Case Briefs of Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education 175 U.S. 528 (1899)





FACTS:

·         It is a significant case since it permitted racial segregation in American schools.

·         The board imposed a tax in Richmond County, Georgia, in 1897, and only the white schools were subsidized by this charge.

·         Parents of color and taxpayers opposed this tax and used it.

 

ISSUE(S):

Is it legal for the board to levy taxes or for the tax collector to collect taxes for the county’s educational purposes from which the petitioners’ children of school age were barred and excluded?

 

LEGAL DECISION:  

The Richmond County Superior Court decided in the petitioner’s favor. The Board of Education challenged the ruling in the Georgia Supreme Court, where Cummings legal counsel claimed that the Board of Education’s conduct broke the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed to prohibit discrimination against African Americans. The Georgia Supreme Court overturned the Superior Court’s decision, concluding that the jurisdiction was insufficient to prevent the Board of Education from keeping the current white high schools open. In a related case the Supreme Court of the United States held that the state should make financial decisions for education, therefore Ware High School stayed closed.

 

LEGAL RATIONABLE:

The United States Supreme Court ruled on December 18, 1899, by a rule (9-0) that a Georgia county board of education did not break any constitutional right when it decided to stop providing high school services to 60 African American students to supply elementary education to 300 African American students.