By Victor Trammell

Photo credits: The Northern Valley Press

Just eight years after a landmark case based the race-based segregation of public schools was finalized in the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), a U.S. District Court lawsuit was filed against a local East Coast public education authority, which had gotten away with continually segregating its schools.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education SCOTUS case (based in the U.S. state of Kansas) ultimately ended with the High Court siding with the plaintiff. This led to the American federal government’s inevitable ban that outlawed public school segregation along racial lines. This applied to U.S.-based education authorities in every state, county, and city.

However, in defiance of federal law, the city of Englewood, New Jersey’s public education board continued to practice school segregation based on race in a specified fraction of the district’s schools. This led to the filing of another groundbreaking education-centered segregation case, which was filed on February 5, 1962, in a U.S. district court.

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The plaintiffs in the Shepard v. Board of Education of Englewood, New Jersey case claimed the school district systemically practiced segregation base on race in its primary schools. The plaintiffs in the case were Joseph and Louise Shepard, as well as their daughter Ellen Shepard. George D. Jeter and Paul B. Zuber were the attorneys who represented the Shepard family, in this case.

“Plaintiffs allege that in making assignments of children to the public schools of Englewood, defendant Board of Education and defendant Superintendent of Schools, with the consent and condonation, and under the direction of defendant State Commissioner of Education, pursue what is commonly known as the ‘neighborhood school policy’; that the utilization of this policy has resulted in racially segregated schools in Englewood,” reads a summation of this case, which was published by Justia.

Unfortunately, the Shepard family lost its federal case against Englewood’s school board.

“The State Commissioner of Education has no power or authority to give plaintiffs the relief they seek; and that the doctrine of exhaustion of state administrative remedies, even in cases where it has been held to apply, has no application where, as is claimed here, the administrative remedy is inadequate,” the summation also reads.

Source: Your Black History: Shepard v. Education Board of Englewood, NJ Lawsuit Filed Today in 1962