Delgado v. Bastrop ISD

[2] Though this case helped establish a baseline in the law against Mexican-American segregation in public schools, it took many more years and future lawsuits for action to follow through with the actual rulings of the court.

Forum[3] helped the Delgados and 19 other Mexican-American families to sue the school district for their failure to secure the constitutional rights of the students.

Although officially considered "White" under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,[5] social discrimination against Mexican-Americans continued; many of those against desegregation used it as a way to fight against the civil right activism and equality that the massive migrations northward for Latin America had brought about.

[3] Then in 1946, two years previous to the Bastrop case, the judge in Mendez v. Westminster ruled against the segregation of Mexican-American children in public schools.

[6] This case occurred in California, but its arguments, based on the rights to equal protection and due process, could be applied elsewhere in the United States.

Earlier that same year in Texas, the attorney general had also released a statement against racial segregation[4] showing that some momentum had begun to shift, at least in public openness to the idea.

[3] Using scientific research from the time period, classes were segregated based on the belief that the language barrier needed to be overcome first for students to succeed in the classroom.

[11] To help instill English speaking into the segregated Mexican-American students, any Spanish words resulted in corporal punishment from educators.

[1] The desegregation was not expected to be complete, as Judge Rice set guidelines of how segregation could occur in the first grade for the purpose of teaching English to students.

[2] Due to being settled before meeting at the United States Federal District Court, national recognition fell short.

Through Mexican newspapers, however, publications could be found the next day on June 16, 1948, discussing the end of the Delgado v. Bastrop ISD (1948) case.

[14] L.A. Woods, the superintendent of the Bastrop Independent School District acted on his call from Judge Rice to end desegregation for reasons other than fluency.