Learn about the case — historical background and documents
Legal Arguments in Court
Lawyers’ arguments and strategies for the parents of the black students seeking desegregation—the plaintiffs
From the beginning of the litigation—the filing of the complaint in 1952—the black parents and their lawyers argued that the continued segregation of schoolchildren by race in New Orleans violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which the Court held that state-mandated racial segregation in public elementary and secondary schools was inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause, the plaintiffs would cite the Brown decision as authority for the desegregation of the city’s schools. Desegregation would be implemented by order of the federal court if the local school board refused to implement its own desegregation plan.
In response to the Louisiana state government’s argument that they were not bound to the Brown decision because the case was incorrectly decided, the plaintiffs argued that to allow a state to undermine a decision of the Supreme Court would subvert the constitutional structure of the nation.
Lawyers’ arguments and strategies for the Orleans Parish School Board and the state legislature of Louisiana—the defendants
Lawyers defending the Orleans Parish School Board and various state officials in the State of Louisiana argued that state and local officials were not constitutionally required to desegregate the New Orleans public schools.
Between 1956 and the summer of 1960, lawyers representing the Orleans Parish School Board cited various actions taken by the Louisiana state legislature to argue that the school board was exempt from, or lacked authority to comply with, Judge Wright’s 1956 desegregation order. For example, the school board’s lawyers argued that the 1954 state constitutional amendment that purported to justify racial segregation based on public health and safety rather than racial superiority did not violate the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Similarly, the school board’s lawyers argued that when the state of Louisiana transferred authority to make racial classifications from the Orleans Parish School Board to the state legislature, Judge Wright’s order requiring the board to desegregate had no further effect.
The Orleans Parish School Board’s lawyers and the Louisiana state officials eventually diverged, taking opposing positions in the case. Until the summer of 1960, both the school board’s lawyers and various state officials argued that they should not be bound by Judge Wright’s desegregation order. But during the summer of 1960, the school board decided that it had exhausted all of its appeals and had no choice but to comply with Judge Wright’s desegregation order. The state legislature, Governor Jimmie Davis, and Attorney General Jack Gremillion, however, disagreed. They argued that Judge Wright’s order constituted a usurpation of Wright’s authority as a federal judge, and they vowed to resist implementation of his desegregation order, even after both the court of appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court during the summer of 1960 rejected appeals to vacate Wright’s order.
The state legislature in November 1960 passed an “interposition resolution,” in which it sought to assert “the sovereignty of the state of Louisiana” against the usurping authority of the federal courts. The state argued that the Brown decision was illegitimate—it was not a faithful reading of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Thus, the state argued, it had a duty to resist the efforts of the federal courts to force school desegregation in Louisiana based on an illegitimate constitutional principle. The state found this duty in the theory of “interposition,” which held that states have a duty to protect their citizens from unconstitutional behavior by the federal government.
The state further argued that only Congress had authority to enforce the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since section 5 of that amendment provided that “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” The federal courts, however, disagreed, concluding that although section 5 did give Congress power to enact legislation to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, a court could also declare a state or locality’s behavior violative of the Fourteenth Amendment and order appropriate remedial actions.
The three-judge federal court and the Supreme Court rejected all of the state’s interposition arguments.
Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the Desegregation of New Orleans Schools