|
May 17th 2004 marks the 50 year anniversary of the US Supreme Court Decision on Brown v. Board of Education. The Utah State Bar is coordinating a number of events and projects to
commemorate this anniversary. For complete information on these efforts, go to www.utahbar.org/brownvboard.
Classroom Presentations
Perhaps the most notable project is getting volunteer lawyers into high school classrooms to direct dialogues on Brown. These sessions will help high school students better
understand and appreciate the impact of Brown on the law and society. Excellent materials will be available to make this very easy on the participating lawyers. Lawyers interested in participating should e-mail brownvboard@utahbar.org or call (801) 297-7027.
Film Festival
A number of Brown related films will be presented, generally in the May 1st to May 17th time frame. These will occur at various locations. For more information on the films, go to: www.utahbar.org/brownvboard.
Newspaper Insert
The Bar is planning on running an insert in many Utah newspapers on May 3rd. This insert will include a variety of information about the Brown decision
and be designed to generate interest in learning more about Brown.
Letter to the Editor Contest
The Utah Minority Bar Association, in cooperation with some local and
regional bars, is running a Letter to the Editor Contest. To enter this contest, high school students will write and submit letters to the editor on the Brown decision and its
impact. Prizes will be awarded and participating newspapers will run submissions as appropriate.
Law Day Dinner
This year the Law Day Celebration will be held on May
7th. This event will feature Robert Grey Jr., the President-Elect of the ABA. Mr. Grey is the second African American to hold this position and will make a presentation on the Brown
decision and its impact on the profession and society. Held in the evening this year, the event will be at the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake. Check out the Bar's web site for more
information as this date draws nearer.
Thoughts on Brown v. Board of Education...
Yvette Donosso Diaz is an attorney at Manning Curtis Bradshaw & Bednar
LLC. She is currently serving as a Bar Commissioner for the Third District.
May 17, 2004, marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education.
As a mother, I am deeply grateful and humbled by the tremendous sacrifices made by courageous men and women of all colors in America to ensure that my children, and your children, will
have the opportunity to live in a society where they can flourish according to their personal talent, determination and aspiration, and not be excluded from the American Dream solely on
the color of their skin.
On behalf of the Utah Minority Bar Association, I express gratitude to the Utah State Bar for its efforts to celebrate this historic event. As an
association we hope that every member of the Utah State Bar takes time to reflect about the impact of the Brown decision. Accordingly, we have gathered personal thoughts about the Brown decision from some of our members to share with you below. We hope together, we can work to fulfill the Brown legacy of justice and equality.
Justice Christine M. Durham is the Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court.
I am old enough to remember the issuance of the Court's first opinion in Brown v. Board of Education,
and the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards that dotted the highways when my family moved from California to Washington DC in 1957. It is an enormous source of pride to me as an
American that the courts were responsible for closing doors on segregation and racial discrimination and opening them to the possibility of fairness and justice for all. The courage of
all who made that decision possible is an inspiration to me as a lawyer, a judge, and an American. Even in the face of all we have yet to do to achieve justice and equality in this
nation, we can and should honor and celebrate this part of our history.
Raymond Uno is a retired Third District Court Judge and one of the founders of UMBA.
For me, Brown v. Board of Education was a significant case. It was one of the engines that propelled the civil rights movement throughout the country. Raised in Ogden, Utah before WWII, our family moved to El Monte, California in 1938, where I was enrolled in a segregated school of about 500 Mexicans and a handful of Japanese. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Thereafter, people of Japanese descent were submitted to curfews and travel restrictions of a 5-mile radius from our home. Although my father was an American citizen and veteran of WWI, I vividly recall the day the FBI came and thoroughly searched our house, taking whatever documents and material they thought important. To this day I do not know if they had a search warrant. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced removal of persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. I spent the next 3 years in Heart Mountain, a concentration camp in Wyoming, where my father died on January 21, 1943. As youths in these camps, ironically, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. However, we would end by saying, "and justice for all," and then whisper, "except for us."
In the 1950's and 1960's, the Utah State Bar membership consisted of only a handful of minorities. Opening the doors of the legal profession was not easy. Historically, the powers
that be in the legal profession had paid little or no attention to the plight of minority lawyers. We were tolerated, but not recognized as part and parcel of the legal community. Slowly,
progress was made. In 1965, the Utah Attorney General, Phil Hansen, hired Ken Hisatake, Hank Adams, and myself as Assistant Attorney Generals. That same year, Jimi Mitsunaga founded the
Legal Defender Association and became its first Director. Today we have minority attorneys working as judges, as counsel in large and small firms, in corporations and as law professors.
