Mendez v. Westminster School District: How It Affected Brown v. Board of Education

Abstract

Most Americans are keenly aware of the African American civil rights movement. However, few know about the comparable struggle of Mexican Americans to enjoin the practice of segregated public schools in the Southwest. This article analyzes Mendez v. Westminster School District, a 1946 federal court case that ruled that separate but equal schools for Mexican American children in Orange County, California, was unconstitutional and that influenced the famous 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education.