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2014 Mich. St. L. Rev. 401 (2014)
Mendez v. Westminster: A Living History

handle is hein.journals/mslr2014 and id is 441 raw text is: MENDEZ V. WESTMINSTER: A LIVING HISTORY Frederick P. Aguirre, Kristi L. Bowman, Gonzalo Mendez, Sylvia Mendez, Sandra Robbie & Philippa Strum* 2014 MICH. ST. L. REv. 401 In April 2014, Michigan State University and the University of Missouri Kansas City co-hosted a two-day symposium exploring the past, present, and future of school desegregation. The first panel focused on Mendez v. Westminster,1 a federal court decision in 1946. Mendez is significant for many reasons: it was the first time a federal court ordered school desegregation, it represented a major victory for Latino and Latina civil rights, and it helped lay the foundation for the Brown v. Board2 litigation and the Supreme Court's decision. What follows is a transcript of the compelling and historic discussion about the Mendez case. Professor Kristi L. Bowman: Good morning, my name is Kristi Bowman, and I am a Professor of Law at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. On behalf of all the conference organizers, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to this conference. As you know, this is a two-day videoconference with half of each panel live in Kansas City and half live here in East Lansing. Our goal is for the conference to be a fully integrated experience. We begin this conference with a discussion of Mendez v. Westminster, a case we do not usually hear much about, although that is changing. Let's turn the clock back about eighty years to talk about some of the first court-ordered school desegregation in this country, which occurred in California. The students who were segregated from one another were not whites and blacks, but rather * Frederick P. Aguirre is a judge on the Superior Court of Orange County and speaks frequently about Mendez. Kristi L. Bowman is a Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law. Gonzalo Mendez is a retired master carpenter. Sylvia Mendez is a retired pediatric nurse and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sandra Robbie works at Chapman University and is the writer and producer of the documentary about Mendez: For All the Children. Philippa Strum is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute for Scholars and the author of OUR CHILDREN ARE AMERICANS MENDEZ V. WESTMINSTER AND MEXICA4N- AMERICAN RiGHTS (2010). 1. Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544, 545 (S.D. Cal 1946) aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947) (enbanc). 2. Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

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