As I reminisce, much progress has been made. But there are still many subtle and grinding obstacles that must be hurdled. One day in the near future, I hope we can look back with pride
and say, "We have done the best we could with what we had. We are a better profession for the progress made. We helped create a better community for everyone to live in because of
the sacrifices we made to implement diversity." With this progress and hope, Brown was one of the pivotal forces that made life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and equal protection under the law a possibility for all, even minorities.
Judge Shauna Graves-Robertson from the Salt Lake County Justice Court.
Brown was the crown jewel in a line of cases that sounded the death knell for the doctrine of
"separate but equal" in the educational arena. Brown, along with the 1950 case of Sweatt v. Painter personally affected me in two ways. First, these cases gave me
the knowledge that if a legal education was what I wanted, no one could legally stop me from getting it. Second, and for me more importantly, these cases gave me role models. Whenever I
have been faced with what I thought were barriers in my career, I have drawn strength from my three legal heros and "sheros," Robert L. Carter, Thurgood Marshall and Constance
Baker Motley. These individuals paved the way that made my chosen career possible. It is now up to me, and others in the legal field, to ensure that the next generation will have the same
opportunities we have had.
Judge William A. Thorne, Jr. serves on the Utah Court of Appeals.
Brown transformed the way this country thinks of itself. The vast majority of people in this country now
expect to have equal access to schools, services, the courts and every other facet of life. While expectations may not always be a reality, as a society we are no longer willing to simply
accept less than equal treatment - whether it be based on gender, socioeconomic status, religion, or "other" factors. Equality has leapt off the page where the Constitution was
written and has truly sunk deep roots into the fabric of our society. We are all blessed by this occurrence. While some may believe that Brown was primarily a benefit to African-Americans, I believe the impact is much deeper and broader. Brown was an overdue redemption of a promised equality for not only African-Americans, but for all ethnic minority groups in this country. But the impact does not stop even there. Our country, our society, and all of our communities (not just so-called minority communities) are truly stronger and healthier for the legacy of this decision. We are fortunate to be able to pass onto our children the "expectation" of equality that is the true legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.
Sean D. Reyes is an attorney at Parsons Behle & Latimer and President-elect of the Utah Minority Bar Association.
Every first year law student knows the mechanical recitation of the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Namely, that the concept of equal protection espoused in the 14th
Amendment overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson "separate but equal" doctrine. The tremendous social impact of that simple pronouncement is something all of our society should realize and remember. What Brown did was reject fifty years of legally sanctioned segregation while providing another critical impetus in turning back centuries of legally and socially sanctioned racism in general. Although Brown specifically struck down segregation in public schools, it was a catalyst for undermining segregation in all aspects of American life. Relying on Brown,
subsequent court decisions enjoined segregation in areas such as public services and employment. Because of the literal and symbolic effect of the high court's ruling in Brown, the
nascent civil rights movement drew inspiration and gained momentum, leading to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other invaluable gains. That legacy
continues today.
While Brown is most commonly viewed as a victory for African-Americans, and rightly so, it was also a triumph for all minority groups and society at large. At the time Brown was
decided, Latinos, Asians and other racial minority groups could be, and often were, subject to segregation in schools. In addition to the specific legal rights granted by Brown,
all minority groups have benefited from the legal and social gains that followed from it. One personal example involves my father, a Filipino-Spanish immigrant, who came to this country
in 1968 and was a direct beneficiary of the legal rights and social change Brown helped establish. The kindness and intervention of Reverend Martin Luther King's family, and many other champions of the principles embodied in Brown,
assisted my father in staving off deportation and becoming an enthusiastic participant in the American Dream. I know he, and many others like him, have made significant contributions to
our society simply because they were given a chance to participate in it on an equal basis. As an Asian, Hispanic and Polynesian-American, I am deeply appreciative of the sacrifices made
by those who paved the way for, participated in, and have continued the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.
Erika George is a professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah.
My parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents were born into a segregated society
sanctioned by a system of discriminatory laws. My family was from Louisiana, where any resistance by an African-American to the system of racial segregation intended to relegate him or
her to an inferior place in society was met with brutality. When I was a child, my mother showed me the scars she got as a child when a mob beat her after playing on the "wrong"
(the Whites only) playground near her home. I did not grow up in Louisiana. I spent my childhood in Chicago, after my mother's repeated arrests for participation in civil rights protests
drove my parents up North.
