Mendez v. Westminster: The Mexican-American Fight for School Integration and Social Equality Pre-Brown v. Board of Education

Sylvia Mendez was seven years old in September 1943 when her aunt took her to enroll at the Westminster School, a beautiful elementary school in Westminster, Calif., with manicured lawns and a “wonderful” playground. The Mendez family had recently moved from nearby Santa Ana to Westminster, and Sylvia’s father, Gonzalo, expected that his daughter would attend the Westminster School, as he did in his youth. But in the years since Gonzalo attended Westminster, things had changed for Mexican-Americans in Southern California. Their numbers had grown exponentially and, as their population grew, so did the backlash against them. The majority white population began to officially exclude Mexicans from public life and deny Mexican-Americans the rights and privileges accorded to other U.S. citizens. Although “white” as a matter of law, Mexican-Americans were treated as inferiors—economically, socially, and even biologically. And so, Sylvia Mendez, because she was a “Mendez,” could not, as a matter of district policy, enroll at Westminster School and would instead have to attend a ramshackle schoolhouse in Santa Ana, where all of the children were Mexican or of “Latin descent.” There, she would learn to be a “good maid.”¹

Sylvia’s parents were incensed. The family lived within the boundaries of the Westminster School and saw no reason why Sylvia should not attend Westminster. They saw the matter for what it was—race discrimination—and fought hard to get Sylvia into Westminster, to no avail. Ultimately, the Mendezes contacted an attorney named David C. Marcus who had recently sued the city of San Bernardino to overturn a law barring Mexican-Americans from using the city’s only park and swimming pool. Marcus, a Jewish American married to a Mexican woman and the father of two Mexican-American girls, agreed to represent the Mendezes and ultimately made history.

Nearly a decade before the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Mendezes and other Mexican-American plaintiffs sued four Orange County school districts, arguing that the districts denied them equal protection of the law on the basis of their Mexican heritage in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The case went to trial in the U.S. district court in Los Angeles and, to the surprise of many, the plaintiffs won. Their victory set off a wave of excitement among civil rights advocates nationwide, including the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall,² who saw Mendez as a pathway to overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and ending “separate but equal” once and for all.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Mendez trial court victory. Although the case has garnered more attention in recent years, it is still largely unknown. But Mendez was groundbreaking in many ways, and its importance to Mexican-Americans and Latinos, as well as to all Americans, cannot be understated. Here, we tell a portion of the incredible story of Mendez v. Westminster.

Mexican-Americans in Southern California

The years leading to Mendez were difficult for Mexican- Americans in Southern California. As Mexican migration to the United States skyrocketed in the 1910s and 1920s, people of Mexican descent were subjected to systematic discrimination; they were segregated in public facilities, like movie theaters and swimming pools (allowed to attend only on “Mexican day,” if at all),³ and segregated residentially into “barrios” or “colonias.” Mexicans comprised the majority of farmworkers and were seen as unclean and inferior to whites. As legal scholar Philippa Sturm and others have noted, claims of Mexican inferiority were grounded in racist pseudoscience of the time that deemed Mexicans to have “different mental characteristics” and an aptness for manual labor but not intellectual pursuits.⁴ It was, thus, no surprise that school districts across Southern California created separate “Mexican schools” to teach Mexican-American children skills “suited to their needs” and to “Americanize” them⁵ Separate school facilities were Anglo society’s answer to the “Mexican problem.”⁶

By the 1940s, the indignity of such treatment was too much to bear for Mexican-Americans, especially for families who had lived in Southern California for generations and whose American children were fighting for their country in World War II. They decided to fight.

The Mendezes Sue

In March 1945, Marcus filed a petition on behalf of the Mendezes, four other Mexican-American families, and “some 5,000 other persons of Mexican and Latin descent.” The suit—against Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and El Modena school districts—alleged that the districts conspired with each other to preclude petitioners “and all others of Mexican or Latin descent from attending and using and receiving the benefits and education furnished to other children” and to segregate Mexican-American children “solely for the reason that [they] are of Mexican or Latin descent.” Petitioners alleged that the districts’ actions caused the children “continuous, great and irreparable [harm]” and violated their right to equal protection under the law.

The petition, notably, did not allege race discrimination. Although the parents had in open forums described their segregation as race discrimination—and Gonzalo Mendez Jr. would later say the Mendezes were denied admittance to Westminster because they were “too brown”—a claim of race discrimination was likely to fail given the Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which held

that racial segregation was permissible so long as segregated facilities were “equal.” Moreover, Mexicans were officially “white” according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and, indeed, many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans of the time considered themselves to be white.⁷ So Marcus avoided any claim of race discrimination before the district court, telling the judge that he did not “contend that there is such a thing as the Mexican race.” The claim, instead, rested on disparate treatment based on the children’s “Mexican or Latin descent.”

The school districts denied the claim. Although most Mexican- American school children were segregated, they argued, separation was necessary and “desirable” for the “efficient instruction of pupils who are familiar with the English language.” Language capability was the issue, they said, not race or ethnicity. Furthermore, they asserted—likely with Plessy in mind—the Mexican children received an equal education and had access to equal facilities.

