Case: Alvarez v. Owen

(This summary is temporary, while we research the case.)

This lawsuit was the first successful school desegregation court case in U.S. history.

It is referred to as "the Lemon Grove case" in reference to its town of origin. The Lemon Grove decision held that, under California law, Latino and white children could not be segregated from one another in public schools and thus ordered the school district to educate the children together. Specifically, the court held that under state law, Latinos and Anglos were both racially white and thus some white students could not be segregated from other white students.

For more information, see Kristi L. Bowman, The New Face of School Desegregation, 50 DUKE L.J. 1751, 1770-1771 (2001). (decision available as the Appendix in Bowman, The New Face, supra note 12).

See also Kristi L. Bowman, Pursuing Equity at the Intersection of School Desegregation, English-Language Instruction, and Immigration, 31 in BOWMAN, THE PURSUIT, supra note 4. KRISTI L. BOWMAN, ED., THE PURSUIT OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC EQUALITY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS (MSU Press 2015).