We noted earlier that Tom Russell of the University of Denver posted an SSRN paper that has generated an effort to rename a University of Texas dormitory that was named for a

In her diary in 1916, Virginia Woolf referred to legal history as "something that matters to no one; & will never be used, seen, or read."Russell goes on to explain that in the aftermath of Brown, the University of Texas decided to name a dorm in honor of William Stewart Simkins. The SSRN paper is `Keep the Negroes Out of Most Classes Where There Are a Large Number of Girls': The Unseen Power of the Ku Klux Klan and Standardized Testing at The University of Texas, 1899-1999.
Ten weeks ago, my 48-page legal history paper started a Texas-sized controversy about a University of Texas dormitory named for a Klan leader.
UT first admitted African-American students in 1950 after the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund lawyers beat Texas before the US Supreme Court in Sweatt v. Painter. Four years later, the great NAACP lawyers won Brown v. Board of Education.
Read the rest of Tom's op-ed at Huffington Post.
There is more today on Inside Higher Education, and Cnn.com. You can follow developments at the Simkins Blog. And Tom has more info and resources on-line at House of Russell.
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Thanks for the post, Mary!
ReplyDeleteInterested readers can find an up-to-date compendium of media and blog coverage of the Simkins dorm issue at http://simkins.houseofrussell.com
There's a link to the original paper there as well.
Conservatives dare not to attack Brown v. Board of Education directly (including on the basis of originalism). But their underlying resentment is demonstrated by attacks on the late Thurgood Marshall, who had as a private attorney a major role in Brown. This resentment was demonstrated during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Elena Kagan, who clerked for Justice Marshall, and who was nominated by the first African American President (ever) elected some 54 years after Brown. Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy is still in play.
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