Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

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Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County, 64 F. Supp. 544 (1946)
In the racial-segregation case of Brown versus Board of Education, the Supreme Court famously declared that, quote, “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” unquote. But that sentiment may not have been entirely original. Almost a decade earlier, a federal district court in California made a very similar declaration regarding school segregation based on ancestry. That was the often-forgotten case of Mendez versus Westminster School District of Orange County.
Westminster School District and several others in Orange County, California, created policies requiring non-English-speaking elementary students to attend separate schools until they became proficient in English. Nearly all the non-English speakers were of Mexican ancestry. Their assigned separate schools had facilities, teachers, materials, and curricula that were equal to those in the districts’ other schools.
In implementing these policies, school officials often assigned students of Mexican ancestry to segregated schools based on hastily administered, superficial, and unreliable language-proficiency tests. And in some cases, students were assigned to segregated schools based on their Mexican names. Because of these practices, almost all students of Mexican ancestry were assigned to the segregated schools until they reached seventh grade.
Eventually, several of these students’ parents, including Gonzalo Mendez, sued the school districts and asked for declaratory and injunctive relief. The parents alleged that the language-based segregation policies were just a pretext for discriminating against students of Mexican ancestry.
Following a two-week trial, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California considered the merits of the case.
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