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Caughey (John Walton) School Integration Collection
URB.JWC
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: John Walton Caughey School Integration Collection
Creator:
Caughey, John Walton, 1902-1995
Identifier/Call Number: URB.JWC
Physical Description:
1.00 linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1962-1980
Abstract: A professor of History at UCLA, John
Walton Caughey wrote extensively on the history of California and the United States. He was
a representative on the State Superintendent's "Committee of Sociologists," an advisory
committee on school segregation at UCLA, and worked with the ACLU on the Crawford school
desegregation case. The Caughey Collection includes biographical data, legal briefs, plans
and reports related to integration of Los Angeles public schools, and more specifically with
the Mary Ellen Crawford vs. Los Angeles Board of Education desegregation case.
Language of Material: English
The collection is open for research use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gerald Prescott. 1991.
Series I: Background Papers and Notes, circa 1980
Series II: Court Documents, 1977-1980
Series III: ACLU Legal Documents and Writings, 1962-1980
John Walton Caughey was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1902. He graduated from high school in
Lincoln, Nebraska in 1918, received a B.A. from the University of Texas, an M.A. and a Ph.D.
from the University of California in 1928.
Between 1937 and 1968, Caughey's various literary assignments included editing
The Pacific Historical Review,
Frontier,
American Heritage, and
Chronicles of California. He also served as a consultant for the
California Department of Justice on constitutional rights in the "tidelands litigation" and
litigation on Newport Bay. During this period, he was also a representative on the State
Superintendent's "Committee of Sociologists," an advisory committee on school segregation at
UCLA. Mr. Caughey was also a member of the Western Advisory Committee for the Social Science
Research Council.
As a professor of American History at UCLA, he wrote extensively on the history of
California and the United States, and collaborated on other books such as
California Heritage,
California's Own
History,
and
Land of the Free. His main focus of
scholarship concentrated on imperilment and denials of constitutional protections of civil
liberties and rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular reference to
mid-twentieth century and to segregation. In 1949, Caughey began a protest of the University
system's loyalty oath.
The fact of school segregation was brought to the official attention of the Board of
Education as far back as June 7, 1962 when an injunction was sought to desegregate two Los
Angeles high schools--one predominantly white and the other black. A class action lawsuit
was filed in 1966 on behalf of Mary Ellen Crawford who attended the black school. The suit
sought desegregation of Los Angeles public schools and charged that the school district
practiced "defacto" segregation, as most of its minority students attended non-integrated
schools. The Crawford trial began in October 1968. In continuing court hearings that ended
in 1970, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that integration was indeed necessary to
correct racial imbalances throughout the school district. Judge Alfred Gitelson's decision
called for the LAUSD to present a plan to the court to integrate the schools. The LAUSD
appealed the ruling and in 1975 the California Supreme Court heard the case. In June 1976,
the state Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the lower court. The school district was
required to take steps to alleviate segregation. The case was returned to the Los Angeles
Superior Court where Judge Paul Edgley was appointed in February 1977.
In 1967, when Eason Monroe of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] persuaded Bayard
Berman to be volunteer counsel for petitioners in the Crawford suit, he asked the Caugheys
to help Berman by giving educational advice and doing what research was needed. They agreed
and helped through pretrial, trial, and the appeal stages of the case. In 1977, when Edward
Medvene became lead counsel for the ACLU and was joined by counsel for both the NAACP and
the Mexican Center for Law and Justice, the Caughey's continued to assist the
litigation.
In the second phase of the compliance hearings, beginning in the fall of 1977, there was
another change in lead counsel. Although the Caughey's continued their research and offered
suggestions, certain differences arose. All told they presented 26 briefs, studies, or
comparable documents, supportive of positions of counsel for the original petitioners and
for intervener Integration Project by offering expert information or reasoning that might
not otherwise have reached the court. In 1977, they relinquished the chairmanship as
education counsel for the ACLU but continued wherever possible to aid the advancement of
school integration.
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual,
or see the
Citing Archival Materials
guide.
Robert G. Marshall, Elda I. Arrieta,1991
The
John Walton Caughey School Integration Collection includes
biographical data, legal briefs, plans and reports related to integration of Los Angeles
public schools, and more specifically with the Mary Ellen Crawford vs. Los Angeles Board of
Education desegregation case. Of particular interest are the papers written by John and
LaRee Caughey as consultants for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that document the
history of school integration from 1962 through 1980. The collection has been divided into
three series:
Background Papers and Notes (circa 1980),
Court Documents (1977-1980), and
ACLU Legal
Documents and Writings
(1962-1980).
Series I,
Background Papers and Notes, consists of background
notes on the collection, an index to court documents, two reports and a resume written by
Caughey. The files are arranged in alphabetical order.
Series II,
Court Documents
, consists
of briefings and pleading documents presented to the Superior Court of the State of
California for the County of Los Angeles [Case No. C 822 854] and the Supreme Court of the
State of California [Case No. 31299] in response to the case; Mary Ellen Crawford vs. Los
Angeles Unified School District. The documents are arranged first by court then
chronologically.
Series III,
ACLU Legal Documents and Writings, consists of
bound typescripts of the legal documents and related papers written by the American Civil
Liberties Union in response to the Crawford case. The volumes are arranged in chronological
order by title.
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection has not been transferred to California State University, Northridge.
Copyright status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials
protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires
the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Documents