Interposition - School Desegregation

School Desegregation

Several southern states attempted to use interposition in the 1950s after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregated schools violate the Constitution. Many people in southern states strongly opposed the Brown decision. They argued that the Brown decision was an unconstitutional infringement on states' rights, and that the states had the power to prevent that decision from being enforced within their borders. James J. Kilpatrick, an editor of the Richmond News Leader, wrote a series of editorials urging "massive resistance" to integration of the schools. Kilpatrick revived the idea of interposition by the states as a constitutional basis for resisting federal government action. At least ten southern states passed interposition or nullification laws in an effort to prevent integration of their schools.

In the case of Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), the Supreme Court rejected the Arkansas effort to use nullification and interposition. The state of Arkansas passed several laws in an effort to prevent the integration of its schools. The Supreme Court, in its only opinion to be signed by all nine justices, held that state governments had no power to nullify the Brown decision. The Supreme Court held that the Brown decision and its implementation "can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation whether attempted 'ingeniously or ingenuously.'" Thus, Cooper v. Aaron directly held that state attempts to nullify federal law are ineffective.

In a similar case arising from Louisiana's interposition act, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a federal district court that rejected interposition. The district court's decision reviewed the theory of interposition and found no basis in the Constitution for interposition. The district court stated: "The conclusion is clear that interposition is not a constitutional doctrine. If taken seriously, it is illegal defiance of constitutional authority. Otherwise, 'it amounted to no more than a protest, an escape valve through which the legislators blew of steam to relieve their tensions.' . . . However solemn or spirited, interposition resolutions have no legal efficacy." Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, 188 F. Supp. 916 (E.D. La. 1960), aff'd 364 U.S. 500 (1960).

Interposition and nullification were referenced by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous August 28, 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D. C.:

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.