Discussion and Connection (Gong Lum)

1. Equal Protection For Whom?  At the trial court, attorneys for the petitioners argued their case on the ground that Martha Lum was being denied equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment.  At its inception, the Equal Protection Clause was clearly intended to protect African Americans as segregation in the U.S. was ending (see Plessy v. Ferguson), but its broad language has since been applied to many other forms of racial discrimination. 

What additional arguments did petitioners' lawyers make at the Supreme Court?  For one, it was argued that Martha Lum would have been afforded an inferior education in schools appropriated for African American children as opposed to if she were to go to one segregated for white children (there were no separate schools for non-white, Asian Americans).  In the 1920s and 30s, most schools available to African American children were in fact inferior in many ways to White schools, often only open for 4 months out of an entire school year and funded at only a fraction compared to White schools.

2. State's Rights Gone Wrong?  In Gong Lum, the Supreme Court ultimately finds that it is "the right and power of the state to regulate the method of providing for the education of its youth . . . ."  But on what basis is this right and power afforded to the states?  U.S. Supreme Court decisions had previously recognized that immigration and naturalization policies were solely in the hands of the federal government, which ultimately resulted in the exclusion of Asian Americans on the basis of race.  Here, Asian Americans were similarly restricted when powers rest with the state.  Are these valid allocations of power?  Could the Court be allocating power in a way to subvert the petitioners' arguments?  Or is the problem just that both the federal and state governments were made up of persons willing to carry out a racist agenda?