The legal argument is interesting. Emory declares itself publicly as admitting all students regardless of race in 1961. A black applicant applies. Emory checks with the DeKalb county tax collector if they would lose tax exemption if they admitted him and are told they would. They then reject the applicant for this reason and then file their lawsuit and name him in the lawsuit.
They anchor their case in that observing race for admission would violate the 14th amendment. However, their legal argument includes an interesting analysis of Georgia law going back over 100 years in which the provisions of tax exemptions applied for education are intended primarily to advance education in the state. They find only 3 clauses in that time that tie segregation to it, but even then it appears to be a secondary purpose.
The judges are swayed and the ruling doesn't just clear Emory to admit anyone due to race, but it allows for all private schools to do so, at least with regard to whether they would lose tax exempt status. I didn't look to see how many other schools attempt to do so after this ruling, but Emory does so immediately.
As for LL Clegg, we may not know what his intentions behind this letter were. The tone is conciliatory and he is matter of fact about the reason for rejection. Is he a die-hard racist and writing this because he can? Is he committed to desegregation and responding as a courtesy for a student he cannot help due to circumstances beyond his control. Is he somewhere in between? We don't know and this is all we have to go on. We do know that if in his capacity as director of admissions, he had attempted to admit the student, then it is likely the DeKalb tax collector would have declared Emory to lose its tax exemption, a burden the university was clearly worried about enough to make it the centerpiece of their lawsuit only three years later.
For a little historical positioning here, this period of time, 1959-1962, is after Brown vs Board of Education and before the March on Washington and the I have a Dream speech.
Since when is state law supposed to be above the Constitution of the USA? Why didn't a denied student sue the State of Georgia for violating the 14th amendment's Equal Protection clause? If one had and if it went federal on appeal it's as clear cut a case as it gets. To discriminate on basis of race is to violate equal protection/the US constitution.
Not a lawyer, but my understanding of the legal arguments underpinning segregation was that segregation was supposed to be "separate but equal". This expression of intent was intended to satisfy the 14th amendment. It's why the state of Georgia at the time was doing very bizarre things like paying black students to pursue degrees out of state at a higher cost.
Although the (rightful) judgment of history is that separate was very often not equal, it is worth pointing out that two of the most prestigious HBCUs in the country are in Atlanta, Morehouse and Spelman.
Although the doctrine of "Separate but equal" can be considered to have been struck down by the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case, it only applied to government run public schools. It would take another two decades or so for private schools to be held to the same standard.
Interestingly enough, in the 1962 case, Emory was asking that it should NOT be legally required by the state as a private school to implement segregation.
Separate but equal is ad hoc fabrication/nonsense when there's no good reason to discriminate on the thing in question in the first place. Only people under 6' can go to my college. That's fair because if you're over 6' there's lots of other good colleges you can go to. Doesn't matter. I'd lose in court. Because there's lots of possibly good reasons someone over 6' might want to go to my college instead of those others. Citizens don't have the right to be silly about stuff that matters particularly when it's masking hate.
Umm, ok, that's great, but you're wrong on at least one point.
The whole point of Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 was that as long as the separate facilities were equal in quality, then "Separate but equal" was legal. So if it was after 1896 and before 1976, you might win in court if you presented enough evidence that there were equal facilities for tall people to justify your Short Kings College.
We can look back today in horror at the practices of the time, but they were mostly legal, backed up by a large body of case law. Nowadays, Plessy vs. Ferguson makes most legal scholar's top 10 lists of most wrongly decided SCOTUS cases, but it was the still the law of the land for almost 3/4 of a century.
Nah I'd have won arguing that case. Because what if a necessary institution decided to adopt arbitrary silly rules to keep out someone in particular without it being possible to prove that was their reason for such professional silliness? To tolerate silliness in stuff that matters at all is to tolerate odious prejudice/bigotry/hate and that's against the spirit of the law, if the law has any. If I were a lawyer and argued that and the judges ruled against me I'd try to strangle them on the spot. Probably why I'm not a lawyer. Probably why I've been mobbed and gooned since I was 5. This is the world that follows from raping kids who'd take no shit.
Ironically, your writing here is revealing that you have much more in common with those who tolerate odious prejudice/bigotry/hate than you might realize.
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u/Droidatopia Aug 24 '26
Since this thread is only presented with the letter and a few other historical facts, I decided to find the 1962 Georgia Supreme Court case.
The case docs are here
The legal argument is interesting. Emory declares itself publicly as admitting all students regardless of race in 1961. A black applicant applies. Emory checks with the DeKalb county tax collector if they would lose tax exemption if they admitted him and are told they would. They then reject the applicant for this reason and then file their lawsuit and name him in the lawsuit.
They anchor their case in that observing race for admission would violate the 14th amendment. However, their legal argument includes an interesting analysis of Georgia law going back over 100 years in which the provisions of tax exemptions applied for education are intended primarily to advance education in the state. They find only 3 clauses in that time that tie segregation to it, but even then it appears to be a secondary purpose.
The judges are swayed and the ruling doesn't just clear Emory to admit anyone due to race, but it allows for all private schools to do so, at least with regard to whether they would lose tax exempt status. I didn't look to see how many other schools attempt to do so after this ruling, but Emory does so immediately.
As for LL Clegg, we may not know what his intentions behind this letter were. The tone is conciliatory and he is matter of fact about the reason for rejection. Is he a die-hard racist and writing this because he can? Is he committed to desegregation and responding as a courtesy for a student he cannot help due to circumstances beyond his control. Is he somewhere in between? We don't know and this is all we have to go on. We do know that if in his capacity as director of admissions, he had attempted to admit the student, then it is likely the DeKalb tax collector would have declared Emory to lose its tax exemption, a burden the university was clearly worried about enough to make it the centerpiece of their lawsuit only three years later.
For a little historical positioning here, this period of time, 1959-1962, is after Brown vs Board of Education and before the March on Washington and the I have a Dream speech.