Segregation Research Paper

Segregation Research Paper: Berea College v. Commonwealth

Caption of Case and Citation

Berea College v. Commonwealth, 94 S.W. 623; 1906 Ky. LEXIS 139

Statement of Facts

This case took place during 1906 when the appellant college wanted review of a judgment from the Madison Circuit Court of Kentucky. The Madison Circuit Court had found the college guilty under two indictments for the suspected infractions of prohibiting white and African Americans from attending the same school. The college was fined in each case. The college appealed from its conviction of the two indictments claiming its constitutionality because it violated the Bill of Rights embraced in the Constitution of the State of Kentucky, as well as that it is in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. The court affirmed the conviction that the college operates a school were combination of the races was in violation of the act. This reversed the conviction for the offense of maintaining and operating a college where both races were taught within a distance of twenty-five miles of each other. This partition of the races in schools had been upheld as an acceptable exercise of the state's police power. Though the same school could teach the two races in different buildings, the requirement that they had to be twenty-five miles away from each other was difficult and oppressive, and violated the boundaries of the police power.

Question Presented

This case questioned the issue of whether or not an educational institute should be allowed to run desegregated in Kentucky and also question whether or not educational institutes could teach black and white students within twenty five miles of each other. It was questioned whether it was ones right to be taught in a desegregated school and whether or not it was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. It was questioned why this would not be accepted due to the fact that laws of several States, including Kentucky, prohibit the two races from attending the same public school. Instead they provide separate public schools for each race. These laws had been held to be a reasonable and a valid exercise of the police power of these States, and not considered to take away from any right or privilege granted by the Fourteenth Amendment to either