Summary Of Sweatt V. Painter

Later, building off of the ruling in Missouri ex rel. Gaines, Sweatt v. Painter (1950) successfully challenged Plessy by claiming equal education as a constitutional right, allowing students of color to be offered the same education as white students. When Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School, he was rejected because state law restricted access to white students (Sweatt, 1). In this case, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) continued to attack this legally sanctioned racial discrimination in higher education by arguing that the education experience consists of more than just objectively measurable qualities. They argued that the law schools for colored people were not the same

academic caliber because of the faculty, courses, and alumnus (Sweatt, 2). Segregated schools would never be able to achieve the same quality of education with the type of resources given to them and would never have the same opportunities because they have not had the ability to build a prestigious reputation. Thus, through the Court’s unanimous agreement, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that Sweatt be admitted to the University of Texas Law School (Sweatt, 3). Overall, Sweatt proved separate but equal cannot be applied, especially when comparing the resources given to inferior black-only schools. Thus, granting African Americans more access to equal opportunities within education.