## Facts

- Mexican- and Latin-descent parents, suing on behalf of their minor children and similarly situated students, challenged Orange County public school districts’ practices of assigning such children to separate elementary schools.
- The districts, through regulations, customs, and usage, maintained a common plan that excluded Mexican- and Latin-descent children from certain schools and required them to attend separate “Mexican schools.”
- The districts asserted the separation was justified as an educational measure for children with limited English proficiency.
- Evidence showed assignments were often based on ancestry or Spanish-sounding surnames rather than individualized English-language assessment and continued across multiple grades.
- Plaintiffs brought a class action in federal court under federal civil-rights jurisdiction and the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The district court, after a bench trial, held the segregation unconstitutional and issued injunctive relief; the districts appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Orange County school districts could lawfully segregate U.S.-citizen children of Mexican or Latin descent into separate schools absent state statutory authorization.
2. Whether the districts’ segregation practices, as implemented through regulation, custom, and usage, denied equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Whether claimed pedagogical justifications (language instruction) validated ancestry-based segregation in public elementary schools.

## Decision

- The district court held that segregating Mexican- and Latin-descent children into separate schools violated the Equal Protection Clause and enjoined the districts from continuing the discriminatory practices.
- The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, unanimously affirmed the judgment.
- The Ninth Circuit treated the action as alleging deprivation of rights under federal civil-rights statutes and the Fourteenth Amendment, and it did not decide any Fifth Amendment theory.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed on the ground that California law did not authorize the segregation imposed and that the discriminatory application of district rules and practices resulted in denial of equal protection.

## Legal Principles

- Public school officials may not segregate students on the basis of ancestry or ethnic descent absent valid statutory authority permitting such classification.
- When state actors implement a common plan of exclusion and separation through regulation, custom, or usage, federal civil-rights remedies may lie for resulting unequal treatment.
- Segregation justified as language instruction is unlawful when, in practice, it rests on group identity rather than individualized educational need and operates as class discrimination.
- Equal protection may be violated where a school system’s administrative practices exceed state-law authority and produce discriminatory exclusion from public educational benefits.

## Conclusion

The courts enjoined Orange County school districts from segregating Mexican- and Latin-descent children in separate elementary schools, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed because the districts lacked state-law authority for such ancestry-based separation and the practices, as applied, denied equal protection.


Mendez v. Westminster Sch. Dist. of Orange Cnty., 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947)