Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 52 views

    Chesley Karr v. Clifford Schmidt, 401 U.S. 1201 (1971)

    Uploaded by

    Scribd Government Docs
    The Justice refuses to hold that federal courts have the power to interfere with state public school systems or predict that the Supreme Court will find such power. He argues that regulating hair length is a purely local matter better left to states and local school authorities to decide, not the federal judiciary, and denies the motion.

    Copyright:

    Public Domain
    Download as COURT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Chesley Karr v. Clifford Schmidt, 401 U.S. 1201 (1971)

    Uploaded by

    Scribd Government Docs
    52 views2 pages
    The Justice refuses to hold that federal courts have the power to interfere with state public school systems or predict that the Supreme Court will find such power. He argues that regulating hair length is a purely local matter better left to states and local school authorities to decide, not the federal judiciary, and denies the motion.

    Original Description:

    Filed: 1971-02-11 Precedential Status: Precedential Citations: 401 U.S. 1201

    Copyright

    © Public Domain

    Available Formats

    COURT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The Justice refuses to hold that federal courts have the power to interfere with state public school systems or predict that the Supreme Court will find such power. He argues that regulating hair length is a purely local matter better left to states and local school authorities to decide, not the federal judiciary, and denies the motion.

    Copyright:

    Public Domain
    Download as COURT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as court, pdf, or txt
    52 views2 pages

    Chesley Karr v. Clifford Schmidt, 401 U.S. 1201 (1971)

    Uploaded by

    Scribd Government Docs
    The Justice refuses to hold that federal courts have the power to interfere with state public school systems or predict that the Supreme Court will find such power. He argues that regulating hair length is a purely local matter better left to states and local school authorities to decide, not the federal judiciary, and denies the motion.

    Copyright:

    Public Domain
    Download as COURT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as court, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    401 U.S.

    1201
    91 S.Ct. 592
    27 L.Ed.2d 797

    Chesley KARR, a minor, individually, and John R. Karr,


    Individually and as next friend and Guardian ad litem on
    behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,
    v.
    Clifford SCHMIDT, Principal of Coronado High School, et al.
    No. ____.
    Feb. 11, 1971.

    Mr. Justice BLACK, Circuit Justice.

    This 'Emergency Motion to Vacate a Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal' has


    been presented to me as the Supreme Court Justice assigned to the Court of
    Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The motion concerns rules adopted by the school
    authorities of El Paso, Texas, providing that schoolboys' hair must not 'hang
    over the ears or the top of the collar of a standard dress shirt and must not
    obstruct vision.' The rules also provide that boys will not be admitted to or
    allowed to remain in school unless their hair meets this standard. The United
    States District Court for the Western District of Texas, El Paso Division, held
    after hearings that this local student hair length rule violated the Due Process
    and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United
    States Constitution and enjoined its enforcement, declining to suspend its
    injunction pending appeal. On motion of the school authorities, the Court of
    Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed and suspended the District Court's
    injunction and the student appellees have asked me to vacate the Court of
    Appeals' stay of the injunction. Should I vacate the stay the El Paso school
    authorities would remain subject to the District Court's injunction and would
    thereby be forbidden to enforce their local rule requiring public school students
    not to wear hair hanging over their collars or obstructing their vision.

    I refuse to hold for myself that the federal courts have constitutional power to
    interfere in this way with the public school system operated by the States. And I
    furthermore refuse to predict that our Court will hold they have such power. It

    is true that we have held that this Court does have power under the Fourteenth
    Amendment to bar state public schools from discriminating against Negro
    students on account of their race but we did so by virtue of a direct, positive
    command in the Fourteenth Amendment, which, like the other Civil War
    Amendments, was primarily designed to outlaw racial discrimination by the
    States. There is no such direct, positive command about local school rules with
    reference to the length of hair state school students must have. And I cannot
    now predict this Court will hold that the more or less vague terms of either the
    Due Process or Equal Protection Clause have robbed the States of their
    traditionally recognized power to run their school systems in accordance with
    their own best judgment as to the appropriate length of hair for students.
    3

    The motion in this case is presented to me in a record of more than 50 pages,


    not counting a number of exhibits. The words used throughout the record such
    as 'Emergency Motion' and 'harassment' and 'irreparable damages' are
    calculated to leave the impression that this case over the length of hair has
    created or is about to create a great national 'crisis.' I confess my inability to
    understand how anyone would thus classify this hair length case. The only
    thing about it that borders on the serious to me is the idea that anyone should
    think the Federal Constitution imposes on the United States courts the burden
    of supervising the length of hair that public school students should wear. The
    records of the federal courts, including ours, show a heavy burden of litigation
    in connection with cases of great importancethe kind of litigation our courts
    must be able to handle if they are to perform their responsibility to our society.
    Moreover, our Constitution has sought to distribute the powers of government
    in this Nation between the United States and the States. Surely the federal
    judiciary can perform no greater service to the Nation than to leave the States
    unhampered in the performance of their purely local affairs. Surely few policies
    can be thought of that States are more capable of deciding than the length of the
    hair of schoolboys. There can, of course, be honest differences of opinion as to
    whether any government, state or federal, should as a matter of public policy
    regulate the length of haircuts, but it would be difficult to prove by reason,
    logic, or common sense that the federal judiciary is more competent to deal
    with hair length than are the local school authorities and state legislatures of all
    our 50 States. Perhaps if the courts will leave the States free to perform their
    own constitutional duties they will at least be able successfully to regulate the
    length of hair their public school students can wear.

    Motion denied.

    You might also like