Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T23:29:52.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Brown v. Board of Education: An Empirical Reexamination of Its Effects on Federal District Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Francine Sanders
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A resurgent debate in the field of judicial politics has been the controversy over which has the greatest effect in decisionmaking: legal or extralegal variables. This study applies the controversy to an arena in which a consistent answer has yet to be found: federal district court reception of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that there was a great deal of variation in compliance, with southern district justices being substantially unwilling to apply the new precedent. Results found here, however, strongly suggest that the legal variable was in fact significant. Moreover, this variable was more important than region or type of case.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , 1995 , pp. 731 - 756
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1994 Western Political Science Association Meetings. I thank Henry R. Glick, John R. Vile, Stephen L. Wasby, H. Frank Way, and James P. Wenzel for their helpful criticisms.

References

References

Black, Earl, & Black, Merle (1987) Politics and Society in the South. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Carp, Robert A., & Rowland, C. K. (1983) Policymaking and Politics in the Federal District Courts. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Carp, Robert A., & Stidham, Ronald (1991) The Federal Courts. 2d ed. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Quarterly, Congressional (1979) Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. Washington: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, & Kobylka, Joseph F. (1992) The Supreme Court and Legal Change. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
George, Tracey E., & Epstein, Lee (1992) “On the Nature of Supreme Court Decision Making,” 86 American Political Science Rev. 323.Google Scholar
Giles, Michael W., & Walker, Thomas G. (1975) “Judicial Policy Making and Southern School Segregation,” 37 J. of Politics 917.Google Scholar
Hagan, John (1974) “Extra-legal Attributes and Criminal Sentencing: An Assessment of a Sociological Viewpoint,” 8 Law & Society Rev. 357.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert (1984) Justice in America: Courts, Lawyers and the Judicial Process. 4th ed. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Johnson, Charles A. (1987) “Law, Politics, and Judicial Decision Making: Lower Federal Court Uses of Supreme Court Decisions,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 325.Google Scholar
Peltason, Jack W. (1955) Federal Courts in the Political Process. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Peltason, Jack W. (1961) Fifty-Eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Richardson, Richard J., & Vines, Kenneth N. (1970) The Politics of Federal Courts. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Harrell R. Jr., & Bullock, Charles S. III (1972) Law and Social Change. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. (1991) The Hollow Hope. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rowland, C. K. (1991) “The Federal District Courts,” in Gates, J. B. & Johnson, C. A., eds., The American Courts: A Critical Assessment. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Schubert, Glendon (1963) “Civilian Control and Stare Decisis in the Warren Court,” in Schubert, G., ed., Judicial Decision-Making. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.Google Scholar
Schubert, Glendon (1965) Judicial Policy-Making. Chicago: Scott, Foresman & Co.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. (1984) “Predicting Supreme Court Cases Probabilistically: The Search and Seizure Cases, 1962–1981,” 78 American Political Science Rev. 891.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. (1991) “Courts, Executives, and Legislatures,” in Gates, J. B. & Johnson, C. A., eds., The American Courts: A Critical Assessment. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., with Hagen, Michael Gray (1985) Race and Inequality: A Study in American Values. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.Google Scholar
Steamer, Robert J. (1960) “The Role of the Federal District Courts in the Segregation Controversy,” 22 J. of Politics 417.Google Scholar
Stumpf, Harry P. (1988) American Judicial Politics. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Ulmer, Sidney J. (1971) “Warren and the Brown Decision,” 33 J. of Politics 689.Google Scholar
Vines, Kenneth N. (1964) “Federal District Judges and Race Relations Cases in the South,” 26 J. of Politics 337.Google Scholar
Wasby, Stephen L., D'Amato, Anthony, & Metrailer, Rosemary (1977) Desegregation from Brown to Alexander. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, C. Vann (1974) The Strange Career of Jim Crow. 3d ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar

Cases

For a list of the cases that make up the data set, see the Appendix. Cases discussed in the text are listed here.Google Scholar
Battle v. Wichita Falls Junior College Dist., 101 F. Supp. 82 (N.D. Texas 1951).Google Scholar
Blocker v. Board of Educ., 226 F. Supp. 208 (E.D. N.Y. 1964).Google Scholar
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (“Brown I”).Google Scholar
Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294 (1955) (“Brown II”).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draper v. City of St. Louis, 92 F. Supp. 546 (E.D. Mo. 1950).Google Scholar
Evans v. Buchanan, 207 F. Supp. 820 (D. Del. 1962).Google Scholar
Gray v. University of Tennessee, 97 F. Supp. 463 (E.D. Tenn. 1951).Google Scholar
Guillory v. Tulane Univ., 203 F. Supp. 855 (E.D. La. 1962).Google Scholar
Henry v. Greenville Airport Comm'n, 175 F. Supp. 343 (W.D. S.C. 1959).Google Scholar
Law v. Mayor of Baltimore, 78 F. Supp. 346 (D. Md. 1948).Google Scholar
McLaurin v. Board of Regents, 87 F. Supp. 526 (W.D. Okla. 1949).Google Scholar
Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Association, 347 U.S. 971 (1954).Google Scholar
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).Google Scholar
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950).Google Scholar
Wells v. Gilliam, 196 F. Supp. 792 (E.D. Va. 1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar