to use for private nonsectarian education. No private schools existed for blacks, resulting in the total deprivation of formal education to black children in the county from 1959 to 1963. All private schools in the region remained racially segregated. A private foundation proposed opening a private school for black children, but the offer was rejected in part because many of the black residents of Prince Edward County wanted "to continue the legal battle for desegregated public schools." In 1963, "federal, state, and county authorities cooperated to have classes conducted for Negroes and whites in school buildings owned by the county," but the county-funded schools remained closed until the Supreme Court's 1964 ruling on the litigation arising from the county's 1959 closure of the schools. In 1959, the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

had ordered the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton ...

to require that the schools open without segregation. The District Court initially refrained from ordering the schools opened pending the separate question whether the Virginia state constitution required the operation of public schools. In 1962, the District Court ordered the county board to fund the schools. The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that the District Court should have awaited the state law determinations of whether the county was required to operate schools. The black schoolchildren appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was argued by

Robert L. Carter Robert Lee Carter (March 11, 1917 – January 3, 2012) was an American lawyer, civil rights activist and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Personal history and early life ...

for the NAACP ( Samuel W. Tucker and Frank D. Reeves on the brief); Virginia assistant attorney general R.D. McIlvaine (Attorney General

Robert Young Button Robert Young Button (November 2, 1899 – September 1, 1977) served two terms as Attorney General of Virginia, as well as a fifteen years as Virginia State Senator. Button rose through the ranks of the Byrd Organization and became one of its lead ...

and Assistant Attorney General

Frederick Thomas Gray Frederick Thomas Gray (October 10, 1918 – May 14, 1992) was a Virginia attorney and Democratic Party politician. Governor J. Lindsay Almond appointed Gray to serve as Attorney General of Virginia after the resignation of Attorney General Albert ...

on the brief) and Judge John Segar Gravatt for the school board, and Solicitor General

Archibald Cox Archibald Cox Jr. (May 17, 1912 – May 29, 2004) was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy and as a special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was ...

argued on behalf of the United States as an

amicus curiae An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision o ...

, urging reversal.

Decision

The Supreme Court, in a decision authored by Justice

Hugo Black Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. ...

, ordered the schools reopened. It held that the supervisors' action of refusing to fund the public schools violated the

Equal Protection Clause The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...

of the 14th Amendment, where the county offered only private school vouchers for students and where no private schools accepted black students. This case marked the first time that the Supreme Court ordered a county government to exercise their power of taxation. This unusual level of intervention in the function of local government provoked a dissent by Justices

Clark Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin language, Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone ...

and Harlan:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Griffin v. County School Board Of Prince Edward County United States Supreme Court cases United States school desegregation case law 1964 in United States case law Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court Civil rights movement case law African-American history of Virginia Legal history of Virginia

Background

Decision

See also

References

Further reading

External links