In pretrial hearings, the court zeroed in on the issue that concerned it most:

We have here a problem and the ultimate question would be what is meant by the same or equal facilities. That doesn’t simply mean the curriculum. It means social, in the sense that the children are in a democratic environment, commingling with one another on an equal basis as far as nature has constituted individuals to be equal.⁸

Elsewhere, the court noted that, in its view, “the fundamental principle of public school education in the United States is the general commingling of children of all ancestries and descents for the purpose of building up a culture of our own.”⁹ This view of the purpose of public school education would ultimately prove fundamental.

The Trial

The court conducted a bench trial over a period of two weeks. In his case in chief, Marcus set out to prove that Orange County discriminated against Mexican-Americans solely because of their lineage and that any claim of language “handicap” was mere pretense. The defense, on the other hand, sought to establish that there was a legitimate basis for segregation (language deficiencies by Mexican children) and that the Mexican schools were equal to the white ones.

It did not take long for the defense theory to unravel. On day one, Marcus called to the stand an adverse witness, James L. Kent, the school superintendent for Garden Grove. Marcus knew that four years prior, Kent had written a master’s thesis titled “Segregation of Mexican School Children in Southern California,” in which he argued that Mexicans were an “alien race that should be segregated socially.” According to Kent, Mexicans were “less sturdy” than whites, indifferent towards education, and needed to be taught “social behavior,” that is, cleanliness, manners, “cleanliness of mind,” and “the ability to get along.”¹⁰ It did not take much pushing to get Kent to admit his views on the stand and to undermine the central tenets of the defense case.

On direct, Kent admitted that in Garden Grove, Mexican children were placed in Mexican schools “[r]egardless of their ability to speak the English language.”¹¹ He confessed that he did not believe Mexicans were “of the white race” (although he backtracked after a recess and a discussion with counsel).¹² And he testified that Mexicans were “inferior” to “other children” in “their economic outlook, in their clothing, [and] their ability to take part in the activities in school.”¹³ When asked by the court whether Mexican children could not at least attend an integrated school where they could mix “democratically” with others on the playground, Kent responded that the Mexican children were likely to speak Spanish on the playground and would not “naturally” get along with the white children. He added that Mexicans were also different in that they “matur[ed] physically faster than your white child” and operated “more on physical prowess than … on mental ability.”¹⁴

Other district officials helped bury the defense case. A Santa Ana official testified that the district determined which children were to attend Mexican schools based on the children’s surnames rather than language ability. Another acknowledged that it was the policy in his district to separate Mexican-American school children from the rest and that no language tests were administered.

A number of parents testified as to their racist and discriminatory experiences with the school districts. Their testimony reflected that they were told their English-speaking children would not be admitted to white schools because Mexicans were “dirty”; that if their children were of Spanish, not Mexican, ancestry, they might be admitted; and that Japanese and Filipinos were of a “higher race” than Mexicans and better qualified to be citizens. Many spoke of the degradation and constant humiliation their children suffered due to their treatment in Mexican schools.

Finally, the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, both education experts, testified to the corrosive and pernicious effects of segregation. The experts noted that segregation of Mexican-American students was harmful not only to their education and ability to assimilate, but also to their psyche because segregation “by its very nature, is a reminder constantly of inferiority, of not being wanted, of not being a part of the community.”¹⁵

The Court’s Ruling

On Feb. 18, 1946, Judge Paul McCormick issued his ruling and found that the school districts in fact conspired to discriminate against Mexican-Americans on the basis of their lineage in violation of the students’ constitutional rights and enjoined the school districts from segregating children going forward.

The decision was remarkable for several reasons. First, the court found that in segregating Mexican-American school children, the districts denied the children the educational benefits that come with “commingling with other pupils.” Second, the court observed that distinctions based on race or ancestry had “recently been declared” by the Supreme Court in Hirabayashi v. United States to be “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” And third, the court noted that, even if the children were educated in separate schools using the same technical facilities, text books, and courses of instructions, they would not be “equal” because “social equality” was a “paramount requisite in the American system of public education.”¹⁶ The court found that in segregating children based on their Mexican heritage, the districts “foster[ed] antagonisms in the children and suggest[ed] inferiority among them where none exists.”¹⁷ Moreover, segregation denied all of the children of the opportunity to develop a “common cultural attitude … which is imperative for the perpetuation of American institutions and ideals.” The court’s ruling, with its emphasis on democracy and “social equality” and its recognition of Mexican-Americans as equal citizens, was extraordinary.

The Appeal and Impact of Mendez

As word of the district court’s opinion spread, a number of national civil rights and advocacy groups joined the Mendezes’ side as the case was appealed. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild were already involved as amici at the district court level, and soon they were joined by the American Jewish Congress, the Japanese American Citizens League, and the NAACP, which was represented in the Mendez appeal by Thurgood Marshall and Robert L. Carter.¹⁸ “These organizations deemed [Mendez] a test case for Plessy and attacked it headlong.”¹⁹ Amici framed the issues in stark relief, noting that the separation in Mendez was based on an assumption of inferiority, perpetuated racial prejudice, and contributed to the “degradation and humiliation” of minority children.²⁰ They wanted Plessy overturned.

Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that “the segregation cases” (like Plessy) did not apply to Mendez and the court would not end race-based segregation by judicial order. Instead, the court affirmed the district court’s ruling on the narrow ground that segregation of Mexican-American children specifically²¹ was against California law and thus violated the Fourteenth Amendment.²²

Although the circuit court’s ruling was disappointingly narrow, it was significant nonetheless. The case was not further appealed, and many of the schools that had not yet integrated no longer had a choice. The courts were united in their finding that segregating Mexican-American school children was unconstitutional, and for the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in Southern California and in the West, this was life-changing.²³

Mendez was not just important for Mexican-Americans; it was and is important for all Americans. Although race was officially a non-issue, it was always integral to the case.²⁴ Shortly after the decision, the California legislature ended all forms of legal segregation in California schools. Other Mexican-American communities, including those in Texas, took inspiration from Mendez and made similar equal protection claims in their jurisdictions and won. And, as others have noted, Mendez paved the way for Brown. Carter, one of the NAACP attorneys in Brown, noted that the NAACP’s briefs in Mendez were “the model” for its briefs in Brown. Mendez cast a bright light on racial segregation, and the finding by two federal courts that segregation of Mexican-Americans was unconstitutional was a “huge step in civil rights.”²⁵ On this 75th anniversary of the district court victory Mendez, let us thank the Mendezes and the other families for their courage, and let us remember that separate is never equal.

Endnotes

¹ Education Week, Voices of History: Sylvia Mendez, YouTube (May 13, 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIMWdfSxoh8.

² Thurgood Marshall was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991).

³ Christopher Arriola, Knocking on the Schoolhouse Door: Mendez v. Westminster, Equal Protection, Public Education, and Mexican Americans in the 1940s, 8 La Raza L.J. 166, 171 (1995).

⁴ Philippa Strum, Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights 19 (2010).

⁵ Id.

⁶ Arriola, supra note 3, at 170.

⁷ Strum, supra note 4, at 63.

⁸ Pretrial Transcript at 108, Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946) (No. 4292-M), https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/6277732/content/arcmedia/pacific/riverside/294938/civil-4292/1945_06_26_Pre-Trial_Transcript.pdf.

⁹ Trial Transcript at 672, Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946) (No. 4292-M),https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/6277739/content/arcmedia/pacific/riverside/294938/civil-4292/1945_07_11_Trial_Transcript.pdf.

¹⁰ Trial Transcript at 85-86, Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946) (No. 4292-M), https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/6277735/content/arcmedia/pacific/riverside/294938/civil-4292/1945_07_05_Trial_Transcript.pdf.

¹¹ Id.

¹² Id.

¹³ Id.

¹⁴ Id.

¹⁵ Trial Transcript at 691, Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946) (No. 4292-M), https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/6277739/content/arcmedia/pacific/riverside/294938/civil-4292/1945_07_11_Trial_Transcript.pdf.

¹⁶ Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544, 549 (S.D. Cal. 1946).

¹⁷ Id. (emphasis added).

¹⁸ Robert L. Carter was a judge of the U.S. District Court of New York (1972-2012).

¹⁹ Arriola, supra note 3, at 194.

²⁰ See Strum, supra note 4, at 135 (quoting joint brief of the ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, and Japanese American Citizens League).

²¹ Westminster School Dist. v. Mendez, 161 F.2d 774, 780 (9th Cir. 1947).

²² Notably, Judge William Denman, writing alone in concurrence, took the majority to task for failing to address the bigger picture. Judge Denman warned that “[w]ere the vicious principle sought to be established in [Orange County] followed elsewhere, in scores of school districts the adolescent minds of American children wouldbecome infected” and all manner of other peoples in California—Italians, Greeks, Jews, Palestinians, and Armenians, for example— could be segregated, giving rise to “Hitler’s anti-semitism … in the country which gave its youth to aid in its destruction.” Mendez, 161 F.2d at 783 (Denman, J., concurring).

²³ Sylvia Mendez did ultimately attend Westminster and later became a nurse. She was awarded the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

²⁴ Not only did witnesses make clear that they did not believe Mexicans were “white,” but even Marcus, in his post-trial briefing, maintained that he had proven at trial race discrimination. See Brief for Petitioners at 5, Westminster School Dist. v. Mendez, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947) (No. 4292-M), https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/petitioners-opening-brief.

²⁵ See Sandra Robbie, Sandra Robbie’s “Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children,” YouTube ( July 9, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F46Mlzt2tFc.

About the Authors

Eddie A. Jauregui is a partner at Holland & Knight in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense & Investigations Team. He previously was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Barbara A. Martinez, a former federal prosecutor, is a member of Holland & Knight’s Global Compliance and Investigations Team in Miami. She focuses her practice on internal corporate investigations, compliance counseling, and white collar criminal defense.

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