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Asian American Legal Foundation

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Posted on July 7, 2018 by admin

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. . . No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. . . .

— Fourteenth Amendment, United States Constitution

 The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

— Art. I, Sec. 31, California Constitution

Asian Americans  – At the Forefront of the Historical Struggle for Equal Access in Education

Asian Americans have played a leading role in the long battle for equality in education. In Tape v. Hurley, 66 Cal. 473, 6 P. 12 (1885), the court ordered San Francisco public schools to admit Chinese American children. In response, California established separate “Chinese” schools, which persisted until well into the twentiets century.

In Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), the Supreme Court created the “separate-but-equal” doctrine in a case where a black passenger was barred from using a “white” railway car. In Wong Him v. Callahan, 119 F. 381 (C.C.N.D. Cal. 1902), this doctrine was applied to schools, when a district court found that Chinese American children in San Francisco were barred from “white” schools because the “Chinese” school in Chinatown was “separate but equal.” In Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927), a case involving a Chinese American girl in Mississippi, the Supreme Court affirmed that the separate-but-equal doctrine applied to schools. This pernicious doctrine of segregation endured until 1954, when it was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483.

Recognizing the role of Asian Americans in this history, in Lee v. Johnson, 404 U.S. 1215, 1215-16 (1971), Supreme Court Justice William Douglas wrote that: “Historically, California statutorily provided for the establishment of separate schools for children of Chinese ancestry. That was the classic case of de jure segregation involved in Brown v. Board of Education. . . .  [It] was not written for blacks alone. It rests on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, one of the first beneficiaries of which were the Chinese people of San Francisco.”

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Asian Americian Legal Foundation
11 Malta Street
San Francisco, CA 94131

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AALF Supreme Court and other Amicus Curiae Briefs

  • Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Fisher I)
  • Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Fisher II)
  • Schuette v. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action
  • Grutter v. Bollinger, Gratz v. Bollinger
  • Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, etc.
  • Students For Fair Admissions v Harvard College and University of North Carolina
  • Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board
  • Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. School Committee for the City of Boston
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