The main argument that Mendez used in the trial was that segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits states from denying “”any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (Costly, 2007).” They said that by having segregating the schools, when California did not have a state law mandating the segregation of Hispanics, the districts were violating the Equal Protection Act of the Fourteenth Amendment (The State Bar of Texas, n.d.). Give us your paper requirements, choose a writer and we’ll deliver the highest-quality essay! Order now He then found out that there were several other families in different school districts that were interested in pursuing legal action, so in 1945, he joined them and filed a class action lawsuit against Westminster and three other local school districts who had segregated schools for Caucasian and Mexican students. Mendez went and spoke with both the principal and school board to try to enroll his children, but was told both times that in Westminster that schools are segregated and the Mexican students had to go to Mexican schools. When they arrived, Sally was told that her children would be allowed to enroll, but her nieces and nephews (Gonzalo’s children) would have to go to the Mexican school, school, located in another school district, because schools in Westminster were segregated (WGBH, n.d.). In 1944, Gonzalo Mendez, sent his children with his sister Sally to the local school in Westminster, California to register. Westminster, the arguments used by the prosecution and defense, the outcome, and the impact of the case today. This case helped set the precedent and shaped many of the arguments used in Brown. Board of Education argued that segregation in schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. “There is only one court case that can say that it ruled that segregation of school children was unconstitutional in federal court before Brown v.
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