Whatever Means Necessary: Uncovering the Case of Sweatt v. Painter and Its Legal Importance

Authors

Adam Scott Miller, CSUSB

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The road to end segregation in the United States has been a long uphill battle for African Americans. The purpose of this paper serves several critical purposes. The first function is to educate the reader about the legal struggles that African Americans endured between the era of Reconstruction and the Supreme Court desegregating graduate school case of Sweatt v. Painter in 1950. Not only was this elusive case an important stepping stone in reversing the “Separate but Equal Doctrine” upheld by the Supreme Court in 1886, this case shows the lengths that segregationists went to in maintaining the status quo of racial separation. Finally, this paper will demonstrate the legal relevance that Sweatt v. Painter had to a current Supreme Court Affirmative Action case of Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003.

Recommended Citation

Miller, Adam Scott (2011) "Whatever Means Necessary: Uncovering the Case of Sweatt v. Painter and Its Legal Importance," History in the Making: Vol. 4, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol4/iss1/6