Page 13 - Delaware Lawyer - Issue 1 - 2024

Hockessin School #107c students
The second, Bulah, was brought by a seven-year-old who was refused ad- mission to Hockessin School No. 29. The plaintiffs’ primary argument was that segregation was per se uncon- stitutional — that the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson,4 as applied to public schools, violated the 14th Amendment. Their alterna- tive argument was that the separate facilities and educational opportuni- ties offered by Delaware to the plain- tiffs were inferior to those available to similarly situated white students.
The alternative argument was a clear winner, as the facilities and educational opportunities offered to the plaintiffs were not equal by any
Shirley Bulah
measure. The Chancellor revealed this through a painstakingly detailed set of factual findings comparing everything from the distance of the schools from the plaintiffs’ homes to the schools’ gyms and outdoor spac- es, student-teacher ratios, course of- ferings and teacher trainings, among other things. The analysis proved rel- atively straightforward — there was no evidence or logic to support any other conclusion.
That is not to say that this out- come was easy. Desegregation was hugely unpopular at the time. And although some might think that judi- cial robes serve as flak jackets — pro- tection from those who lodge insults
Ethel Louise Belton
and jeers — they do not. It undoubt- edly took tremendous resolve to rule against the State on the question of whether educational facilities were equal for students of color.
More impressive, the Chancel- lor chose not to limit his analysis to the plaintiffs’ alternative argument. He could have. But pointing out the disparities between the two separate groups of plaintiffs and their peers did not address the systemic evil al- lowed to perpetuate in public schools by operation of the separate-but- equal doctrine. I assume that this is why the Chancellor also addressed the harder question — whether seg- regation was unconstitutional per se.
Louis Redding, who filed the court case Bulah v. Gebhart on behalf of Shirley Bulah PHOTO COURTESY OF HOCKESSINCOLOREDSCHOOL107.ORG
ISSUE 1 2024 DELAWARE LAWYER 11
DR. DAVID WILK
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