Sweatt v. Painter Trial Documents, pt 1.

[1][fol. 1]IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS, 126TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
No. 74,945
Heman Marion Sweatt, Relator vs. Theophilis Shickel Painter, et al, Respondents
Statement of Facts
Before Hon. Roy C. Archer, Judge.
Appearances:
Mr. W. J. Durham, Mr. Thurgood Marshall, Mr. E. B. Bunkley, Jr., Mr. James M. Nabrit, Jr., .Counsel for Relator. Mr. Price Daniel, Attorney General of Texas; Mr. Jackson Littleton, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Texas; Mr. Joe Greenhill, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Texas, Counsel for Respondents.
Be It Remembered that on Monday, May 12, 1947, and succeeding days, all in the Regular March Term of said Court, there came on to be heard the above entitled and numbered cause; whereupon the Court admitted into evidence the following:  [fol. 2-7]
 
After Session
May 12,1947 2:00 P. M.
Statement By The Court:
The Court: It seems this morning that perhaps I wasn't as clear in making a statement of this trial as perhaps I should have been. This case was tried here on stipulations and on some testimony other than stipulations and went to our Court of Civil Appeals, and by agreement of all parties, the Court of Civil Appeals entered an order in which this cause was remanded generally to this Court for further proceedings, without prejudice to the rights of any party to this cause. I think we needed that additional explanation. If we are ready now, we may go ahead.
Mr. Durham: Relator is ready, Your Honor.
The Court: Are you ready, Mr. Attorney General?
Mr. Daniel: Yes.
Thereupon counsel for relator and counsel for respondents presented to the Court a statement of their respective pleadings in this cause.
The Court: I think with the trial being had before the Court we will be able to hear your testimony and at the same time bear in mind your exceptions on either side. So, for the time being, I am just going to carry your exceptions along in the trial of this case. If at a later time it requires a little more time on your part to prepare to meet issues that may be raised, which might be somewhat of a surprise to [fol. 8] you, the Court will give you that time.
Mr. Durham: To save time, I thought we could go on with our testimony, we could go on this evening, and maybe talk about the stipulations after Court adjourns.
Mr. Daniel: Just so it is understood, we have no stipulations at this time.
Mr. Durham: That is right, we have no stipulations at this time.
The Court: I haven't heard it if you have.
Mr. Durham: It is agreed that respondents will put their testimony on first, and then we will put our testimony on, but in the record as it is made up, the relator's testimony will come first in the record.
The Court: All right.
Reporter's Note:—By agreement of counsel later, this statement of facts was ordered prepared setting out the testimony and proceedings in chronological order.
Mr. Daniel: Your Honor, we have a witness that we want to put on out of order, and I believe it is agreed we may do that.
The Court: All right.[3]
D.A. Simmons, a witness produced by Respondents, having been by the Court first duly sworn as a witness testified as follows:
[fol. 9] Direct examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. State, your name.
A. D.A. Simmons.
Q. Where do you reside, Mr. Simmons?
A. Houston, Texas.
Q. What profession are you in?
A. Attorney at law.
Q. Do you hold a law degree?
A. I do.
Q. From what school?
A. The University of Texas Law School.
Q. Do you hold any other law degrees?
A. I have an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Montreal and an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from Loyola University in New Orleans.
Q. How long have you practiced law?
A. Twenty-seven years.
Q. Have you during that time had any official association with The American Bar Association?
A. I have.
Q. Would you please state your official connection with the American Bar Association?
A. Well, if I may, I would like to go just a little back of that, because I understand I am called—I know nothing about the case, but I am called on as a witness on certain [fol. 10] phases of the American Bar standards.
The Court: Yes.
A. I have been President of the Houston-Galveston Bar Association, 1932 and 1933. I was President of the Texas Bar Association in 1937 and 1938. I was President of the American Judicature Society in 1940 and 1942. For the record, I would like to state the American Judicature Society is the second largest national organization of lawyers in the country, and I was President of the American Bar Association in 1944 and 1945, heretofore been on the Board of Governors for five years. [4]
Q. Have you in your American Bar Association work had occasion to be on any boards that inspected law schools or passed upon the requirements of whether or not certain law schools met requirements of the American Bar Association?
A. The standards of the American Bar Association are set by the House of Delegates. They are recommended by the Board of Governors and the Section of Legal Education. I have been a member of the Board of Governors in 1937 to 1940, and 1944 to 1946. I have been a member of the House of Delegates representing the lawyers of Texas, 1936 until today. I am still a member.
Q. In your experience with the American Bar Association, I will ask you if you have ever had occasion to study the standards of the American Bar Association as far as law [fol.ll] schools are concerned?
A. Yes, sir, I am familiar with them. I was a member of the House when they were voted.
Q. You are acquainted with the standards as they exist today?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Are you acquainted with the physical facilities, the faculty, library, courses of instruction, and other matters related to the University of Texas School of Law?
A. Well, I would say that since I was graduated there in 1920, my late visits, I have not counted the law books. I know they have a very substantial law library. I do not know how many books, and I know a good many of the professors, and I am familiar in a general way with the course of instruction.
Q. Do you know whether or not the University of Texas Law School meets the standards of the American Bar Association for an accredited law school?
A. It is an approved school.
Mr. Durham: We object to that because it is an assumption of what those standards are. The witness hasn't testified what the standards are. It is assuming what the standards are.
The Court: I believe I will let him proceed, Counselor, along this line. You will save your point, and maybe we will get back to it.  [5]
A. My answer is: It is an approved law school. It has [fol. 12] been inspected and approved by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association as having complied with the standards.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Are you acquainted-
A. I can say what the standards are, briefly.
Q. Will you briefly state what the standards are?
Mr. Marshall: I think the standards are the best evidence.
A. I think so.
The Court: The standards are.
A. I assume that counsel on both sides have them.
Mr. Marshall: Unfortunately, if Your Honor please, we do not have them, except that one person on our staff has them, and he is not in the court room at this time.
The Court: All right.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. I will ask you if this page contains the standards of the American Bar Association with reference to approved schools?
A. That is the copy of the standards as approved by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association.
Mr. Daniel: We wish to offer it. We offer from page 1. It is headed, "Standards of the American Bar Association."
Q. I believe your testimony was that the University of Texas Law School has been approved as having met those standards?
[fol. 13] Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 1.
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, I will ask you, Mr. Simmons, at my request, whether or not you have inspected the law school for the State University for Negroes here, adjoining the Capitol grounds in Austin?
A. Dean McCormick, of the Texas University Law School, took me when the Court recessed this morning to the [6] wing just north of the Capitol, where on the ground floor I found three rooms and a hall and toilet facilities. The first room had three or four or five study desks, a law book case or two with approximately, I would say, one hundred and fifty to two hundred books, and there were two class rooms the Dean pointed out, one with students' study desks; the other one he said was a reserve room in case more than eight or ten students applied. I saw that. I know where that is. I walked over to the Capitol. I was informed, from the reading of the pleadings this morning, which is all I know about that phase of it. I learned that the Supreme Court Library was made available by the statutes. I have a little familiarity with that from twenty years ago as First Assistant Attorney General. I went back, and the books seemed to have been kept up to date, and it is about a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from this school.
Q. You are speaking now of the State Library and the [fol. 14] Supreme Court Library?
A. Yes, sir; on the second floor on the north side in the Capitol Building.
Q. And that was about how far from the school?
A. The north entrance of the Capitol, I would say, was a hundred yards. This is on the second floor immediately above the north entrance.
Q. How many volumes of law books are required by the American Bar Association for a library that meets its standards?
A. Well, the standards themselves call for an adequate library. The interpretation of that, to get it down to actuality, has been seventy-five hundred well-selected books with cases, in complete sets.
Q. I would like to ask you if the Supreme Court Library, with which you say you are familiar, and the State Library there in the Capitol Building, has been kept up to date, and if the evidence shows there are over 40,000 books in that library,—would it meet the requirements of the American Bar Association for a law school library?
A. Well, I glanced over some of the sets. They are up to date. Whether there are 40,000, I would rather leave to the librarian, but obviously there are a great deal more than 7,500 books, and they are books of a character that would afford an adequate legal education. [7]
Q. Now then, did you in talking with Dean McCormick [fol. 15] acquaint yourself as to the courses of instruction that are being offered to the law school of the Texas State University for Negroes?
A. Well, I was merely informed from the set-up, and from the books on the shelves that the freshmen, first year law school courses are the courses that would be available at this time, and that they were the identical books and the identical courses given the first year law students at the University of Texas Law School.
Q. I will ask you a hypothetical question. If the evidence in this case shows that in the building that you have already inspected, the University of Texas law faculty, the same faculty members, offered the same courses in law in that building, and with the library facilities of the Supreme Court Library that we have mentioned, and if the requirements for entrance are the same, the requirements for graduation are the same, as the Texas University Law School, if the evidence shows that the requirements for classroom study and all requirements contained in the catalogue of the University of Texas Law School must be met in the law school of the State University for Negroes, if the evidence shows what I have recited, in your opinion, will Texas University for Negroes Law School offer equal educational opportunities in law as that offered by the University of Texas?
Mr. Marshall: If Your Honor please, assuming he is an [fol. 16] expert, and assuming all that is in the hypothetical question, I don't think this witness is entitled to give a conclusion as to what the law is in the case. I think that is your job.
The Court: I think he hasn't asked him a law question. I think he is asking him if, as an expert, it is substantially the same.
Mr. Marshall: The question was whether it furnishes the equality required.
The Court: Well, he wouldn't say whether there is an equality or not.
Mr. Marshall: May we have an exception, please, sir?
The Court: Yes, sir. [8]
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. You may answer, please.
A. In my opinion, the facilities, the course of study, with the same professors, would afford an opportunity for a legal education equal or substantially equal to that given to the students at the University of Texas Law School.
