Gong Lum v. Rice

Background

A father who pays taxes in his rural Mississippi school district sought a court order to force the local consolidated high school to let his nine‑year‑old, U.S.-born daughter of Chinese ancestry attend. At the school’s opening she was told she could not return because the school board, following the State Superintendent’s instructions, had ordered that only white or Caucasian children could attend that school. The petition said there was no separate public school for Chinese children in the district or county and that the father contributed to the school’s funding. The trial court ordered the school to admit her; the State Supreme Court reversed, holding that the state constitution required separate schools for white and colored races and that Chinese (described in the record as Mongolian or yellow race) could be classed with the colored races.

Reasoning

The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed whether assigning a U.S.-born Chinese child to the colored schools denied equal protection of the laws. It concluded that states have broad authority to organize and divide public schools by race under their constitutions and statutes. The Court relied on earlier decisions upholding racially separate schools and noted that the state system provided colored school districts and schools; the petition did not allege that no colored school was reasonably available to the child. For these reasons, the Court affirmed the state supreme court’s decision.

Real world impact

This ruling means a U.S.-born Chinese child in Mississippi can be treated as part of the nonwhite school system and may be excluded from white public schools. The decision affirms state discretion in assigning pupils and in maintaining separate school systems based on race.