Separate-but-equal graduate schools failed because hastily created black institutions were never truly equal.

Evidence

The NAACP pushed and pulled. The Court was a reluctant bridegroom. The plaintiffs won most of their cases, but on narrow grounds. As early as 1938, the Supreme Court ordered the University of Missouri to admit Lloyd Gaines, an African American, to its law school. Gaines never attended—​in fact he disappeared, somewhat mysteriously, and Missouri hastily created a law school for blacks. Would this technique—​quickly providing some sort of school for black students—​satisfy the Supreme Court? The answer came in Sweatt v. Painter (1950). Sweatt, a mail carrier in Houston, Texas, had ambitions of becoming a lawyer. The University of Texas Law School was open only to whites. Texas, to avoid integration, set up a new law school for blacks. But the Supreme Court would have none of this. The University of Texas was a powerful, unique institution, famous, rich in tradition; a feeble new school, hastily thrown together in a basement, with a tiny faculty and a minuscule library, was not and could not be in any sense “equal” to the University of Texas Law School. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3902

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Underfunded segregated black schools often still matched white schools in quality — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1179

Broader Connections

• Underfunded segregated black schools often still matched white schools in quality #contradicts (0.85) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1179