NATION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, June 23, 1993
7
Brown revival case refused
KU law professor defended state in original suit
Kansan staff writer
By Lisa Cosmillo
Kansan staff writer
It has been 39 years since Paul Wilson, distinguished professor emeritus of law at the University of Kansas, argued the state's case in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan
The Brown case resulted in the landmark decision that outlawed racial discrimination.
But today many say the desegregation process in Topeka's school systems is not complete.
Yesterday the Supreme Court, without comment, refused to review a federal appeals court ruling that Topkea school officials may not have done enough to correct past discrimination against African-American students.
When Wilson argued the state's case in 1954 as assistant attorney general, he was assigned to defend a state law that was being challenged on the basis of its constitutionality.
The attorney general had no interest in what the Topeka Board of Education was doing, but we did have a law under attack that had been passed by the Kansas Legislature and had been held by the Supreme Court, and the attorney general intervened
to defend the constitutionally "Wilson said.
Paul Wilson
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brown and ordered Topeka to take steps to desegregate its schools as quickly as possible.
In 1979, a group of African-American parents, including Linda Brown, whose father brought the original suit, revived the case. They thought the school district had not been fully desegregated.
Wilson contended that the current suit was much different than the one tried in 1954. In the original case, Wilson argued that the Constitution protected segregation in institutions if the services they provided were equal.
In Kansas the law said schools could be segregated along racial lines in communities of more than 15,000. The Supreme Court decided this was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court, in the opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, said that separate schools in public education was inherently unequal.
There were repercussions for defending the state in 1954.
"Lots of fallout, it was not a popular law suit in Kansas." Wilson said. "The
Black people were very much interested, and they favored the position the Supreme Court took and were opposed to the position the state had taken.
"There were people in a lot of academic groups who believed the law was unconstitutional. In Topeka, the opinion was divided. There was a group that believed that segregation should be abandoned, but they were in the minority."
Students currently attending Topeka's high schools have mixed feelings about the racial situation in their schools.
Some students at Topeka West, which has a predominantly white student population, said they were disgruntled by the racial situation at their school. They said that they did not like the situation as it was, but that they understood the reason for integration.
Kelly Furness, a junior at Topeka West, said the integration efforts bothered him because the administration checked the racial makeup of the students before allowing them to go to certain schools.
The students said they thought the solution would be to change the boundaries, instead of forcing enrollment by race.
Spencer Duncan, a junior at Topeka West, said, "It would be really easy for U.S.D. 501 to change the boundaries without disrupting the system, but they choose not to do it because they
feel it would disrupt the system, and they don't want to spend the money."
African American students at Washburn Rural, which also has a predominantly white student population, said they had experienced incidents of racism.
Taryn Stone, a Washburn Rural junior, said she came from North Carolina where 50 percent of students at her school were African Americans. She said that now it was hard to make friends with the white students at her school and that she would like to see more integration in Topeka's schools.
"Mostly the Black people stick together and mostly the whites do the same." Stone said.
Wilson said he had mixed feelings regarding the case.
"I suppose I am sort of a schizophrenic." Wilson said. "As a lawyer, I thought, and I still think, we were right. On the basis of all the law that we knew until 1954, the statute which allowed the Topeka Board of Education to segregate their schools was a constitutional statute.
"Personally, I saw no reason. I didn't think that segregation in Kansas or in Topeka was good government, good morals or even good sense. There was just no reason for it."
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
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