Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education
**Overview of Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education**
Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education is a significant Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of school desegregation in the United States. Following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many school districts, particularly in the South, resisted compliance. In 1969, after a group of African American parents in Mississippi challenged this resistance, the Fifth Circuit Court initially allowed delays in submitting desegregation plans. However, the Supreme Court swiftly intervened, ruling that school districts must immediately desegregate and operate as unitary systems without further delay. This ruling marked a departure from the previous standard of "all deliberate speed," compelling Southern schools to undertake immediate desegregation efforts, often mid-year. The decision underscored the urgency for educational equity and reinforced the judicial commitment to civil rights in education. Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education played a crucial role in shaping the desegregation landscape across the United States, emphasizing the necessity for prompt action against segregation in public schooling.
Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education
In the late 1960s, following the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, a group of African American parents in Mississippi filed lawsuits challenging segregation in thirty of the state’s school districts. In 1969, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered the districts to file plans to desegregate public schools by August 11, 1969, to take effect by the beginning of the 1969–1970 school year. With the support of President Richard M. Nixon’s Department of Justice, however, the school districts requested the court to allow them to postpone the submission of school desegregation plans until December 1, 1969. The court granted the request, and the parents who had filed the original suits appealed to the US Supreme Court.
On October 29, 1969—only twenty days after deciding to hear the case and only six days after oral argument—the Supreme Court held that the court of appeals had erred in permitting the delay. The Court’s decision stated that “the obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once.” The Court ordered every affected school district to “begin immediately to operate as unitary school systems.”
Courts throughout the South began to insist on immediate desegregation, in some instances in the middle of the school year. The Alexander decision, by rejecting the previous policy of “all deliberate speed,” dramatically altered the time frame within which school boards were required to meet their desegregation obligations.
Bibliography
Ciment, James. Postwar America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History. New York: Routledge, 2015. Print.
Doherty, Patric J. "Integration Now: A Study of Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education." Notre Dame Law Review 45.3 (1970): 489–514. Print.
Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Richardson, Christopher M., and Ralph E. Luker. Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman, 2014. Print.