Missouri

Arnold

vs

Kirkwood School District

NAACP lawyers for appellants. This is a per curiam decision. The case involves questions of racial discrimination in relation to public school facilities in a school district of Missouri. The court withholds the decision until the Supreme Court decides on the several cases pending before it on the validity of segregation generally in public school. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the companion cases "have now rendered moot legally any consideration of whether separate schools, which have been provided, constitute equal facilities in fact, as the measure of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment." For this reason, the judgment for this case is abandoned, and the cause is "remanded for such further consideration or other proceedings as may be appropriate or necessary, if any, in the situation existing, as related to the decision in the Segregation Cases. Each party will pay its own costs in this Court. Judgment vacated and cause remanded."

Further Reading

Book

Book that "describes in detail the struggles faced by many courageous African Americans in their efforts to achieve full civil and political rights against the greatest of odds," specifically in Missouri. There is a small section on page 169 which discusses the case. A Black student attempted to attend a white school in his district. "Contending only the illegality of separateness, conceding equality of opportunity and facilities." He was denied in the federal district court and so he appealed to the U.S. court of appeals. After arguments were heard the court decided to withhold judgement because the Supreme Court was to hear the Brown and its companion cases. In the Brown case, decided on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court held that segregation was unconsitutional, striking down the constitutional and legal basis for racial discrimination in education in 17 states (Missouri being one of them).