Cooper v. Aaron
Cooper v. Aaron (1958) was a case pitting thirty-three African American students from Little Rock, represented by the local branch of the NAACP, against the Little Rock School District which denied them access to local high schools despite federal court orders mandating school desegregation. The case was litigated beginning in 1955 and ended in 1958.
By a 9-0 vote the Supreme Court affirmed the desegregation order made explicit in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision of 1954. The next year the Court weakened its stand by permitting a more gradual, accommodationist approach in Brown v. Board of Education II.
However, the Cooper decision made clear that state legislatures could not overturn Supreme Court directives of their own accord. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus contended that integration threatened to unhinge the community of Little Rock, and threatened to close Little Rock public schools in the fall of 1958 rather than see them integrated. Segregationist supporters hoped to defend Jim Crow laws and prevent integration by appealing to state's rights.
In a decision rendered on September 12, 1958, the Supreme Court ruled that Arkansas authorities had violated the U.S. Constitution. Faubus closed the schools anyway, and they remained closed until a special school board election took place in the spring of 1959.
The Cooper decision has been interpreted as the triumph of judicial social activism over gradualism and Southern defiance.
References
Tony A. Freyer, Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007).
