The Temper of the Courts

In February 1946, a California Court heard arguments challenging the practice of segregating students of Mexican descent into “remedial schools for Mexicans.” Sylvia Mendez and her family spent the next year of their lives entangled in a court battle. Though they would ultimately prevail and the Court deemed the schools unconstitutional, thus ending legal segregation in California, Sylvia was not permitted to attend the school near her home designated for white children until 1948. This landmark case became an international cause célèbre, and would later be used to justify the “separate is unequal” ruling of 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education.