 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2020) |
| Sweatt v. Painter, et al. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued April 4, 1950 Decided June 5, 1950 | |
| Full case name | Heman Marion Sweatt v. Theophilus Shickel Painter |
| Citations | 339 U.S. 629 (more) 70 S. Ct. 848; 94 L. Ed. 1114; 1950 U.S. LEXIS 1809 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Cert. to the Supreme Court of Texas |
| Holding | |
| Segregation as applied to the admissions processes for law school in the United States violates Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities in legal education are inherently unequal. Texas Supreme Court reversed. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | Vinson, joined by unanimous |
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later.
The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas, whose president was Theophilus Painter, on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education.[1] The Supreme Court ruled in favor of law student Sweatt, reasoning that the state's racially separate law school was in fact unequal. Nonetheless, the Court limited its ruling in finding that it was not [yet] necessary to "reach [Sweatt]'s contention that Plessy v. Ferguson should be reexamined in the light of contemporary knowledge respecting the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment and the effects of racial segregation."[2] The decision was delivered on the same day as another case involving similar issues, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, also decided in favor of integrated graduate education.