Roberts v. City of Boston

Under a Massachusetts statute, a school committee chosen by the residents of each Massachusetts town or city had general superintendence powers over the town’s or city’s schools, including the organization of schools and qualifications for admission. In the late 1840s, the city of Boston, Massachusetts (Boston) (defendant) had roughly 160 primary schools divided into 21 districts. Under regulations passed by Boston’s general primary-school committee, no student could be admitted into a primary school without an admission ticket from a member of the primary-school committee for the district in which the school was located. The regulations also provided that a student of suitable age and qualifications was entitled to attend the school nearest to the student’s residence unless special provision had been made for the student. Sarah Roberts (plaintiff) was a five-year-old Black child who lived with her father in Boston’s sixth primary school district. In April 1847, Roberts applied to a member of the district’s primary-school committee for an admission ticket to the primary school closest to Roberts’s residence. The school-committee member refused Roberts’s application and said that Roberts could attend one of Boston’s two primary schools established exclusively for Black children. The school committee had concluded that the separate schools were best adapted to promote the instruction of Black children. The teachers at the schools were compensated the same and had the same qualifications as teachers in other Boston public schools. However, the schools were much further from Roberts’s residence. Roberts appealed to the district’s primary-school and Boston’s general primary-school committees, but both bodies rejected Roberts’s appeal. Roberts sued Boston under a Massachusetts law providing that any child unlawfully excluded from public-school instruction could recover damages from the city where the school was located.