McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents

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McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950), reversed a lower court decision upholding the efforts of the state-supported University of Oklahoma to adhere to the state law requiring African-Americans to be provided instruction on a segregated basis.

The United States Supreme Court ruled that a public institution of higher learning could not provide different treatment to a student solely because of his/her race as doing so deprived the student of his/her Fourteenth Amendment rights of Due Process.

The plaintiff, McLaurin, was first denied admission to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a postgraduate course in education. McLaurin successfully sued in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to gain admission to the institution (87 F. Supp. 526; 1948 U.S. Dist.) basing his argument on the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found that the university's inaction in providing separate facilities, in order to meet Oklahoma state law, allowing McLaurin to attend the institution was a violation of his Constitutional rights. However the court did not issue any injunctive relief as requested by the plaintiff but rather relied "on the assumption that the law having been declared, the State will comply."

The University admitted McLaurin but provided him separate facilities such as a specially designated row in classrooms, a special table in the lunch room, and a designated desk in the library when studying there.

McLaurin returned to the US District court and petitioned to require the University of Oklahoma to remove the separate facilities allowing him to fully interact with the other students (87 F. Supp. 528; 1949 U.S. Dist.) The court denied McLaurin's petition.

McLaurin then appealed to the US Supreme Court, which subsequently reversed the decision of the US District Court, requiring the University of Oklahoma to remove the restrictions under which McLaurin was attending the institution.