Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education is a pivotal Supreme Court case from 1899 that addressed racial segregation in public education, occurring just three years after the introduction of the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case, the Richmond County school board closed the only African American public high school, allocating funds instead to primary education for Black students, which prompted a legal challenge. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the school board, essentially endorsing the notion that segregated facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause unless there was direct evidence of racial hostility in decision-making. This ruling marked a significant moment in the legal history of racial segregation in education, as it was the Court's first explicit endorsement of racially segregated public schools, a decision that has never been overturned. John Marshall Harlan, who authored the opinion, had previously dissented in Plessy, highlighting the complexity and inconsistency in the legal discourse surrounding race and equality at the time. The implications of Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education continue to resonate in discussions about educational equity and civil rights in the United States.
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
Date: December 18, 1899
Citation: 175 U.S. 528
Issue: Separate but equal doctrine
Significance: The Supreme Court refused to enforce the equal stipulation in the separate but equal doctrine governing segregated schools that had been established in its landmark 1896 decision.
Just three years after announcing the separate but equal doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court unanimously refused to take action in a case in which school facilities for blacks and whites were definitely unequal. Cumming, which amounted to the Court’s first approval of racially segregated public schools, was never overturned. John Marshall Harlan, who wrote the opinion for the Court, had dissented vigorously in Plessy but was unable to find a clear, unmistakable disregard of equality in Cumming.
In 1879 the Augusta, Georgia, school board had established the first African American public high school in the state. The board closed the school in 1897, claiming that the money was needed for black primary school education. Because a Georgia statute explicitly provided for separate but equal facilities, the local judge did not bother to consider the U.S. Constitution in overturning the board’s judgment. Still, the Georgia supreme court, without offering any significant reasons, overturned the local judge’s opinion.
African Americans argued that under the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, they were entitled to a high school if one was provided for white students, but Harlan asserted that the African American plaintiffs had to prove the board decision was motivated exclusively by hostility toward African Americans, which was impossible to prove. To reach his decision, Harlan ignored several lower court precedents that went in the opposite direction.