Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times Page: 169
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Texans for Their Times 169
"Texas' wise and long-continued policy of segregation."31 Sweatt
could, however, apply for legal training at Prairie View, and if none
were provided then he could legally attend the University of Texas.
But, in Sellers's view, a suitable law course could be set up at the
Negro college in forty-eight hours.
The attorney general's ruling set events in motion. Painter
mailed it, along with an official letter of rejection to Sweatt, who sent
a copy to Durham. The lawyer then informed Maceo Smith that it was
time to prepare the petition to file suit. He also recommended that
the association have blacks apply for admission to the university's
schools of medicine, engineering, journalism, and every other profes-
sional school. On May 16, 1946, Sweatt filed suit against Theophilus
Shickel Painter and other officials in the 126th District Court, of
Travis County, where Judge Roy C. Archer presided. The petition
sought a writ of mandamus compelling university officials to admit
Sweatt to the institution's law school.32
The pace of court proceedings was ponderously slow. After the
first hearing on June 17, 1946, Judge Archer declined to grant the
writ. Although he declared that the state's refusal to admit Sweatt to
the university constituted a denial of his Fourteenth Amendment
rights, Archer gave the state six months to provide a "substantially
equal" course of legal instruction. When a second hearing was held at
the trial level after six months had expired, there was still no law
school for blacks. Yet Archer dismissed Sweatt's petition, ruling that
a resolution passed by the Texas A&M board of directors to provide
legal education for Negroes on demand had satisfied the state's
obligation."3 The plaintiff appealed the judgment, and on March 26,
1947, the Court of Civil Appeals set aside the trial court's ruling
without prejudice and remanded the case to the lower court for a new
trial. The remand was a critical juncture of the litigation, for it gave
both sides an opportunity to alter their strategies and introduce new
facts at the trial level. Attorney General Price Daniel had requested
the remand because the status of higher educational facilities had
changed, but this development can best be explained by tracing
briefly the state's responses to black pressure on education.
Since the Gaines decision, Texas's white newspapers had discuss-
ed a possible legal action by Negroes to open the University of Texas.
In 1945 such speculation increased, as editorials commented on the
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Barr, Alwyn & Calvert, Robert A. Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times, book, 2007; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296839/m1/180/?q=1966+yearbook+north+texas+state+university: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.