Laws Restricting Education of Freed Blacks and Slaves - Essay Example

Laws Restricting Education Equality of citizens has been a primary and one of the most important concerns of all states and empires. People fought wars, brought revolutions, and gave their lives in struggles to claim equality and attain a dignified existence in their states. Most often, colonialism saw its end due to its inability to provide equal rights to all its citizens. This importance of equality amongst all citizens of the state also derives from the fact that the concept of equality deals with every single part of an individual’s life. Not only the financial stability or the prospects of development, the equality with which a person confronts treatment also affects his psyche and morale. The inferior treatment does not only deprive individuals of a better lifestyle, but also of their self-esteem and the hope with which they view their future. Communities, which undergo such treatment of inequality, suffer from great hopelessness and an utter despair for a long time. One of the ways that this inequality manifests itself is in the education system. This paper will examine the American laws that restricted education for African Americans. The paper divides the discourse into three parts: first, it dives into the historical intricacy of the American legal system pertaining to African Americans right from their emancipation to the current era. Then, the paper examines those laws, which restricted African Americans from acquiring education like their white counterparts. Lastly, the paper describes the laws that came into enforcement later on to abolish the inequality. In the course of this paper, several important and popular cases will serve as illustration to important discussions. To state precisely, the paper attempts to explore the historical course, which American legal system and consequently the American society followed with respect to its rights to equality in education and as a whole, to a better lifestyle for all its citizens. After the Civil Act of 1875 abolished slavery in US, the era of Reconstruction began in which African Americans received treatment as equals. Nevertheless, this occurred fairly only on the federal level. The White Americans or the previous owners of the now-free slaves were not comfortable with African Americans acquiring treatment as equals. “US Supreme Court, which had its bias towards the whites, declared the civil rights law of 1875, unconstitutional” (Borman & Dorn, 213). From then on, the racial discrimination or racism, as it is widely known, left the subtleties of household and common people and entered the states laws. Years later, in 1950s, some visionaries of the African American community raised their voices against the discriminatory laws that resulted in registration of cases where laws restricting education came under questions and refutation. It was after 60s that the discrimination against races was deemed an offense and people started realizing the importance of equality and free rights (Borman & Dorn, 213). The laws that restricted education on African Americans were a subset of a larger set of laws, which denied African American to use the same facilities as white Americans from bus, tollbooth, washrooms, and buses to universities, health services, and voting rights. Such laws were called Jim Crows laws and were adopted by a huge chunk of US states from 1890s to 1960s. On the surface, these laws were not proponents of inequality; rather they used the term ‘separate but equal,’ which implied that dissociation of races does not imply that one is superior to another; it just means that both of them could not be tolerated together. One of the examples of such laws was the law for separate schools for white and black children. The White Americans did not want their children to study with those of African American and thus requested the separation of schools. The effect of this imposition was rather devastating for the African American community. First, since the African Americans were ex-slaves, they were obviously not as established as their white counterparts were. This led to an incongruity in the lifestyles of both communities as African American were uneducated and were working on lowly blue-collar jobs. Instead of normalizing the state of matters between the two communities by bridging their distances, the court gave into the demands of the white community to have separate schools. Thus, the African American children attended the schools their parents could afford, which were the low budget, impoverished, low-status, under-resourced campuses whereas the Whites went to the elitist, modern and progressive schools. This led to constant degradation of the African American community as the White students got better-paid jobs and thus they became more established while the African American students did not qualify for better jobs and thus, they confronted a slippery slope resulting in downward mobility and further disparity. Thus, African American students were not allowed to apply for universities like Brown, Harvard, and Cornell (Dautrich & Yalof, 23). However, things changed after 1954 when the racial segregation was deemed unconstitutional in the “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans” (Dautrich & Yalof, 23). This part of the paper will deal with the laws, which released African American of the racial segregation and Jim Crows law. Then in 1962, a student named James Meredith becomes the first African American student to get admission in University of Mississippi. It is important to mention at this point that during the striking down of Reconstruction and constitutionalization of racism; quite a few educational institutes