Earl Warren
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Earl Warren was born March 19, 1891 in Los Angeles, California. Earls father was a Norwegian immigrant, which left him dealing with prejudice and equal rights at a very young age (Grace, 1). This lead to early indications that law would be Earls profession. Even before entering High School, he listened to criminal cases at the Kern County courthouse. Attending the University of California at Berkeley, Warren worked his way through college. He majored in political science for three years before entering the law school at UC. “He received his B.L. degree in 1912 and his J.D. degree in 1914. On May 14, 1915, he was admitted to the California bar. After graduation Warren worked in law offices in San Francisco and Oakland, the only time in his career when he was engaged in private practice” (White, 61). The young lawyer became a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, and eventually became district attorney in 1925 when is opponent decided to resign from the race (Weaver, 40). He would go on to win the next four elections. “During his fourteen years as district attorney, Warren developed a reputation as a crime fighter. As a prosecutor Warren was sometimes accused of high-handedness in his methods, but in thirteen years and in thousands of cases ranging from murder to window-breaking, he never had a conviction reversed by a higher court” (Ely, 964). Warren served as attorney general from 1939-1943, enjoying the image of an effective foe of racketeers. In 1948, Warren was the Republican Partys nominee for vice-president of the United States. He and fellow republican Thomas Dewey would end up losing the race, the only election Warren ever lost, to Democratic candidate Harry S. Truman. In 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren the fourteenth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Compston, 101). This new job would prove to be the most important and difficult job Warren had ever taken. “He inherited a court that was deeply divided between those justices who advocated a more active role for the court and those who supported judicial restraint” (Compston, 133).
Among the Warren Courts most important decisions was the ruling that made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The Brown vs. The Board of Education case dealt with the segregation of public schools. Although all the schools in a given district were supposed to be equal, most black schools were far inferior to their white counterparts (Erler, 60). The Browns, an African American Family living in Topeka, Kansas, along with the NAACP requested an injunction that would forbid the segregation of Topekas public schools. This along with similar cases were grouped together and presented in front of the Supreme Court (Cray 1-2). On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Warren read the decision of the unanimous Court: “We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it doesWe conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Schwartz, 198). The Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy for public education, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and required the desegregation of schools across America (Cray, 1-2) .
Besides his work in the courtroom, Warren headed the commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He retired in 1969 and died on July 9, 1974, in Washington, D.C (Grace, 6). “Earl Warren College, the fourth of UCSDs undergraduate colleges, was founded in 1974, and named after the former Chief Justice in a ceremony attended by Thurgood Marshall, a member of the Warren Court, and a jurist destined eventually to bequeath his name to another UCSD college. Warren College, memorializes the popular governor and great jurist with a curriculum that encourages both depth and breadth and that includes a course in ethics for every student, seeking to provide the education, formal and informal, needed for future political and judicial leaders, and future private citizens and professionals” (Katcher, 382).
Earl Warren proved to be a very important person in our nations history. His verdict in the Brown vs. The Board of Education case single-handedly changed the “Color” of public schools across the nation. While African Americans were given the right to vote in 1865 with the 15th amendment, states did all sorts of things to abridge the right to vote for African-Americans. It was not until the Civil Rights movement and most importantly the ruling in the Brown vs. The Board of Education case that all voting restrictions were removed. The Civil Rights movement in the United States completely desegregated our country and this case was a milestone in the movement (Erler, 61-63). Warren truly made our nation a better place for African Americans and broadened our scope of cultural diversity. Its hard to imagine the pre-civil rights era, with all its segregation. Warren lived through an extremely divided time in our nations history, and became one of the icons that brought it back together. In the words of Mr. Warren himself “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education” (Warren, 34).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Articles:
Bennett, Lerone, Jr. “D-Day at The Supreme Court.” Ebony Magazine v. 59 no7 (May
2004) p. 108-10.
– This article gave me some insight as too how important this ruling was to the
African American community.
Ely, John Hart. “The Chief.” University of Miami Law Review v.58 (July