Q. That is all.
Cross-examination. Questions by Mr. Marshall:
Q. Mr. Simmons, what is the purpose of accreditation from the American Bar Association, of law schools?
A. To make standards—pardon me. Would you mind telling me your name [fol. 17]
Q. Thurgood Marshall.
A. And you are from where?
Q. Originally from Baltimore, and now from New York.
A. I like to know who I am talking to.
Q. Good.
A. The purpose of any standards are to set a goal. The American Bar Association standards are to assure adequate legal education to those who are going to represent the public as lawyers. They are merely recommendations, and as—and your name?
Mr. Durham: Durham.
A. As Mr. Durham suggested a while ago, the American Bar Association is a private association of lawyers, about 40,000, and it set up these standards as a guide to the law schools, because when the standards were set up there were a great many law schools in the United States, mainly night schools, that were giving courses that were deemed to be inadequate, inadequate to prepare the lawyers of the future generation.
Q. And isn't it true that many studies have been made by the American Bar Association and the officials, including several past presidents, concerning the inferior education obtained in small, part-time law schools? Isn't that true?
A. The Association has been concerned with legal education since 1896, and it has made many studies. That part is entirely correct. We are now beginning to engage in a study [fol. 18] that used to be done by the Carnegie Foundation. [9] They used to make an annual survey of legal education, and Mr. Reed of that Foundation, I think, was assigned other duties about ten years ago, and the American Bar Association has taken over that officially.
Q. Are you using Mr. Reed officially?
A. No, sir; I happen to know him personally.
Q. Have you read any of his studies?
A. I have many of them in my library.
Q. You are familiar with his viewpoint on part-time law schools?
A. I would prefer to answer mine. I have studied at night part time law schools myself. I have studied law in every form, I think. I studied in my father's office as a boy. I came to the University of Texas not having funds to proceed through. I stopped for a couple of years and went to night law school, working in Houston, an unapproved part-time school, with no books except those you could borrow, and I came back after the First World War and came back here, and I believe I am familiar with the office study and small part-time school and the approved law school, and sympathetic with all three.
Q. As a matter of fact, as of the present time, isn't the American Bar Association opposed to part-time law schools?
A. No. [fol. 19]
Q. Hasn't the American Bar—
A. For the night school, what they want is legal education for the future lawyers, and as the small school or the night school obviously can't give as much time to the student as a day school, full-time, they require that they give four years of three hours in the evening instead of three years like the regular approved schools, but many of the part time schools are approved.
Q. Do you mean approved by the American Bar Association?
A. Yes, as having complied with these standards.
Q. There is another accrediting agency, the Association of American Law Schools?
A. Yes.
Q. Isn't this true; their standards are higher than the American Bar Association's?
A. In some instances, I think they are more stringent.
Q. Isn't it a fact that there are some schools approved by the American Bar Association that are not approved by the Association of American law Schools? [10]
A. I think that is true in some instances. I believe Lincoln University in St. Louis is approved, on our lists—
Q. It is on both of the sections?
A. That is the law school, I think. My last check, I think it had 35 students.
Q. Counting the faculty? [fol. 20]
A. Take Howard—that is a colored law school at St. Louis. Howard School of Law in Washington, the last time I had occasion to go to that, I believe it had—just before the war, I believe they had about 67 students. It is a fully approved school.
Q. Both associations?
A. I think so.
Q. Yes, sir. Is it not true that accreditation by the American Bar Association is an asset to the school and the pupil and the community?
A. We hope so.
Q. And it is your opinion that it is of value to any school?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And would you not, therefore, say that attendance at an unapproved school does not give equal education to attendance at an approved school?
A. No, I wouldn't say that, because any school,—all of these schools we have named at one time were on the unapproved list. They had to prove how the facilities may be equal, but the student body, after all, is the one that is going to determine the standing of that school, and if the student body takes advantage of the facilities offered, and by the State Bar examination, which has no relationship to the school itself, passed the State Bar examination, and the students of that school as many in proportion, uphold the [fol. 21] teaching of that school, it is likely, of course, to be approved more readily than one where the product does not stand the gaff of the State examination.
Q. The American Bar Association waits and watches what the school is doing before they approve it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. They always do that, don't they?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. But you think in the meantime the school still should be giving the same training as an accredited school?
A. Absolutely. The training is for the individual.
Q. I understand— [11]
A. It has got to be from the inside, what the man develops himself, what he can absorb himself. If he has the books and curriculum and physical facilities, the light, the books, the professors, I would venture to say that a student who had — let's say that school had ten students, with four professors teaching ten students, that the ten students should absorb a great deal more law than with ten instructors teaching seven or eight hundred students.
Q. They approve the school, the curriculum and the plant?
A. And the product.
Q. You don't just approve it on the product?
A. No, these standards should show there are seven or eight hundred well-chosen volumes and should have pro-[fol. 22] fessors who are full time professors in the field of law.
Q. Did you know that these proposed professors for the Negro school are to be part time professors? Did you know that?
A. I understood they were full time law teachers.
Q. Did you understand their work there was to be part time?
A. I would say that with ten students, it would have to be.
Q. I don't know what you mean by that.
A. I was advised by the Dean of the Texas University Law School they will be the same men that teach at the Texas University Law School. They are full time teachers, of course, employed by the State of Texas to teach students in law.
Q. But we are talking about the so-called Negro school. As to that school, they are part time?
A. Yes, sir, that is true. They would also be part time at the University of Texas.
Q. Did you find out where their offices are?
A. At the other school, but they have a desk here. I was pointed out,—all I know is what I was told this morning, and I told you who told me. I was pointed out the books, the desks, the chairs, and the rooms, and the distance from the State Supreme Court Library, and I went over there to see if it was where it used to be.
Q. Do your standards of the American Bar Association, in accrediting a school,—isn't it limited to what is in the school? To be specific—
A Until students come, this isn't a school. [ 12] [fol. 23]
Q. Thank you, sir, but the other question is this. If you have a school, for example; you are familiar with the fact, are you not, that the library in the Library of Congress is one of the best in the country? Are you not familiar with that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. If you had a university in Washington with no law library, but access to the Library of Congress, would you accredit that school?
A. You are talking to me. I am only one of 185 delegates in the House of Delegates. I do not personally accredit anybody. If the law school you are talking about had trained professors, set up by Congress across the street, a hundred yards from that library, and the Act of Congress said this library shall be the library of that school, I would say, so far as I was concerned, I would say they had been furnished an adequate library, all of the books they could hope to read or study.
Q. I didn't say the library was made a part of the school. I said "made available", like it is to everybody else.
A. Yes.
Q. Because it is available, would you, therefore, use that as a part of the accrediting of the school?
A. Having used this one myself, I know there are not so many people there but what you can always find table space [fol. 24] and all of the books you want to study or read. We are trying to get some law and the standards of the law into the mind and soul of the individual student. I am not trying to build a building for you, or law books. We are trying to build lawyers with character.
Q. But you do require the building with the law books?
A. We require, as I said before, we require that a certain number of certain proper law books be available.
Q. What do you mean by "available"?
A. You are the one that asked me,—you said a while ago, questions on availability. I will say that any time you have a law library a hundred yards away from your school, and that the Legislature says these books are for the use of that school, that those books are available.
Q. I think you are familiar with the statute that says they shall be available. Isn't that the language?
A. I will let the Judge pass on the statute.
Q. You are quoting from it? [13]
A. You were talking about Congress, if the Law Library of Congress was available, and I am trying to define what I mean by available.
Q. Do you know of any other school the American Bar Association approved that didn't have a library in the building where the school was?
A. All I can say is I haven't inspected over about eight [fol. 25] law schools personally.
Q. You have been passing on law schools for how many years?
A. Personally?
Q. Yes, on the Committee?
A. On the House of Delegates since it was established in Boston in 1936, and three years before that as a member of the General Council from Texas.
Q. During that period, has that body approved a law school that did not have a library in the building where the law school was?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. To your knowledge?
A. All we have ever passed on were—
Q. Can we first get an answer to that; and then you can go ahead? Do you know, to your knowledge, that—
A. I can answer that like lawyers do, either way. I don't know, because the practice is this. Mr. Demuth, of the University of Colorado, and Mr. Sullivan, from the University of Illinois, inspect the schools, and they come back and report to the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, We have inspected Lincoln University Law School. It has an adequate available library. Nobody has ever said there is one in the building across the street, in all of the years that I have acted as one of those that have passed on it. In the eight schools that I have in-[fol. 26] spected, they all had libraries either in the building, or in adjacent buildings.
Q. That is the purpose of having libraries in the law schools?
A. In the school?
Q. Yes.
A. To make books available so that the student can study and learn the principles of law.
Q. Don't your requirements also require that you have a trained competent librarian? [14]
A. Someone should be familiar with the books. He doesn't need to be a full time librarian.
Q. Do you require that you have a full time dean?
A. The interpretation that has been made by the Committee before they are recommended to the House of Delegates, the school should have at least one full time professor or dean for each one hundred or fraction thereof, of pupils. We don't require a full time dean, as you quite well know, Mr. Marshall.
Q. I don't know anything about what the American Bar Association requires, because I am not a member of it for one reason.
A. May I go ahead?
Q. You may proceed.
The Court: Until somebody stops you, you can proceed.
A. This is quite interesting to me. Are you a member of the Lawyers' Guild ?
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. One of the founders of it, and a member of the Board [fol. 27] of Directors.
A. Are you a member of the National Bar Association of Colored Lawyers'?
Q. I am a former Secretary for four years of it.
A. That is a national association of colored lawyers?
Q. No, sir; it is an association of American lawyers that has no bars as to race, creed, or color.
A. Is there a single white lawyer in it?
Q. Yes, sir; Martin Popper, and two or three others that I can name.
A. Of course, we have colored lawyers in the American Bar Association.
Q. You had one up until two years ago?
A. Bill Lewis. That is purely aside. We can go on with the questions. I helped organize The Texas State Bar. We have colored lawyers in that. We have colored lawyers in the American Judicature Society, if that has any place in the record.
Q. Getting back to the law library, and the American Bar Association. They do require that we have at least one full time dean or full time professor for each one hundred students? [15]
A. There must be one full time man.
Q. I will ask you a hypothetical question. If there is a law school established here in Texas for Negroes that has [fol. 28] not a single full time professor or dean, would you say that that gives the type of education that would meet the approval of the American Bar Association?
