Frasier v. UNC—A Personal Account

LeRoy Benjamin Frasier, Jr. Ralph Kennedy Frasier and John Lewis Brandon, Plaintiffs vs. The Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina (University of North Carolina) Gordon Gray, President University of North Carolina (James Harris Purks, Acting President) Corydon P. Spruill, Dean of the General College of the University of North Carolina (Cecil Johnson, Successor) Clifford Lyons, Dean of the Undergraduate School of Arts and Sciences (J. Carlyle Stitterson, Successor) and Lee Roy Wells Armstrong, Director of Admissions University of North Carolina , Defendants "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty..... without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law." - Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Every newspaper, most magazines and especially, the bar journals, have paused this year to recognize the most important U.S. Court ruling of the past century and perhaps of all time. Certainly, for African Americans, the decision has caused greater changes in our lifetime than any other. Prior to 1954, 17 states had laws requiring segregation of some aspect of society - law enforcement, housing, marriage, adoption, education, healthcare, burial, transportation, employment, entertainment, food service, hotels. Most of the 17 required segregation in all of those categories. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas began the change of the mindset of the entire country which had accepted or, at least tolerated, the rationale of the 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate facilities for the races are permissible.... so long as the facilities were equal." Plessy recognized, as fact, that segregation was required because of fears, prides and prejudices which were rampart in the South and latent in the North. Segregation sought to prevent dilution of blood or dissipation of faith - the instinct for self preservation. "Negroes do not have the capacity to absorb white education. Desegregation will result in lowering the intelligence of whites...." Brown reversed Plessy and turned the underlying rationale upside down. Much of the 2004 writing focuses on the trend toward re-segregating the races in public education. Jane Hancock Jones, a young African American lawyer from Columbus, Ohio, writing in the Spring issue of Columbus Bar Briefs analyzes trends in Columbus schools and concludes that we are back to the '50s. Unfortunately, the court did not set a timetable for enforcement and directed desegregation with "all deliberate speed" - interpreted as a euphemism for delay. In 1954, one hundred members of Congress issued the Southern Manifesto encouraging massive resistance and pledging the "use of all lawful means to bring about a reversal." The U.S. Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, called together the Southern State attorneys general seeking their professional help in eliminating segregation. Many informed Brownell that they were potential gubernatorial candidates and that it would be political suicide to support desegregation. No, Jane, we ain't back to the '50s. Like the Brown Decision, Frasier was not simply an action challenging the right of three plaintiffs to attend one of the institutions of higher education within the State of North Carolina which historically had limited access to its undergraduate schools to white citizens. Rather, the suit was one of a series seeking to dismantle a system of deeply entrenched racial segregation and subjugation of black citizens by white masters. The rigid segregation patterns were vestiges of slavery which later gave way to one of the greatest legal fictions ever visited upon citizens of the United States. …