Famous Desegregation Case, Mendez v Westminster, Celebrates 70 Years This Weeks

*Before Brown v Board of Education, the case that history has designated as the standard for public school desegregation, there was Mendez v. Westminster, argued before the Supreme Court seven years earlier, that successfully fought the segregation of Latino children in California. VL

By Gustavo Arellano, OC Weekly

On Feb. 18, 1946, U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. McCormick found that the segregation of Mexican students to Mexican-only schools in the Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Westminster, and El Modeno school districts was unconstitutional, violating the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The case, titled Mendez, et al. vs. Westminster, et al. made nationwide headlines at the time; the appeal, upheld a year later in the Ninth District Court of Appeals, drew the interest of the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall and then-California Governor Earl Warren. Those two, of course, went on to argue for and rule in favor of Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ended government-sanctioned school segregation once and for all.

And then the case was largely forgotten ever since, save for a couple of Chicano Studies folks who never bothered to learn the whole story.

Click HERE to read the full story.