Ground Crew by Daniels Maurice Charles;

Author:Daniels, Maurice Charles; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2019-10-01T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

“The Higher Dictates of Justice and Equity”

Judge Sloan’s Verdict

In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”1 On January 9, 1959, despite the defense attorneys’ predictions and their unequivocal insistence that Georgia State’s admissions practices were administered “in good faith,” Hunt, Dinsmore, Welch, and their attorneys prevailed in a legal victory against the oppressive conditions that banned blacks from so-called white public institutions of higher education. The plaintiffs and their legal team won a federal injunction that declared segregation at Georgia State unconstitutional and forbade the centuries-old racial discrimination in Georgia’s colleges and universities.

In issuing his unprecedented ruling overturning segregation in higher education in Georgia, Judge Sloan accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that “the policy, custom, practice and usage of the defendants in maintaining and operating Georgia State College of Business Administration on a racially segregated basis [was] violative of the rights secured to plaintiffs, and of rights secured to other Negro students of Georgia, who [were] similarly situated.”2 Sloan declared that the racially discriminatory policy and practices violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Repudiating the state’s claim that the admissions process was not racially discriminatory, Sloan agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the policies demonstrated preferential treatment for white students. Sloan enjoined the regents “from continuing to limit the college to white students only” and admonished the defendants for some of their ludicrous tactics.3 He declared that the entrance requirement created by the Board of Regents and implemented by Georgia State officials requiring blacks to obtain character recommendations from white alumni was unconstitutional.

Using language that was practically identical to Moore, Hollowell, and Motley’s argument, Sloan struck down the requirement, noting, “It is not customary for Negroes and whites to mix socially or to attend the same public or private educational institutions in the state of Georgia, and … by reason of this presently existing social pattern, the opportunities for the average Negro to become personally acquainted with the average white person, and particularly with the alumni of a white educational institution, are necessarily limited.”4

Sloan ruled that the effect of the alumni certificate requirement, simply put, was to prevent blacks from gaining admission to all-white state colleges and universities. Accordingly, and in precise accordance with the plaintiffs’ contention, Sloan declared: “The alumni certificate requirement is invalid as applied to Negroes because there are no Negro alumni of any of the white institutions of the University System of Georgia, and consequently this requirement operates to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Negroes to comply with the requirement, whereas white applicants do not face similar difficulties.”5 He consequently ordered the college to end the policy and practice of requiring black applicants to furnish character certificates endorsed by white alumni.

Moreover, Sloan declared that the scholarship program that shunted black students out of state to attend college did not meet the requirement of equal protection.6 Sloan’s seventeen-page ruling thoroughly examined

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