A. Well, I am going to have to assume that this law school has some students and there are—
Q. Assume not less than one hundred.
A. Lincoln, say, with thirty-one. I would say if, as, and when this school has enough students to require through the business facilities, the efforts of a full time man, they should certainly have one.
Q. Could that school be approved by the American Bar Association without any full time teacher or dean?
A. Yes, sir, it could.
Q. It could be?
A. Yes, sir; the requirement of one full time professor for each one hundred students isn't in the standards. It is an interpretation made by the Committee as a recommendation to the House of Delegates.
Q. So, it would vary?
A. If the Committee found it was adequate. What is the purpose of having one instructor for each one hundred, or less? The purpose is stated in the standards to be so that the professor will be acquainted with the needs and the studying of the student body. I would assume, and would so state, that if this school has less than 25 students, that [fol. 29] three or four professors who are full time professors, not part time, would certainly seem to be adequate.
Q. What would be—and maybe you can't answer this— what would be the minimum number of full time teachers, deans, that you would need?
A. At this time?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. With how many students'
Q. Well, assume we have one.
A. Well, I wouldn't see the slightest need for a full time professor to give his full time to this one student.
Q. And—then could that one student get the same type of education that other students get by having only the viewpoint of one professor? [16]
A. I didn't understand that was to be the case. I understood they were to assign four.
Q. And you wouldn't need any full time, then?
A. I wouldn't think so. I would think; if he had the same capacity, he could get a better grasp of the principles of law than if he were one of eight hundred students with ten professors.
Q. Don't you require, in accrediting schools, that you have a full time professor, or professors, for the purpose of being available to the students during the regular day, throughout the day, for consultation? Isn't that true? [fol. 30]
A. No, the purpose, as I stated before, is so that there will be a sufficient number of instructors so that they will personally know each student and be available to encourage and teach him how to study law. Some of them don't know how to study law.
Q. I think we are talking about class room work. I am talking about after class. Isn't that the reason for a full time professor, so that he will be available in the afternoon for consultation?
A. No; so that they will have some chance to individually and personally know the students.
Q. And another question; do you know the difference between a law library and a teaching law library?
A. I don't know what you have in mind, if that is what the answer is.
Q. I will explain it. For example, under the requirements, the types of books that you have to have in a law school library aren't the books that are required, for example, in a Supreme Court Library?
A. Well, I don't think so. They lay more stress on the law reviews and things of that kind than the practicing lawyer does; or, I might say, used to, but the Supreme Court Library here has about everything a general practitioner would need.
Q. Does it have what a law school needs? [fol. 31]
A. I would say that depends on the course of study. I have known some law schools to give,—I think there is one that gives a course in patent law. I question whether that one would have facilities for teaching much patent law.
Q. A few others, too. The point I am trying to get at is that the law library is an important feature of a law school, a very important feature? [17]
A. That is right.
Q. And the University of Texas Law Library has one of the best; isn't that true?
A. It has a very good library.
Q. And isn't it fully accredited by every association?
A. As far as I have heard.
Q. And does it not have a librarian and an assistant librarian?
A. Well, they had a librarian when I was there.
Q. And isn't it the only library in this section of the country that has microfilm reports of the records of the Supreme Court?
A. You had better ask the dean.
Q. If you are going to compare the two; aren't you forced to compare the two libraries?
A. I said, in my opinion, the Supreme Court Library, which is one hundred yards from your school, has more than any one, or twenty-five students, would possibly absorb in three years; and if he absorbed that, he would be competent [fol. 32] to start practicing.
Q. The answer is that the important thing is that it is not the number of books necessarily, but the right books that you will need?
A. Yes.
Q. And obviously, there are books at the University of Texas that are not in the library of the Supreme Court?
A. I can't answer that.
Q. There is a larger percent—
A. I will say that all I have read that qualifies me, if I am qualified to practice law, are in the Supreme Court Library.
Q. Do I understand you to say that the basis of your testimony is that the individual student can get as much in an inferior school as he can get in a superior school, if he is smart enough?
A. The inferior and superior are your words. I said, with the same instructors in the two schools, and the law books available in the Supreme Court Law Library, a hundred yards across the street, he can get an adequate legal education, at least as good as that of the student, one of seven or eight hundred, getting the similar courses out at the University of Texas Law School. [18]
Q. But you don't think it is a mistake to put all of those books at the University of Texas Law School, do you?
A. That is not up to me to judge that. I haven't read all [fol. 33] of them.
Q. I don't imagine the librarian has. If the standards of the Association of American Law Schools are higher or more stringent than those of the American Bar Association, as you stated, as a member of the board, how could a student be said to be offered equal educational facilities in the basement across the street as he would at the University of Texas, assuming that the Association of American Law Schools requires a minimum of four full time teachers, irrespective of the number of students?
Mr. Daniel: We object to that question as argument; presuming the requirement of the American Association of Law Schools there, and for the same reason they objected to the requirements of the American Bar Association, we object to that question.
The Court: I think he can answer it.
A. It is a little involved. Break it down, if you can.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. You stated before the requirements of the Association of American Law Schools were obviously more stringent?
A. I said they were slightly different. They require ten thousand, and the American Bar, seventy-five hundred. In the average case that has no meaning. The student won't study over 200 books in his courses.
Q. Have you ever taught school? [fol. 34]
A. I have lectured a few times.
Q. But you have never been a full time professor?
A. No, that is correct. I have been a practicing attorney.
Q. You have been a practicing lawyer?
A. Twenty-seven years.
Q. Are you familiar with the teaching curriculum now used in law schools?
A. Somewhat.
Q. Are you familiar with the teaching methods now, for instance, the case book, and the old outline method?
A. Yes, sir. The case book gives more stress to the work done by the student himself in reading, instead of the[19]professor reading and the student making notes, like he used to do twenty-five years ago.
Q. And he takes the case book—
A. And studies it himself.
Q. And he goes up in the library and reads the footnotes?
A. Yes, sir; and the law reviews.
Q. Incidentally, how many law reviews did you see in this library over here?
A. In the—
Q. At the Capitol?
A. I couldn't say. I have gone through a good many of them when I was in the Attorney General's Office.
Q. I am talking about today.[fol. 35]
A. I didn't see them. I am sure they are there.
Q. You don't know how many are there now?
A. No.
Q. Assuming the requirements of the Association of American Law Schools are more strict than those of the American Bar Association, and the University of Texas is a member of both, I think we can assume that is a fact. The Association of American Law Schools requires a minimum of four full time professors, irrespective of the number of students. Would you say a student at that school would get equal educational opportunity with the University of Texas?
A. I didn't qualify as an expert on law schools, and I, perhaps, as a practicing lawyer, do not lay as much stress on having as many full time law professors as most people. I think an occasional practicing lawyer mixed up in the faculty is a fine thing. The fact that the American Association of Law Schools wants more full time professors than the American Bar Association doesn't change my view. What we are talking about, affording the opportunity to a student, assisted by a preceptor who knows some law, can learn the principles of law and certainly one student, or ten, or twenty-five, assisted by four preceptors in law would have a better opportunity, if he has it within himself to develop, than one who was asked an occasional question every thirty days or so.
Q. The important thing is that if this proposed school used [fol. 36] in the first hypothetical question did not, and could not under those facts, meet the requirements of the Association of American Law Schools, and the University of Texas[20]does meet them; would you say that that is giving equal facilities?
A. It wouldn't have the slightest effect on the student, whether he was a trained lawyer when he left the school or not.
Q. Would that be equal?
A. Equal facilities for what? For him to acquire a legal education?
Q. No, sir.
A. Whether they were a member of the Association would be utterly immaterial.
Q. The question would be whether that would be facilities equal to the facilities at the University of Texas.
A. If you are talking about physical facilities—
Q. I am talking about the whole law school—both. Would you say that that law school that you saw today, even with the opportunity to use the Capitol library, afforded facilities equal to that that you have seen repeatedly at the University of Texas?
A. To one student?
Q. No, not limited to one student for this question. You may go back to one student next time.
A. Someone once said that Mark Hopkins, long-time pro-[fol. 37] fessor at Williams College, sat on the end of a log and taught a student on the other end of the log. It depends on the student and instructor, and what they are talking about. Whether they belong to an association or have complied with the standards, in my opinion, for this purpose, is utterly immaterial. If you have competent instructors with adequate books to teach that student, he can get his legal education.
Q. Mr. Simmons, let's start with—
A. I couldn't see how he could fail to get that if there were one or ten, where he couldn't get a better education than any ten you would get in the other school, because half of them, I regret to say, look out the window. It gets humid, as it is here in the court room, and he would get a little sleepy, and he looks out the window, and he couldn't do that if there were one or ten.
Q. Are you opposed to large law schools?
A. I am not advocating them. I am not impressed much by numbers, Mr. Marshall.
Q. Since you say we get equal facilities, in your opinion—[21]
A. I didn't say that. I said he had an equal opportunity to get a legal education, is what I said.
Q. Could he get an equal opportunity to get a legal education in a law office?
A. I think so. The finest lawyers I have ever known, that picture of that one over there, for instance (referring to [fol. 38] photograph hanging in court room.)
Q. Mr. Simmons, if we can stay on the facilities—
A. All right.
Q. The best way to get on it is to take the concrete ones. In your mind, is there any comparison in value of the building where the University of Texas Law School is with the building across the street where the Negro school is supposed to be?
A. I think both of them could well be improved. The Texas Bar Association has been trying for years to get them to tear down the one at the University and build an adequate one.
Q. What do you mean by "adequate?"
A. For the number of students. It was built in 1907.
Q. Is the one across the street equal in monetary value?
A. Certainly not.
Q. Certainly not. Approximately how many professors do they have at the University of Texas Law School?
A. I don't know. The school has changed from fifty year before last to eight hundred and something now. I couldn't tell you.
Q. Is the library at the University of Texas Law School larger than the library at the Capitol, and the one in the Negro law school together?
