Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/266

 252 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

If discrimination in educational facilities be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment in letter as well as in spirit, Congress has power to order it stopped. In the famous civil-rights cases the Supreme Court decided that the act of 1875 guaranteeing equal treatment in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement was beyond the power of Congress to enact ; not, however, on the ground that these social privileges lay outside the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment, but simply because its prohibition was against state action only, and not against the offenses of individuals and private corporations. The court decided that the discriminations in question were not incidents of slavery forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment, but did not by any means deny that the right of equal accommodation was a civil right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against state encroachment. The right to equal education is much more clearly a civil right, and where the suffrage depends upon educa- tional tests it is a political right also ; its denial abridges a privilege of citizens of the United States, and the offender is the state itself. If, therefore, Congress should pass an act forbid- ding the states to discriminate between the races in education, and requiring schools for colored children to be in every respect as good as those for whites, it would be only enforcing the pro- visions of the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation, as specifically authorized by the amendment itself. But even with such a law on the statute-book, it would be almost impos- sible to prevent discrimination, which seems to be almost an inevitable result of the system of separate schools. Even in the District of Columbia, where, if anywhere, the two races should stand upon an equal footing, the teachers of colored children have larger classes and smaller salaries than the teachers of .white children; yet the colored children excel the white in punctuality and regularity of attendance, and deserve at least equal advantages. If they have them not at the capital of the nation, how can they be expected to have them in the South ?

If discrimination cannot be altogether prevented, the national government should make an effort to counterbalance its effects by supplementing the educational work carried on by the states.