TY - JOUR
T1 - Between Mendez and Brown
T2 - Gonzales v. Sheely (1951) and the legal Campaign against segregation
AU - Powers, Jeanne
AU - Patton, Lirio
PY - 2008/3
Y1 - 2008/3
N2 - On March 26, 1951, three years before the historic Brown decision, in Gonzales v. Sheeley (1951), Judge Dave Ling of the United States District Court of Arizona ruled that the segregation of Mexican American students in a separate "Mexican School" was unconstitutional. In this article, we trace the legal arguments in Gonzales through two prior cases, Mendez v. Westminster (1946) and Delgado v. Bastrop (1948). We analyze how racialism, the social science critique of racism and legalism, shaped the arguments in the three cases. Our analysis suggests that Gonzales was a departure from Mendez and Delgado because it was the first case in which a court made an unqualified argument against segregation. The trajectory of the legal arguments across the three cases highlights how new cultural ideas about race were slowly incorporated into civil rights case law, a process that was also shaped by the institutional norms and practices of the legal system.
AB - On March 26, 1951, three years before the historic Brown decision, in Gonzales v. Sheeley (1951), Judge Dave Ling of the United States District Court of Arizona ruled that the segregation of Mexican American students in a separate "Mexican School" was unconstitutional. In this article, we trace the legal arguments in Gonzales through two prior cases, Mendez v. Westminster (1946) and Delgado v. Bastrop (1948). We analyze how racialism, the social science critique of racism and legalism, shaped the arguments in the three cases. Our analysis suggests that Gonzales was a departure from Mendez and Delgado because it was the first case in which a court made an unqualified argument against segregation. The trajectory of the legal arguments across the three cases highlights how new cultural ideas about race were slowly incorporated into civil rights case law, a process that was also shaped by the institutional norms and practices of the legal system.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=40249102009&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2008.00096.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2008.00096.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:40249102009
SN - 0897-6546
VL - 33
SP - 127
EP - 171
JO - Law and Social Inquiry
JF - Law and Social Inquiry
IS - 1
ER -