Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/218

 school fund in Kentucky was in 1904, when provision was made for a system of graded schools in cities of the fourth class, but the property or polls of one race were not to be taxed for the support of the schools of the other. A recent Kentucky case has held[180] that, after the regular public school fund of the State has been apportioned among the districts in proportion to the number of children regardless of race, then it is not improper for a district to supplement that fund by a tax on the property of white persons for the further support of white schools and upon the property of Negroes for their schools. Thus, it appears that Kentucky is honeycombed with the special tax districts wherein each race supports its own schools. Whether this arrangement is constitutional or not is still in doubt, as no square decision on the point has yet been rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States.

For some years North Carolina has been exercising the principle of local, special taxation to supplement the general public school fund. In several instances, about 1886, the communities levied the tax only upon the whites for the benefit of white schools, but this was held[181] unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court, and the attempt to thus distinguish between the races does not appear to have been made since. The courts of Kentucky and North Carolina are in conflict, due to the differences in the constitutions of those States, on the question of special taxation by each race for its own schools. The local tax districts in North Carolina have recently been increasing at the rate of about two a day, but the tax is levied upon colored persons as well as white, and all the schools share the benefits.