Berea College v. Kentucky 211 U.S. 45 (1908)

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BEREA COLLEGE v. KENTUCKY 211 U.S. 45 (1908)

Berea College, founded half a century earlier by abolitionists, was fined $1,000 under a Kentucky statute forbidding the operation of racially integrated schools. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, 7–2, sustaining the law as an exercise of state power to govern corporations. Justice john marshall harlan, a Kentuckian personally acquainted with the college, dissented, arguing that the law unconstitutionally deprived the school of liberty and property without due process of law. His denunciation of state-enforced segregation also echoed his dissent in plessy v. ferguson (1896). The majority addressed neither issue.

Kenneth L. Karst
(1986)

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