Latino Students’ Historic Victory

🇺🇸 History: Latino students were expected to attend separate “Mexican schools” throughout the southwest beginning in the 1870’s. In 1946 court, school officials claimed that Latino students were dirty and infected with diseases that put white students at risk. After being denied enrollment in an all-white school Sylvia Mendez’s parents together with four other families filed a class action lawsuit against four Orange County school districts with one goal in mind: To ensure that ALL children could attend California schools regardless of race. 👈🏽 fully funded by Sylvia’s parents, covering lawyer and court fees. The case culminated in an 8 month deliberation but thanks to Mendez v. Westminster California officially ended ALL segregation in its schools. A decade later the 🇺🇸 Supreme Court ruled that ALL school segregation based on race was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. The families battle for equality was recognized with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 by Barack Obama —and now, two Los Angeles-area schools are named after her parents de ella.