A. Each one of them have, in my judgment, fifty thousand volumes, approximately. I don't know how many more. [fol. 39]
Q. Fifty thousand in that law school over there?
A. At the Supreme Court approximately, I say.
Q. Approximately how many in the basement of that building?
A. I couldn't say. The Texas University Law School—
Q. No, the Negro law school?
A. They had about 200 books, I would say.
Q. What kind of books?
A. They seemed to have some books on torts and contracts and legal bibliography and Texas Law Review, and a few miscellaneous books of that character. They didn't[22]have any books that I saw, on equity, or on courses that you would give to post-graduates or seniors. These seemed to be, as far as these books were concerned, they seemed to be limited strictly to beginners.
Q. Did you see the American Digest there?
A. In this ground floor of the Colored Law School Building?
Q. Yes.
A. No, they were not there.
Q. The United States Supreme Court Reports?
A. They were not there.
Q. Any state reports?
A. They were not there.
Q. There were no reports there?
A. No.
Q. There were some case books and text books? [fol. 40]
A. Yes, and the Law Review. It was The Texas Law Review. I suppose they are partial to that one.
Q. Is that the only one?
A. That is all I saw. I wouldn't say the only one.
Q. Do you know the type of books required in an approved law school to be used in the first year courses?
A. These same books on torts, contracts and legal bibliography are the same ones used at the University of Texas.
Q. Don't they teach legal bibliography in the library, and use all of the books in the library?
A. That is where you learn it.
Q. Do you not teach legal bibliography in the library?
A. I couldn't answer that. Not when I went to school. They taught it in the class rooms.
Q. We are comparing these facilities as of today.
A. I have outlined at some length what I saw, and in my opinion, if a man wants to become a lawyer, so far as the books, the curriculum, and the professors are concerned, he can become a lawyer with what is offered him here. Some people want a big law library and a big school. I happen to have studied in night school and a law office, and this school. Perhaps I am not as impressed with a big school as some other people.
Q. I understand, but as one point in this case, the State makes an allegation that they are affording equal educational facilities, not equal opportunity to learn, necessarily. [fol. 41]
A. All I understood was that the State was re-[23]quired to furnish substantially equal facilities and opportunity to acquire a legal education. I am not arguing the law. I am not a lawyer in this case. I was just passing through the city. By reason of having been president of the lawyers from Houston to the United States, they asked me to talk about the standards. If you want me to argue about whether these facilities are worth as much as something else, you had better get somebody else.
Q. Hasn't the American Bar Association taken a specific stand urging the abolishment of all law schools not set up as parts of universities?
A. Well, they have taken a stand that they do not in general approve what they call the commercial law schools. I recall no resolution saying that they must be part of a university.
Q. You set all of the standards or ultimate goals?
A. They are recommendations.
Q. Didn't the American Bar Association cooperate with the Dallas Bar Association in taking all of the small law schools in Dallas and centering them at Southern Methodist University, the American Bar Association?
A. Some of our men, I am sure, helped with that. The schools there were commercial schools, the night schools, as I recall. I might add there is some movement on foot to do the same thing in Houston. [fol. 42]
Q. Go right ahead.
A. I have been asked by the President of the University of Houston if I won't discuss with them means by which they could take over one or two night schools in Houston, and those are commercial schools. The Houston Law School is a night school which I attended back thirty years ago. I would be very happy to see them a part of a university, personally.
Q. Do you know what hours the Capitol Library is open?
A. Not right now. I studied there many times, day and night.
Q. Do you know the hours?
A. I do not know.
Q. That is all.[24]
Redirect examination. Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Mr. Simmons, the two smaller law schools that you mentioned which are recognized by the American Bar Association and the American Association of Law Schools, Howard University and Lincoln University, are they separate Negro law schools?
A. That is my understanding.
Q. As to the facilities, in your opinion, are the three class rooms that you have inspected, for the Negro law school, based on from one to ten students, equal as far as the opportunities for study and class room work are concerned, with three class rooms at the University of Texas for 850 students?
A. Well, we have seats, and the professor could do very [fol. 43] nicely here teaching ten or fifteen students. He certainly, I think, could get more into their heads than sitting with 300, and in the back row.
Q. Referring back to the question asked on cross examination as to whether you knew of any accredited law school that had its law library in a separate building, are you acquainted with the University of Michigan Law School?
A. I have been there many times.
Q. Are you acquainted with the location of the library building?
A. It is in the same quadrangle. It is in the W. W. Cook Library Building, across the quadrangle from the Law School. As a matter of fact, I at one time had an office in Hutchens Hall, a part of that building. Hutchens is President of the American Judicature Society.
Q. That is all.
Recross examination.
Questions by Mr. Marshall:
Q. Isn't there a connecting alcove between the Law Library and the Law School at the University of Michigan?
A. It is a large school, and it is a beautiful quadrangle of buildings. Hutchens Hall and W. W. Cook Library are very close.
Q. The same is true at Yale?
A. I am not so familiar there.[25][fol. 44]
Q. When you say Howard University is a Negro University or school, do you know that of your own knowledge?
A. All I say is that it was accredited as a colored law school.
Q. Do you know whether or not there are any other students prevented from attending there?
A. I don't know anything about it. All I know is that in the accredited law schools, Lincoln and Howard are listed as colored law schools.
Q. That is in the American Bar Association listing?
A. That is what I was being asked about. Would you like to see that?
Q. No. I was there when it was accredited. How long will it be, assuming your hypothetical school here,—I mean, involved in the hypothetical question—
A. Don't say my hypothetical school.
Q. I withdraw that. That school that you went in today over here across the street?
A. I don't think anything is a school until it has got some students. The building where I was today?
Q. That the building, if it should be opened as a school, how long would it have to operate before the American Bar Association would be in a position to accredit it?
A. I think preferably it ought to wait and operate long enough to see if the student body was seriously interested in studying law, or if they had some other purpose, and then if [fol. 45] it complied with the standards, it would be given a provisional approval.
Q. Can we stop there and see about how long that would be?
A. I can't say. I have known of instances where, for instance, I believe St. John's University in New York, Brooklyn, was kept on provisional approval for two years; and I believe the University of Georgia Law School was put on provisional approval when it had some difficulty with a gentleman named Talbot.
Q. How long after the provisional approval until you get it on the entire approval?
A. I would say two years.
Q. That is all. Mr. Daniel: That is all.
(Witness excused.)[26]
Mr. Daniel: I would like to make a statement as to the order of our evidence, now that we have Mr. Simmons excused. You will excuse him?
Mr. Marshall: Certainly.
Mr. Daniel: We first wish to offer the—call the attention of the Court to Senate Bill 228, which authorized A. & M. College to set up a law school at Prairie View, and then to offer the resolution on that college, authorizing the establishment of it, and a deposition showing what was done [fol. 46] under the bill, in order that the record might be complete, since the filing of this suit, as to how the State has attempted to meet its obligation; and then we will go into the new school here in Austin.
At this time we offer the resolution of the Board of Directors of A. & M. College, dated November 27, 1946.
Mr. Durham: That is the same resolution that was introduced on the trial before.
Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. Daniel: We next wish to offer from the deposition of E. L. Angell the agreement of counsel as to waiver of formalities in the taking of this deposition, and I will ask Mr. Littleton if he will read the direct answers. I will propound the questions that were submitted by the State, by the Respondents, to Mr. Angell.
The following agreement of counsel ordered copied into the record at this point.
 
In the 126th District Court of Travis County, Texas No. 74,945 Heman Marion Sweatt vs.
Theophilis Shickel Painter, Charles Tilford McCormick, Edward Jackson Mathews: Board of Regents, Dudley K. [fol. 47] Woodward, Jr., E. E. Kirkpatrick, W. Scott Schreiner, G. 0. Terrell, Edward B. Tucker, David M. Warren, William E. Darden, Mrs. Margaret Batts Tobin, and James W. Rockwell
The parties to the above entitled and numbered cause, through their attorneys of record, agree that the deposition[27]of Respondents' witness, E. L. Angell, who resides at Bryan, Brazos County, Texas, may be taken without the filing with the clerk of said court of notice of intention to apply for commission to take the answers of such witness to interrogatories attached to such notice, or service of copy thereof, and of the attached interrogatories, or five days' time before issuance of commission, as otherwise required by law, and further agree that a commission to take such deposition shall be issued by such clerk immediately, and that such deposition shall be taken as provided by law in accordance with such commission and the attached direct and cross interrogatories by any officer authorized thereto by law at any place where the witness may be found and returned in the statutory manner for use as evidence in the trial of such cause, and further agree that when such deposition is returned it may be so used, subject to all other legal objections, at the trial of such cause. Price Daniel, Attorney General of Texas, by (s.) [fol. 48] Jackson Littleton, Assistant Attorney General, Attorneys for Respondents. By (s.) W. J. Durham, Attorney for Relator.
The following was read into the record, Mr. Daniel reading the Direct Interrogatories, and Mr. Littleton reading the answers, from Deposition of E. L. Angell.
E. L. Angell, (Deposition.)
Direct Interrogatories to be propounded to E. L. Angell, Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, a witness for Respondents in the above entitled and numbered cause, for the taking of his deposition:
Q. 1. What is your name?
A. 1. E. L. Angell.
Q. 2. Where do you live?
A. 2. College Station, Texas.
Q. 3. What is your position or employment?
A. 3. Assistant to the President of the A. & M. College and Secretary to the Board of Directors. [fol. 49] Q. 4. How long have you held such position?
A. 4. Assistant to the President since June of 1941, with the exception of about two years in the Army.  Secretary to the Board since January of 1946.[28]
Q. 5. State whether you are the same E. L. Angell who testified in a hearing of the case, Sweatt v. Painter, on December 17,1946.
A. 5. I am.
Q. 6. State whether you are familiar with the provisions of a resolution adopted by the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College on the 27th day of November, 1946, being Minute Order No. 203-46, and entitled The Establishment of Law Course for Negro Students.
A. 6. I am.
Q. 7. State if you are the same E. L. Angell who certified to said resolution by testimony in the hearing of the case of Sweatt v. Painter on December 17, 1946.
A. 7. I am.
Q. 8. State who, if anyone, was assigned the responsibility of carrying out the purpose of the resolution.
Mr. Durham: Just a minute. We object to that answer for the reason that the resolution would be the best evidence of its contents. The resolution is in evidence before this Court.
