Cumming v. Board of Education

The Georgia Constitution required public-school segregation. State law also required that school boards provide public elementary schools for White and Black students. However, state law gave school boards discretion whether to create public high schools. The Richmond County Board of Education (board) (defendant) operated a few White high schools and one Black high school for several years. As the number of Black elementary students grew, Richmond County had trouble accommodating them in its existing schools. The board claimed that it did have enough money to build additional schools or hire more teachers. The board closed the 60-student Black high school and converted it to a Black elementary school for 300 students. That same year, the board imposed a tax to fund all the county’s public elementary schools and high schools. Joseph Cumming and two other tax-paying Black men with high-school-aged children (the taxpayers) (plaintiffs) sued the board in state court. The taxpayers alleged that the board had violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by requiring Black citizens to pay taxes that funded White high schools but not Black high schools. The taxpayers asked the court to enjoin the board from operating the White high schools until the board provided equal high-school facilities for Black students. The trial court issued the injunction. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the taxpayers’ claims should be dismissed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.