Mendez v. Westminster

Mendez, et al v. Westminister [sic] School District of Orange County, et al, 64 F.Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946), aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947) (en banc), was a 1947 federal court case that challenged Mexican remedial schools in Orange County, California. In its ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an en banc decision, held that the forced segregation of Mexican American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional and unlawful because Mexicans were white. It was the first ruling in the United States in favor of desegregation.

Five Mexican-American fathers (Thomas Estrada, William Guzman, Gonzalo Mendez, Frank Palomino, and Lorenzo Ramirez) challenged the practice of school segregation in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. They claimed that their children, along with 5,000 other children of "Mexican" ancestry, were victims of unconstitutional discrimination by being forced to attend separate "schools for Mexicans" in the Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and El Modena school districts of Orange County.

Mexican Americans, then legally and socially considered to be "white", were not normally subject to legal segregation in California, and in general, they always went to schools with other white children. Starting in the 1940s, a few scattered districts began to establish separate language-based "Mexican Schools", arguing that Mexican children had special needs because they were Spanish-speakers. Some began forcing all Mexican children into "Mexican Schools" even though that was not the norm and not legally sanctioned by the state of California.

Soledad Vidaurri went to the Westminster Elementary School District (also known as the Westminster School District) in order to enroll her children and her brother Gonzalo Mendez’s kids, Gonzalo, Geronimo, and Sylvia to the school. The Westminster School informed Viduarri that her kids could be admitted to the school. However, Gonzalo, Geronimo, and Sylvia could not be admitted on the basis of their skin color. (Viduarri’s children had light complexions and French surnames and therefore would not be segregated into a different school.) Upon hearing the news, Viduarri refused to admit her children to the school if her brother’s children were not admitted as well. The parents, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, tried to arrange for Geronimo, Gonzalo, and Sylvia to attend the school by talking to the school administration but both parties were not able to reach an agreement.

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