The Court: I think that is true. [fol. 50]
Q. 9. State what, within your knowledge, was done to carry out the provisions of said resolution.
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we want to ask that, until I make my objection, Mr. Littleton be asked to stop at the word "renovated."
Mr. Littleton: Do you mean as to all of the other paragraphs?
Mr. Durham: We have no objection to any portion of it down to there.
Counsel and the Court conferred off the record regarding said answer.
Mr. Daniel: Just read it to the Reporter, and let him get exactly what you say.
A. 9. A suite of rooms in an office building at 409 1/2 Milam Street, Houston, Texas, was secured. These rooms were completely renovated. This suite of rooms was furnished with new furnishings purchased for that purpose. The services of Attorney William G. Dickson were secured as a teacher for the law courses. Immediately available were some 400 basic law reference books. A list of books required for first year law students[29]was furnished by the Dean of Law at the University of Texas. It was ascertained from a law book firm that these books could be delivered to Houston on 24 hours' notice. [fol. 51] The immediate supervision was under the direction of the Principal of Prairie View University, Dr. E. B. Evans.
Q. 10. State whether any building or housing facilities were acquired.
A. 10. Yes; suite of offices at 409 1/2 Milam Street, Houston, Texas.
Q. 11. If you have stated that building and housing facilities were acquired, state the location of such facilities, and describe them fully.
A. 11. Suite of three rooms at 409 1/2 Milam Street, Houston, Texas, which was an office building.
Q. 12. State whether anything was done to secure professors for the instruction of the law courses mentioned in the resolution.
A. 12. William C. Dickson was employed.
Q. 13. If you have stated that anything was done, then state what arrangements were made, and the names of individuals with whom they were made.
A. 13. William C. Dickson was employed, to teach the law courses, the supervision of the establishment was under the direction of Dr. E. B. Evans, Principal of the Prairie View University.
Q. 14. If you have stated that any instructors and professors for the law courses mentioned were secured, then [fol. 52] state the names of those secured and the qualifications of each.
A. 14. William C. Dickson was employed to teach the law courses. He is a practicing attorney in Houston. His training includes Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College of California, the Bachelor of Law degree from Harvard University, and the Master of Law from Boston University. In case of need of an additional teacher Dickson's partner, H. S. Davis, Jr., was available. He holds an A. B. degree from Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, and a J. D. degree from Northwestern University.
Q. 15. State whether any library facilities were obtained.
A. 15. Yes, as stated in answer to Interrogatory No. 9.
Q. 16. If you have stated that library facilities were obtained, then describe fully the kind of facilities secured.[30]
A. 16. Yes, as stated in answer to Interrogatory No. 9.
Q. 17. If you have stated that a law school or law courses were provided pursuant to the resolution of November 27, 1946, then state when they were provided.
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we object to that as not being responsive to the question asked. He asked him when it was established, and he said available. He doesn't answer that question.
[fol. 53] The Court: Yes, I think that is right.
Mr. Daniel: All right, sir. We withdraw that Question 17.
Q. 18. If you have stated that a law school or law courses were provided, then state whether such school or courses were open for registration to qualified applicants.
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we object to that answer for •the reason the answer is "the law course was available." He gives no dates or time, and it is not responsive to that question. It isn't even intelligible.
The Court: It doesn't seem to be responsive, or even helpful.
Mr. Daniel: Your Honor, it says whether or not it was open for registration of qualified applicants. I don't know if the fact that it was available— The Court: He could have said yes or no. Mr. Daniel: Yes, he could.
Q. 19. If you have stated that such school or courses were open for registration to qualified applicants, then state the dates that such registration was opened and closed.
A. 19. It was opened on the 1st of February, 1947, and closed on the 14th day of February, 1947,—
Mr. Durham: Follow it on out; "* * *  which was four [fol. 54] days longer * * *—
The Court: That portion of it isn't; responsive.
Q. 20. If you have stated that registration for a law school or law courses was opened and have given the dates, then state whether during such period any applications for registration were made.
A. 20. No qualified applicants applied.
Mr. Daniel: That is all we wish to offer until we see what you are going to offer on cross. [31]
The Court: You spoke about some stipulations you will work out. Perhaps you will be able to work out something on that.
Mr. Durham: We don't intend to offer the crosses at this .me.
Mr. Daniel: We wish to offer some of them, then. From : the deposition of Mr. Angell we wish to offer the following questions and answers from Gross Interrogatories propounded by Relator.
Mr. Daniel read Cross Interrogatories, and Mr. Littleton lead answers, from Deposition of E. L. Angell, as follows:
Q. 1. By what authority was a Law School for Negroes in Houston set up?
Mr. Durham: When he gets down to the word "and" I 'want to object to it. The resolution is the best evidence. fol. 55] The Court: That is right. Mr. Daniel: You are asking him for it at this time. The Court: I believe he can state the law, and the resolution. The resolution is in.
A. 1. The law course for Negroes was established under authority of Senate Bill No. 228 of the 49th Legislature, and a Resolution of the Board of Directors of the A. & M. College of November 27,1946.
Q. 2. What action, if any, did Prairie View University make in accordance with said resolutions in setting up a Law School for Negroes in Houston?
A. 2. The Principal of Prairie View University, Dr. E. B. Evans, was charged with details of setting up the law course.
Q. 3. How much money was expended in setting up this Law School for Negroes in Houston?
A. 3. I do not know.
Q. 4. Were books, equipment and supplies for this Law School for Negroes in Houston purchased for cash or by State requisition or vouchers?
A. 4. They were purchased by Prairie View University, using their funds.
Q. 26. What salary agreement was made with each teacher If the agreement was written, attach a copy of the [fol. 56] same to this deposition.
A. 26. Dickson was to be paid at the rate of $5,000.00 per year. The agreement was made by Dr. E. B. Evans of[32]Prairie View University and I do not have a copy of the agreement.
Q. 27. What salary was paid each of these teachers'
A. 27. He was paid at the rate of $5,000.00 per year.
Q. 29. How much time was each. teacher required to give to the work of the Law School, that is, state whether they teachers were to give part time or full time and if pa time, exactly how many hours per day, per week.
A. 29. Full time if necessary.
Q. 41. When was this library purchased and what was its purchase price?
Mr. Durham: We want to object to that word ' ' available He asked him what he purchased, and it is not responsive" The Court: Let me read it.
Mr. Durham: We object to the entire part of it after leave the word "made", —"Some 400 basic reference books were made.
The Court: Let him put the question again.
(Mr. Daniel read Question 41 as set out above.) The Court: I don't believe that is responsive.
Q. 42. How many library stacks or book cases were re-[fol. 57] quired, and what kind?
Mr. Durham: We object to that as not being response The Court: It is not responsive.
Q. 45. Give the name and qualifications and salary each of these officers of the Law School for Negroes Houston: (a) Dean (b) Registrar (c) Librarian.
Mr. Durham: We object to that for the reason the answer' is not responsive.
The Court: He doesn't appear to answer it at all. I give you your bill on it.
Mr. Durham: Is that No. 45, Your Honor?
The Court: Yes, I am giving you your point on that.
Mr. Durham: We object to that for the reason it is responsive. He doesn't name anybody.
The Court: I think perhaps if you will break it up a little it might be responsive. He might say the dean and registrar[33]were officials of Prairie View University. It is going to be difficult to understand. I will give your point on it.
A. 45. The Dean and Registrar were officials of Prairie View University and Prairie View University was to furnish [fol. 58] librarian services at the Houston establishment.
Q. 49. State what courses of instruction were offered in the Law School for Negroes in Houston in detail, as follows:
(a) Name of course. (b) Case book and text book used. (c) Hours per week classes scheduled to meet. (d) Time of day each class scheduled to meet and the number of the room in which it was to meet. (e) The number of semester or quarter hours credit to be given for each course.
Mr. Durham: We object to that as being a conclusion of the witness.
The Court: And it isn't responsive either. Mr. Durham: And it isn't responsive.
Q. 53. Did the faculty of the School of Law for Negroes in Houston prepare the curriculum, schedule the classes and otherwise conduct the general educational work of the law school? Mr. Durham: We object to that. It isn't responsive.
The Court: I think it isn't responsive.
Q. 58. Is this Law School for Negroes still in existence in Houston?
Mr. Durham: We object to that. That isn't responsive. The Court: The first sentence ends it; yes.
[fol. 59] Mr. Durham: The first sentence.
A. 58. The facilities were rented until the 1st of March.
Mr. Daniel: All right, that is all. We wish to call the attention of the Court to Senate Bill No. 140 of the 50th Legislature, and briefly to review that before we put on the evidence that follows that.
The Court: I think we will take that up in the morning. 3—725 [34]
(Court was recessed at 4: 30 p. m., May 12, 1947, until 9: 00 a. m., May 13, 1947.)
Morning Session.  May 13,1947.  9: 00 a. m.
Mr. Daniel: May it please the Court, I would like to call attention of the Court to Senate Bill No. 140 of the 50th Legislature, which became effective March 3, 1947. Rather than read the sections that have to do with the establishment of the State University for Negroes in Houston, Texas, I will go over those paragraphs and summarize them, if that is all right with the Court.
(Counsel at this point summarized portions of said bill.) [fol. 60] I would like to call Mr. D. K. Woodward.
D. K. Woodward, Jr., a witness produced by the Respondents, having been by the Court first duly sworn as a witness, testified as follows:
Direct examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. State your name, please, sir.
A. D. K. Woodward, Jr.
Q. Where do you live, Mr. Woodward?
A. Dallas, Texas.
Q. And what is your business?
A. I am a lawyer.
Q. What, if any, official capacity do you have with the University of Texas?
A. I am a member of the Board of Regents, and Chairman of that Board.
Q. How long have you been Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas?
A. Since the end of November, 1944.
Q. Have you, since becoming Chairman of the Board of
Regents of the University of Texas, acquainted yourself with the matter of education for Negroes in Texas? [35]
A. To the best of my ability, yes, sir.
Q. Are you acquainted with Senate Bill No. 140, which [fol. 61] I have just outlined to the Court?
A. Yes, sir, I am.
Q. I will ask you if you had anything to do with the preparation of the bill, and especially the part that the University of Texas—as relates to the University of Texas?
