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16 J. Pub. L. 107 (1967)
Desegregation and the Judiciary: The Role of the Federal District Court in Educational Desegregation in Louisiana

handle is hein.journals/emlj16 and id is 111 raw text is: DESEGREGATION AND THE JUDICIARY: THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT IN EDUCATIONAL DESEGREGATION IN LOUISIANA Earlean M. McCarrick* I. INTRODUCTION IN 1954 racial segregation in public education was declared unconstitu- tional.' A decade later, Congress enacted legislation to provide national executive aid in promoting desegregation.2 Why, after a decade of judicial labor in the vineyard of race relations, was it deemed necessary to authorize executive initiative in breaking down the state-erected barrier to integrated education facilities? The law of the land had been proclaimed by the Su- preme Court in rather unequivocal terms in 1954-the Constitution forbids compulsory racial segregation.3 When a court order was defied, the national executive responded with force to bring about compliance.4 Yet, a decade after the enunciation of the constitutional principle of legal equality, state- required segregation was the rule; desegregation, even token desegregation, was the exception. The problem of bringing about racial integregation in education was as unsolved at the end of the decade as it had been at the beginning. The failure could not be attributed to judicial retreat-there was no repe- tition of the Court's nineteenth century retreat from its earlier insistence upon the constitutional requirement of equality.5 In part, the failure involves the basic question of the role which a judicial agent can and can not play. The Civil Rights Act of 19646 was in part an acknowledgment by the politi- cal branches of government that the judiciary is an inappropriate and inade- quate instrument for effectively bringing about fundamental social changes in the face of systematic resistance by states if the judiciary is forced to bear the major burden of forcing compliance. Such acknowledgment does not deprecate the role that the judiciary does play in bringing about change. Had the Supreme Court not ruled that segregation was unconstitutional Assistant Professor of Government, Louisiana State University, New Orleans. 1 Brown v. Board of Educ. 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 2 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 241 (1964) (codified in scattered sections of 5, 28, 42 U.S.C.). 3 Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 4 N.Y. Times, Sept. 25, 1957, p. 1, col. 8. 5 Prior to Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), the Court, in such cases as Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 393 (1880), and even the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), condemned discrimination on the basis of race and insisted that the fourteenth amendment required a state policy of equality. 6 78 Stat. 241 (1964) (codified in scattered sections of 5, 28, 42 U.S.C.).

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