were founded for the development of African American student. The first of these was Howard law school, which became the country’s first ever African American law school in 1869. Later on, in 1881, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles founded Spelman College which was the first ever US college for African American women. However, even when racial segregation started to deconstitutionalize, there were incidents, which testified to the fact that White Americans were unhappy with the process. For instance, on September 24, 1967, Governor Orval Faulbus ordered to block nine African American students from stepping into the premise of the school. It is interesting to note that federal guards were called upon to support the students, who called themselves “Little Rock Nine” (Norgren & Nanda, 103). Fortunately, quite a few of ‘the Little Rock Nine’ successfully graduated from the high school. In 1978, the famous ‘University of California vs. Bakke’ took place in which, a white student charged the University for neglecting his interests in order to provide opportunities for African American students. The case ruled in favor of Bakke who graduated from the medical school of the university in 1982. However, in 1982, ‘Grutter vs Bollinger’ took place. The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of University of Michigan and allowed it to consider race as one of the many factors during the application process in order to foster diversity in the university. At first glance, “the three judgments i.e. ‘Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans, University of California vs. Bakke and Grutter vs Bollinger’ seem to be contradicting each other” (Lomotey, 503). On a closer inspection, however, one finds an implicit congruity amongst all three. The first case, “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans” (Lomotey, 503) laid the foundation of the end of racial segregation. It announced the opinion of the state against racism and provided a different point of view, which contradicted the popular judgment. The second case ‘University of California vs. Bakke’ reassured Whites of their intrinsic rights and tried to remove their insecurities. The hatred for African Americans sprang from Whites’ own insecurities and fear that their resource will now confront reduction. This case attempted to remove this fear and was quite successful. The last case, Grutter vs Bollinger, brought forward an optimistic approach towards racial segregation. People had either been pro-racism or entirely condemning its existence (Alexander & Alexander, 91). This case worked dual ways. For African American students, it gave them a hope of brighter future by telling them that they can study in the best universities of the country and that their color will not be held against them. However, for white Americans, it showed them the profits of having African American students on campus- diversity. By having students from diverse backgrounds, the students do not only learn from their curriculum, but also from their counterparts and through their differing perspectives. However, this very same judgment was overruled in 2006 in ‘Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson’, when considering race while admitting students was considered unconstitutional. This shows the development America has undergone with respect to its social structures (Alexander & Alexander, 91). As one sees Barack Obama, an African American President running affairs of the entire United States, it is safe to conclude that US has completely abolished racial segregation from its system. As the historical background, description of laws for both restricting and equalizing education for African Americans and particular examples from American legal history suggests, America has undergone a through revision of its principles and stance on justice and equality. The country, which did not let two most dense ethnicities of the state mix with each other on any platform, especially educational system, finally accepted the universal goodness of equality and equal rights. Not only this, but it took this equality to such a far extent that later on, America became what Abraham Lincoln dreamt to be a ‘Melting Pot’ (Ikpa & McGuire, 87). Not only African Americans, but it also gave equal rights and a respectable status to all ethnicities and races including Hispanics, Latinos, and Asians. The equal rights to education for African Americans led to the emergence of personalities like Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Morgan Freeman. Have African Americans not only brought laurels to the state by excelling in their respective fields, but also attained worldwide recognition for their commitment and valor (Lomotey, 34). Briefly, education has its own way of bringing out the best in people; it garnishes one’s mind and hones one’s intellect in a way that the individuals realizes their real potential and achieve the feats no one ever imagines. Thus, a power like this should be available to every individual who wishes to seek it. Works Cited Alexander, K., Alexander, M. D. American public school law. Cengage Learning, 2005. Borman, K. M., Dorn, S. Education reform in Florida: diversity and equity in public policy. SUNY Press, 2007. Dautrich, K., Yalof, D. A. American Government: Historical, Popular, and Global Perspectives. Cengage Learning, 2011. Ikpa, V. W., McGuire, C. K. Narrowing the achievement gap in a (re)segregated urban school district: research, practice, and policy. IAP, 2009. Lomotey, K. Encyclopedia of African American education, Volume 1. SAGE, 2009. Norgren, J., Nanda, S. American cultural pluralism, and law. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. Read More