Mr. Durham: We object to it unless he shows he is a member of the Legislature.
The Court: I think that would be correct.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Were you acquainted with the terms embodied in that bill before they were actually enacted by the Legislature?
A. I was.
Q. Have you studied the terms of this bill, when the bill was pending in the Legislature, and before final passage of it?
Mr. Durham: We object to that as being immaterial. The Court: I think it is immaterial what he did about it. Mr. Daniel: Your Honor, we are simply leading up to show the University Board met in anticipation of the final passage of this law, and began their actions a few days before the law became effective. The Court: He can tell what his Board did. Mr. Durham: We don't think that anything that a citizen did would be construed, or the Court could presume it would influence the Legislature. I think that would be a [fol. 62] reflection upon the Legislature. The Court: I sustain the objection.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Did that Board have a meeting prior to the time that this bill was finally passed by the Legislature?
A. Yes, the Board met the 28th of February.
Q. 1947?
A. Yes.
Q. Had the Senate Bill 140 already passed one branch of the Legislature?
A. Two branches, both.
Q. Both branches? [36]
A. It had passed in the Senate on the 24th, the House on the 27th, with certain amendments, and it was in that state that the bill was laid before the Board at its meeting on the 28th of February.
Q. Did you as Chairman lay the bill before the Board"
A. I did.
Q. Did the Board of Regents of the University of Texas on the 28th of February study the requirements made of you by the bill?
A. Yes.
Q. What, if anything,—did you pass any resolutions at that time?
A. We did.
Q. Do you have a copy of the resolutions? [fol. 63]
A. I have.
Q. Is this a true and correct copy of the resolution passed by the Board of Regents on the 28th of February?
A. It is.
Q. We wish to offer it.
(Said instrument was admitted in. evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 3.)
Q. Now, Mr. Woodward, in accordance with that resolution, I will ask you whether or not you proceeded to establish the separate law school therein called for?
A. We did.
Q. Where was it established? -
A. On East 13th Street, in the City of Austin, immediately adjoining the Capitol grounds on the north. I think the' number is 104 East 13th.
Q. What kind of building do you have there, as far a classrooms are concerned? How many classrooms do you have in the building where the law school is located?
A. Presently available we have four buildings—four rooms, three of moderate size, and a fourth, small room for a reception room, and the small toilet facilities.
Q. Did you, in accordance with that resolution, give certain instructions to Dean McCormick, Dean of the University School of Law?
A. I did. [fol. 64]
Q. Will you state to the Court what instruction you gave him as to his part in this school?
A. I requested through the Dean of the entire person- of the Law School an expression as to their willingness[37]or not to teach in the proposed new law school. It was reported to me that they were unanimous—
Mr. Durham: We object to that.
The Court: Yes. That would be hearsay. We will sustain the objection to whatever was reported to him. He can testify to what he knows.
A. All right. I had a conference—a number of conferences—with Dean McCormick concerning the establishment of the law school and requested him to give us the, provide the curriculum and the instructors called for in carrying out the resolution.
Q. As to the location of the law school of the State University for Negroes, the building that you have spoken of, how far is that from the Capitol grounds?
A. It is about a hundred yards from the north door of the Capitol.
Q. You are talking now about the Capitol Building?
A. Yes,—from the Capitol grounds?
Q. Yes.
A. I would say 20 feet. It is a very narrow street there, East 13th Street.
[fol. 65]
Q. Between the location of the law school and the Capitol grounds?
A. Yes.
Q. You mentioned something about another distance, as between the door of the separate law school and the State Capitol Building. If you know, how far is that?
A. I would estimate it to be a hundred yards, 300 feet.
Q. Where is the law school located with reference to the University of Texas?
A. Well, the University of Texas lies north of 21st Street in the City of Austin, covers a considerable area out there. That would be eight blocks north of the new law school on 13th Street.
Q. Then your new law school is located between the State Capitol Building and the University of Texas Campus?
A. That would be right.
Q. Where is—state how the new law school is located with reference to the business district of Austin; is it nearer the business district than the University of Texas Law School or not?
A. Yes, sir; eight blocks nearer. [38]
Q. Is your new law school nearer the banks of Austin and other business facilities than the University of Texas?
A. It is eight blocks nearer.
Q. Are you acquainted with the State Library called for in this bill, in the Capitol Building? [fol. 66]
A. I am.
Q. Are you acquainted with the location of that library?
A. I am, the second floor of the Capitol Building, north wing.
Q. Are you acquainted with the space therein, and desks, as to availability of the space and working room in that library for students?
A. I am, and have been for many, many years. I have frequented it myself.
Q. That is on the second floor of the Capitol Building?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you acquainted with the Texas University Library
and the facilities thereof?
A. No, I am not, not as closely as I should be. I know in a general way what it is.
Q. Are you acquainted with the working room at the University of Texas Law School Library, not the books?
A. I couldn't say that I am with any degree of accuracy. I know they are sorely pressed for space.
Mr. Durham: We object to that as not being responsive.
The Court: Yes.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. This resolution calls for the establishment of the same courses, a curriculum consisting of the same courses in law as those offered at the University of Texas?
A. It does.
Q. Did you or not give instructions to the Dean of the [fol. 67] University of Texas Law School to establish such a curriculum?
A. I did.
Q. The resolution also calls for the use of the same faculty members. I will ask you if you gave instructions in accordance with the resolution to the Dean of the University of Texas Law School with reference to the use of the University of Texas Law School faculty members?
A. I did. [39]
Q. Was the new law school placed in readiness for operations on March 10, as called for in the resolution?
Mr. Durham: We object to that as a conclusion and opinion. The Court: He can say what was done.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Will you just state to the Court what was done with reference to having the school ready for registration, as far as you know?
A. By March 10th?
Q. Yes.
A. The premises were put in order for it, cleaned up, painted, and the desks and chairs and certain law books placed in there, and an attendant placed in charge, and notices were sent as directed in the resolution to all persons interested, and there was considerable newspaper publicity given so that we did everything that—
Mr. Durham: When be said he did everything— [fol. 68] The Court: Yes. He can say what he did.
A. Yes. All of the actions called for in that resolution, to the best of our ability—
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. They were accomplished by March 10th, were they?
A. That is correct.
Q. The resolution authorizes you to purchase a permanent law library for the school which will meet the standards set by the American Association of Law Schools?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I will ask you what you did in accordance with that provision of the resolution?
A. I made requisition on the Board of Control of the State of Texas on March 1st, I think it was, either February 28th, or March 1st. The document itself would show the exact date, calling for bids at the earliest practicable date for a list of books purporting to be a complete list as called for by the American Association of Law Schools.
Q. Who did you have prepare that list to meet the standards of the American Association of Law Schools?
A. The Dean of the Law School of the University of Texas, Dean McCormick. [40]
Q. The list that was prepared by him, or under his direction, then, was turned over to you?
A. It was presented to me in the regular course for the [fol. 69] execution and delivery of a requisition on the State Board of Control, as required by law, for the purchase of public property.
Q. Did you execute that requisition ?.
A. I did, immediately on either the 28th of February or the 1st of March; executed that and filed it with the Board of Control.
Q. I believe that is all.
Cross-examination.
Questions by Mr. Marshall:
Q. Judge Woodward, as long as you have been a member< of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, has it or has it not been the policy and custom of the University of Texas not to admit Negroes to any branch thereof?
A. There has been no custom of that kind, within my knowledge. The application of the relator in the spring 1945 is the first application that I can recall, and I have been connected with the University one way or another for fifty years this coming fall.
Mr. Daniel: 1946, wasn't it?
A. 1946, the fall or spring of the year, whenever it was? that be made his application, 1946, I believe it was.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. Do you know anything about the application of George Allen to take accounting, between the years I to 1940?
A. I do not. [fol. 70]
Q. Well, why was the application of Heman Marion Sweatt to attend the Law School of the University of Texas refused?
A. Under the provisions of Section 7, Article 7 of Constitution of Texas, pursuant to the advice of the Attorney General of Texas.
Q. And on that basis his application was refused; is correct? [41]
A. Correct.
Q. Is it or is it not the policy of the regents of the University of Texas to follow that section of the Constitution?
A. It certainly is, as long as if remains in the Constitution.
Q. Have you been over to this new law school?
A. I have.
Q. How much—how was the building obtained, by lease?
A. Under lease from the—through the Board of Regents of the University.
Q. And when was it leased?
A. It was leased around the end of February or the first of March of this year.
Q. For how long was it leased?
A. For the period ending August 31, 1947, August 31st of this year. I may say, if you are interested, that we are negotiating now and have the refusal of the building for the year ending August 31, 1948.
Q. When yon say the building, as a matter of fact, you [fol. 71] don't have the whole building leased, do yon?
A. We do not at the present time. We have a refusal of the remainder of the building when need for it arises. We have the first floor leased.
Q. The first floor is the ground floor, isn't it?
A. That is right.
Q. And there are comparatively, for classroom purposes, they are small rooms, are they not?
A. It depends on the size of the class.
Q. If you use the whole building that you do not now have, but if yon obtained the whole building, could you put the library of the Law School of the University of Texas in that whole building?
A. Certainly not.
Q. So, that brings us to the next question. Where are you going to put your library?
A. When the library is acquired, it will consist of ten thousand volumes. The library of the Law School of the University of Texas consists of approximately 65,000 volumes, of which about half of them are duplicates. Nobody in his right mind would undertake to assemble 65,000 "volumes in a law library in a building or law school just started. There is ample space in the building on which we have the refusal in which to store and provide the use of ten thousand volumes we have under order. We can put them there. [42] [fol. 72]
Q. Then I understand yon can put the 10,000 volumes in the present building?
A. That would be my judgment, yes.
Q. Well, now, as to these standards of the Association of American Law Schools, do you have enough space to give the amount of space required for library use of students?