I am eternally grateful to have been born into a different world, one made possible in no small measure by the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Declaring racial segregation in public schools an unconstitutional deprivation of equal education opportunities, the Court in Brown signaled the end of public and legally mandated racial separation paving the way for the civil rights movement. In short, without Brown,
I simply could not be. Indeed, it chills me to imagine where our society would be today had the Court failed to formally bring to an end the legal doctrine of "separate but
equal." Brown did not bring about the world we live in overnight. Indeed after the ruling, various Southern legislatures passed laws imposing penalties on anyone who attempted to
implement desegregation and enacted school closing plans that authorized the suspension of public education to keep Black and White children separate. Despite these obstructions, Brown served as a catalyst for change. Arguably, the legal and social obstacles that many Southern states erected in an effort to thwart integration served as flashpoints for the subsequent student protests that launched the civil rights movement. Brown,
coupled with the struggles and sacrifices made by people who courageously stood up for their convictions and advanced the cause of social justice and equality, has brought America closer
to realizing its promise. As we become an increasingly multiracial society, the benefits of diversity and equality remain just as valid fifty years after Brown - while we have made tremendous strides towards social justice and equality, we still have quite a distance to go.
Cecilia M. Romero is an attorney at Ray Quinney & Nebeker.
The landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education, decided on May 17, 1954, declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The result, however, was more than the end of racial segregation in public schools, Brown served, and continues to serve, as a tool to end segregation and racial hatred. For me, the landmark decision ensured that I had, and my children will have, the privilege and opportunity to attend a diverse school, where cultural education and desegregation is valued not only because it is morally right but because of the value of learning from one another. It means that I am valued not only for the color of my skin, but because of the contributions that I make to society. Most importantly, Brown set the precedent that racial inequality will not be tolerated and when necessary, it is the sword that enables us to continue to fight against discrimination.
Akiko Kawamura practices Community Association Law and related civil litigation at Hobbs & Olson, L.C.
We have not achieved racial equality. The truth is, the vestiges of
the "separate but equal" doctrine remain with us, and equality will elude us until our community learns that true equality cannot be contained within a framework of separation.
On a daily basis, I watch people try to decide how to compartmentalize me. People tell me that I speak English very well for a foreigner. Complete strangers ask me questions about my
ethnicity, and others have suggested to me that they fear interracial unions. But despite the subtle and blatant xenophobia that is still with us, our world is evolving. The legacy of Brown is its promise to us that the predominant ideology can be challenged and defeated. Until 1954, this country embraced the belief that equal treatment meant substantially equal, but separate, facilities. Until 1967, 16 states had anti-miscegenation statutes. Linda Brown reminds us that we should always be wary of the prevailing rule. Why, for example, does it make sense to make marriage illegal between any two people who are committed to sharing a life together? Chief Justice Warren, in his analysis, aptly explained, "In approaching [segregation in public education], we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was
written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation." Brown v. Board of Education, 347
U.S. 483 (1954). The enduring message is that our laws should progress as our civilization advances. As lawyers, I hope you believe, like I do, that one of our duties is to question, and
when necessary, challenge those outdated rules.
Sharrieff Shah is an attorney at Parsons Behle & Latimer and concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and medical malpractice.
When I pause, reflect and
begin to critically analyze my plight in Utah as an African American attorney, I know, indisputably, that I am a direct beneficiary of the vast opportunities that began to flourish nearly
fifty years ago as a result of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Although Brown's holding was aimed at directly ending segregation in public schools, the decision's rippling effect has given African Americans, as well as others, the firm foundation upon which to confidently stand and pursue other meaningful areas that extend far beyond the realm of education. As the great-grandson of slaves, I feel the depth and meaning of the statement, "we shall overcome," and realize today that Brown gives continued substance to this enduring afrocentric mantra. Ultimately, as change is inevitable, Brown ensures that Ôchange' will not only be ubiquitous, but also fundamentally equitable. Thank you Brown.
Janise Macanas works in the Criminal Division of the Utah Attorney General's Office.
In 1954, racial segregation in public schools was commonplace across America. In Topeka,
Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only
seven blocks away. Linda Brown's experience was illustrative of the challenge faced by minorities in 1950's America - Linda Brown underwent great inconvenience, if not outright hardship,
merely to get that which white Americans took for granted. At the Brown v. Board of Education hearings, when asked for a definition of "equal" by Justice Frankfurter,
Thurgood Marshall replied, "Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place."
Sadly, "separate but equal" was a state of mind and
not just a backward school policy. When the Supreme Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" it accomplished more than the forced desegregation
of public schools in 21 states. Brown legitimized the rejection of racial prejudice in America. The civil rights movement, women's movement, and successive struggles for social equality draw strength and legitimacy from Brown's decision. As both a woman and a minority I feel I owe Chief Justice Warren's court a great debt for the opportunities that my children and I enjoy in modern America.
|
