Does a child have a right not to be brainwashed by adults?

Abstract

Probably most lawyers in early public school desegregation suits thought they primarily represented parents. Actions were brought in the names of black children as well as parents, because in legal contemplation the children were real parties in interest. Defense counsel frequently used technical matters such as failure to include all parties in interest to secure delay or dismissal, or to limit the scope of the action as a class action.2 But the decision to file suit was usually adult. Motivation was likewise adult and basically vicarious, thereby finding parental indignation at racial inequality of physical school facilities its most frequent substance. Thus, the first suit in Tennessee at public school level erupted from blind, arrogant rejection by the all-white Anderson County School Board of black parents' demands a black high school in that county which had three schools for and none for cullud, and which bussed black children past the white high schools distances of up to 38 miles round trip to segregated black high schools in four neighboring counties.3 Perhaps my first professional realization that infant plaintiffs had a real personal stake came in McSwain v. Anderson County Board of Education when we put them on