A. As to that, I wouldn't be qualified to say because I don't know what the requirements are. We have with the —under the provisions of the statute, with the law library we have under order and with the accessibility to the Supreme Court Library of the State of Texas, we have abundantly sufficient library facilities and working space for the relator's pursuit of his course of law.
Q. Now, have you taught law?
A. Yes.
Q. When?
A. I would say it was about, must have been 20 or 25 years ago. I was for a short time a member of the law faculty of the University of Texas.
Q. And since that time have you done any teaching?
A. No.
Q. Are you familiar with the modern methods of teaching in law schools'?
A. I believe I am, with what you term the modern methods. I happen to be a graduate of the University of [fol. 73] Chicago Law School in the class of 1907. I went there at the time it was being organized. Joseph Henry Beal, a great educator from Harvard, came out and established the case system, and it was because of the establishment of that system, in part, that I took my three years of law work there.
Q. What I am getting at, Judge Woodward, is that when you make the statement that he can get an adequate legal education on the facilities that have been provided, I want to know whether or not you are talking as an expert in the field of education.
A. I am talking as a man familiar with what it takes to provide a thorough training in law in the State of Texas, and I stated the facts within my own personal knowledge, that the facilities which the Board of Regents of the University set up in accordance with Senate Bill 140 are such as to provide for the relator in this case the opportunity for the study of law unsurpassed any time elsewhere in the[43]State of Texas, and fully equal to the opportunity and instruction we are offering at the University any day.
Q. Are the facilities in that school equal to those in the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. Do you mean the physical facilities?
Q. First, the physical facilities?
A. They are not. identical.
Q. Are they equal? [fol. 74]
A. For the purpose they are, yes, sir.
Q. What is the value of the Law Building at the University of Texas'?
A. It is an old building. I would say it was constructed 40 years ago. I don't know whether you are talking about the replacement value or original cost, but, of course, the leasehold there has no relation to the physical value of the University of Texas Law School proper.
Q. What I wanted to know was in dollars and cents, using whichever method you want to use, original purchase price, or price to reproduce. Is it not true that you can not even compare the value of those two buildings'?
A. Well, they don't bear any relationship to each other. One is a leasehold adequate for the purpose for which it was obtained, and the other is a property in fee. You are correct in this, that there is no fair comparison in monetary value.
Q. Next, as to the library that you have on requisition, does that compare in value with the library facilities at the University of Texas Law School?
A. The library on order, and the library made available by law to the relator, had he entered the school, compare very favorably with the library at the University of Texas. You will understand that there may be a few more volumes at the University of Texas, but an examination would reflect that there are many, many duplicates, as there would have [fol. 75] to be with a student body of eight hundred or so.
Q. Do you not also know that several of the sets of books required under the rules of the American Association of Law Schools are now out of print?
A. I wouldn't know.
Q. You don't know anything about those standards'?
A. I don't claim to be an expert on that. I don't admit complete ignorance about them.
Q. Didn't you testify, or rather, I will ask you the question,will this law school set up over here for Negroes meet[44]the requirements of the American Association of Law Schools?
A. Well, it will do that, in my judgment, in the process of its development. The facilities and instruction presently provided in contemplation of the registration of the relator were made in accordance with the requirements of the American Association of Law Schools, as I understood it. You will understand, of course, that I rely upon Dean McCormick, who is a very well known and eminent legal educator, as to matters of that kind. I depended on. him. for that. I have no reason to question his ability as an advisor in that regard.
Q. These 10,000 volumes; do you have a copy of that requisition with you?
A. No, I don't have it. It is available. It is at the Board of Control, or may be in the court room. I filed the original with the Board of Control. [fol. 76]
Q. What has happened to that requisition?
A. The notices were sent out in the regular way. I am speaking now from recollection as to dates, and the bids were to have been opened on some date in April, and for some reason they were—of course) you understand, I have got to tell you now what was reported to me about it. If you object, I won't tell you.
Q. That is all right, sir.
A. It was reported to me that for some reason, in the machinery of the purchase, they had to be delayed. You will understand further that once the authorities of an educational institution file a requisition as required by law, that its execution then rests with another department, "the Board of Control. That is part of our Texas administrative system. I have every reason to believe that those books have been, or will be purchased in the immediate future. It is quite possible that the Board of Control has already purchased them.
Q. Are they in the law school now?
A. No.
Q. They are not there as of today?
A. No, sir, neither is the relator.
Q. They were not there on March 10th, were they?
A. No.
Q. As a matter of fact, how many books were there on March 10th?[45]
A. Oh, I would judge in that—[fol. 77]
Q. First of all, did you see the place March 10th?
A. Either that, or a day or two before.
Q. All right, sir. How many books were there?
A. I would estimate 150 or 200.
Q. And what volumes were they, generally?
A. I don't know. I have a great many things to do, you will understand, counsel; that we had taken the precaution of making the entire library of the Law School of the University of Texas, eight blocks away, available on a loan basis, so that if the relator had come, as we hoped he would, he could have had access through loan immediately to any .books in the Law Library of the University of Texas; the library of the Supreme Court of Texas, for any course he panted to pursue.
Q. Isn't it true that the students of the University of Texas Law School also have access to the Capitol Law Library?
A. I think that they, in common with every citizen in Texas, have a right to go in there.
Q. So that there is nothing special about that, is there?
A. Yes, there is; for this reason—
Q. What is the special thing?
A. The Legislature of Texas, which is the policy making body of the State of Texas, saw fit in setting up this general plan for Negro education, to provide specifically that the students there should have the use of that library for the purpose of attending classes at the law school. Now, I, and [fol. 78] every other citizen in the State have to have the use of that library for general purposes, but I do not have it for use as a student in that law school. So as to relieve any question about it, that provision v? as put in the bill.
Q. But' as the situation now stands, the right granted by that hill is the same right which every other citizen has?
A. Well, if you think that as a lawyer, that is all right It is not tile case. If that is your judgment as a lawyer, that may be good New York law, but it is not good Texas law.
Q. For the record, may it be stated that I am not a member of the New York Bar.
A. Whatever bar you are
A. member of, that is not true in Texas.
Q. Let's get this straight. In Texas, Sweatt can go over[46]and use the library now, and he isn't a student in any school; isn't that correct ?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Can't anybody in this court room go over and use that library, regardless of what school he is in; isn't that correct?
A. He can go over and use it for the purposes as an ordinary citizen, of the State.
Q. What peculiar purpose does a student use a law library for that any other person does not?
A. Withdrawing books to study.
Q. Is there anything in the statute which gives him the [fol. 79] right to withdraw books'?
A. I think the Legislature wouldn't have considered that necessary when they gave them the right to use it as students.
Q. Is there any provision in the statute which specifically gives the students of that school the right to withdraw books?
A. I think there is not.
Q. And the students of the University of Texas can use that library?
A. Oh, yes, just as any other citizen can.
Q. And as I understand, the plan is proposed that if any other books are wanted, they can be brought over from the University of Texas Law Library on a loan basis?
A. At any time they are needed.
Q. How are they going to bring them over there?
A. Well, the University of Texas has facilities to do what it is required by law to do. We brought the other books down there. There is nothing difficult about that. We( transact a very large amount of practical business, an( that would be a very insignificant task.
Q. You brought down the 150 books when the school was' opened?
A. I think so.
Q. As a matter of fact, wasn't it just five book shelves
A. I think it was two of those racks of cases. I am no sure about it. [fol. 80]
Q. Is there any office space in there for professors in the present building?
A. You mean private offices?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I wouldn't say there is any private office. [47]
Q. Is there any private office for the Dean?
A. No.
Q. Are there any working rooms where students can work and confer with library books?
A. You mean work with the library? There will be plenty of room for that when the library is installed there, because we will have the remainder of the building.
Q. You say there were four rooms, three moderate size, and one small one?
A. As I recall, yes. I have a plan of it. I can tell you in a minute how many there were, and what size, if you are interested.
Q. I am quite interested.
A. All right. The building faces south. The entrance hall with the administrative desk in it is immediately to the west of a reading room and office, which is 15 feet, 7 inches, by 19 feet, 10 inches. To the north of the entrance hall there is a class room II feet, 6 inches, by 16 feet, 6 inches, and on the northwest corner of the building is a class room 12 feet by 12 feet, 8 inches. There is, in addition, a toilet [fol. 81] facility in the building. Those are the four rooms currently under lease.
Q. Do you have any objection to us putting that in evidence?
A. None whatever.
Q. May we see it?
A. I didn't make it myself. It was made under the—if you are willing to accept it as accurate. It is accurate.
Q. May we look at it a minute?
Mr. Daniel: Yes.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. You don't propose to get 10,000 volumes in that space, do you?
A. Certainly not.
Q. And whether or not you will have space for the 10,000 volumes depends on whether or not you renew your lease, and whether or not you get the balance of the building; isn't that true?
A. Yes, we would have—the provision for that has already been arranged. I have arranged to renew the lease, lease on the present quarters for the coming year end- August 31, 1948, and to secure the remaining portion[48]of the building when needed, for the period ending August 31,1948.
Q. When did you say the Law School at the University of Texas was built, about?
A. I think about' 1906 or 1907.
Q. Approximately how many students were going to the [fol. 82] law school the first year?
A. I could not tell you to save my life.
Q. It was a very small number, wasn't it?
A. It was a relative number. You had better get somebody who knows. The Registrar can tell you) because I could not tell you at all what the registration in the law school there was at that time. Of course, the records show it for each year.
Q. Do I understand correctly that the law school as it appeared on March 10th obviously did not meet the requirements of the Association of American Law Schools?
A. Well, that would call for a conclusion, depending on a great many things; the number of students, the work that they undertook, and a good many other considerations. You will see, after all, the regulations of the American Association of Law Schools and the American Bar Association have to be construed with some degree of regard for the facts. What we set up there was a plant fully adequate to give the very best of legal instruction for the only man of the Negro race who had ever applied for instruction in law at the University in about 63 years of the life of the school. We arc practical people. We made that provision fully adequate for that purpose.
