The Courts and Equality of Educational Opportunity

Abstract

A belief in universal education as a solution of social and personal problems is so definitely a part of the American Culture pattern that it is sometimes listed as among the traits which characterize the American Ethos.' Since this is so it is natural that leaders of both races have advised Negroes to educate themselves as a means of improving their status. When they have attempted to do this they have been brought face to face with discrimination in the facilities offered by Negro separate schools and in the use which they are allowed to make of other schools which draw their support from public taxation.2 The outstanding characteristic of discrimination in the field of education is that it is most pronounced on the professional and graduate levels. A bulletin of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People indicates that sixteen states have not a single state-supported institution in which Negroes may pursue graduate and professional work. Yet approximately fifteen thousand white students are doing professional and graduate work in the universities