Q. What do you mean by "practical"? You mean within the money you had available?
A. No, here is what we were trying to do, Counsel. We [fol. 83] were trying very hard to, and are still trying to set up for Negro population of the State of Texas a University really of the first class, which down through the years will develop and grow to what we hope to be the greatest University for Negroes in the world. We have the assets with which to do it, and the determination to do it, and that was a part of the plan to provide here at the threshold of this undertaking opportunity identical with that which was afforded at the University, eight blocks away.
Q. Well, you didn't get the idea and that plan until after this lawsuit was filed, did you? [49]
A. It happens you are mistaken about that.
Q. I would like to know.
A. On the 13th of January, 1946, the Board of Directors of the University of Texas, and the Board of Trustees,— Board of Regents of the University of Texas, and  A. & M. College met in joint session at Ft. Worth, Texas. They are the governing boards of the two principal State supported schools. One of the questions on that agenda of that meeting was the consideration of the responsibility of those two schools for providing a comprehensive plan of higher education for members of the Negro race in Texas.
Q. Did that Board meeting discuss the very wide publicity, including the paper in your home town, the Dallas Morning News, concerning a meeting of Negroes who were [fol. 84] insisting on their equal right to an education?
A. When was that? What meeting do you have reference to?
Q. The meting held in Dallas at the Y. M. C. A.
A. What date? Do you mean, held on the 8th of March of this year?
Q. No, prior to January of 1946.
A. I do not—that meeting was not considered at all, and it was not in any way the occasion for our holding the joint session, or discussing that program. We knew, of course,— what we knew was this, that we have approximately 1,200,-000 members of the Negro race in Texas. There has been a very great change in the economic situation, and in the educational opportunities or ambitions in the last 15 or 20 years of the Negro race. Members of those two boards felt as officers and directors of the State's leading educational institutions that they owed it as a public duty to devise some means of providing for what they thought was a real need for members of the Negro race, and they implemented that by appointing a committee of six, three from each school, to make a study of that. That committee worked diligently for about six months, made its report to the Governor of Texas, the Hon. Coke R. Stevenson, who in turn appointed the Bi-racial Committee, with which I am sure yon are familiar. It filed its report, and that report was the basis of Senate Bill 140. So that the undertaking of [fol. 85] those two boards ante-dated the filing of the suit by the relator here, and was not actuated by any extent by[50]the meeting, whatever meeting it was, one that I never heard of, in Dallas, though I live there.
Q. Judge, how old is the University of Texas?
A. We think of it as having started in 1883.
Q. Is it not true it is one of the finest schools in the country?
A. It continues to try to be.
Q. About how long do you think it would take to build for Negroes a university equal to that?
A. It would depend to a greater extent on the response of the members of the Negro race than anything else.
Q. Isn't it true that when you set up new departments at the University of Texas, you start off with a few students and end up with a lot when they find out it is running?
A. It depends on the course you set up.
Q. And it depends on the value of the course you have to the students?
A. Will you repeat that, please?
Q. When you first offer or open up a new course in the University of Texas, you usually have a small number of students, and year by year the course usually gets more students?
A. Normally that would be true. It varies with reference to the course and the public interest in the course. It can happen, and sometimes does happen, that what might be [fol. 86] called a flash interest in some subject, and there may be a very great registration, and they will find it wasn't what they wanted and it decreases, but ordinarily this is true in the University and every other educational institution, that it grows as the worth of the instruction is demonstrated. I think you may conclude that is true.
Q. Judge Woodward, the other point I wanted to ask is that you are familiar, are you not, with the supposed law school in Houston, Texas, for Negroes?
A. What do you have reference to, the Texas State University?
Q. No, sir, the one that was, according to the minute entry, was established in February?
A. You mean the one that was provided for by the Act of the 49th, Senate Bill 228, they referred to?
Q. Isn't it true that they did set up facilities for Negro training in law in Houston?
A. I couldn't say because I had nothing whatever to do with it. [51]
Q. Isn't it true that this law school you are about to set up can't possibly run more than a year?
A. No, sir.
Q. What happens to it at the end of the year?
A. Well, at the end of the year from now, on the 13th of next March, if the relator or any other good faith student comes along, it will be operated.
Q. Isn't it true that under the statute and resolution, it is [fol. 87] supposed to be turned over within a year—
A. No, it can run through August 31, 1948, and if you will permit me to tell you, I will say that the Board of Directors of Texas State University for Negroes at its first meeting passed a resolution—
Q. I will have to object to that. The resolution is the best evidence.
A. We will get it, if you want it. Under the provisions of the statute which permits us to operate until August 31, 1948, and by arrangement with the Texas State University for Negroes, the Law School will be in operation a year from now if there are any students, if the relator or anybody else offers to use those facilities. You have reference to the clause in there, I am sure, if I remember it correctly, directing that at the end of any term we be required to turn it over, if they are ready for it.
Q. At the end of the first term?
A. What clause do you have reference to?
Q. I think it is this one, at the end of the first term.
A. May I read it? (Reading) "At the end of the first term or semester of any law course offered in said school after the organization and establishment of the Texas State University for Negroes at Houston, and the equivalent organization and establishment of a law course by such University for Negroes, the direction, conduct, operation, loca-[fol. 88] tion, the unexpended balance of this appropriation, and all property purchased for the separate school out of the appropriation hereunder, shall be transferred to the Texas State University for Negroes at Houston, and its Board of Directors shall thenceforth continue such law courses as a part of the curriculum of such university, and discharge all responsibility therefor." Was that the clause you had it mind?
Q. Yes. Do you intend to keep the law school here or move it to Houston? 52]
A. At the present time we intend to keep it here until August 31,1948.
Q. Does it go then
A. It is assumed that by that time the Texas State University for Negroes at Houston will have established the equivalent work, and the establishment of a law course by such University for Negroes at Houston. In other words, it is contemplated that by the expiration, of, roughly, an 18 months period from this date the University at Houston will have had an opportunity to fully equip itself as a law school, meeting all of the requirements of a first class law school, and our duties will be over.
Q. What assurance would Sweatt have that the law school would be here until he finished it three years from now?
A. Until he finishes three years from now? There is no assurance that it would be here three years, nor has he or [fol. 89] any other citizen of the State of Texas the right to require the State of Texas to provide education at any particular place. The State has to provide for him or any other citizen education in law fully equal to that provided at the University of Texas. That, it is prepared to do.
Q. Do you consider it a good educational policy for students to have to shift from town to town in going through a law course?
A. I think my opinion on that wouldn't be very enlightening to the Court. I don't think it is contemplated at all by the facts in the case.
Q. Do the students of the University of Texas have to go from city to city, or isn't it true that since 1907 the school has been situated in the same spot?
A. The Law School has been in Austin for a great deal longer than that. However, we maintain a Medical College at Galveston, a part of the University of Texas. Pre-medical training is given here, and the medical training is given at the University branch in Galveston.
Q. How long has it been there?
A. Oh, it ante-dates the opening of the University here. It is many, many years old.
Q. It has been in the one spot a long time?
A. Yes.
Q. What I am trying to get at is whether or not it is not [fol. 90] true that it is poor educational policy for a student[53]not to know where he is going to get his education the next year?
A. I would say as to that, that would depend on. the circumstances of each individual case. I can not think that it would be the least hardship to a citizen of Houston, as the relator styles himself to be, to have to return to Houston in August of 1948 and complete the final year of his course there.
Q. You don't think so?
A. You asked my opinion. I certainly do not.
Q. The question I am trying to get at is, and I want to ask it one more time, if you will permit it. Isn't it a poor educational policy, speaking from educational policy, you have been on the Board of Regents for quite some time, and you are familiar with good educational policies. Isn't it poor educational policy to have a student going to a school when he doesn't know where the school will be the next year?
A. Well, if he hasn't the acumen to find out where it is going to be the next year, he hasn't any business in the school. It couldn't possibly be any matter of inconvenience or uncertainty to a man of ordinary intelligence, where the school will be conducted the following year. He knows now it would be here until August 31, 1948. He knows that.
Q. Judge Woodward, can I ask you one question.
A. Any number. [fol. 91]
Q. Do you know where it will be in 1948?
A. With reasonable certainty, I "do, based on the obligations of the State officials to carry out their duties, and upon the presumption that they will carry them out, it will be in Houston, in Harris County, Texas, an integral part of the State University for Negroes, on August 31, 1948.
Q. Depending on the establishment of that University prior to that time?
A. The University is now established.
Q. Where is it established?
A. In Houston, Texas.
Q. And who is the dean of it?
A. You mean the Dean of the Law School?
Q. No, the dean of a university that has been established?
A. I can tell you the members of its governing board. They were appointed last week. If they have selected the officers of the University I haven't been advised of it.
Q. Wasn't that their first meeting last week? [54]
A. It was. They were appointed and confirmed and met the same day.
Q. But the school hasn't been established yet, has it?
A. That is a conclusion. My conclusion is, as a matter of law that the Texas State University for Negroes has now been established.
A. Are there any buildings? [fol. 92]
A. There is another statute which I think has been finally passed which provides for the Texas State University for Negroes acquiring 53 acres of land and the buildings on it as a site for the Texas State University for Negroes. That land is located within the City of Houston, about mid-way between Rice Institute and the Houston University, which is a very large university.
Q. What I am trying to get at—
Mr. Daniel: Let him finish.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. All right.
A. I have every reason to believe that that building, which is the equivalent of any building on our campus at the University of Texas, modern construction and very adaptable for university purposes, will come into control of the Board of the Texas State University for Negroes within the next few days.
Q. What I am trying to get is,—you said a minute ago that the school was in existence?
A. I said it was established. That is my judgment as a lawyer.
Q. Was established?
A. Yes.
Q. As I understand your testimony, all of this you have testified will happen; is that correct?
A. That is right. That is my best judgment. I am not a prophet. I am informed as to the facts, and that is my de-[fol. 93] liberate judgment.
Q. Is that your judgment, that the Law School will be in Houston in August) 1948, and that is based on your assumption that this University will be in existence at that time?
A. Based on my knowledge of the whole situation and my knowledge of the laws that provide for that, and my knowledge of the laws which require public officials to do their duty.[55]
Q. How many schools are there set up in this Negro University.
Q. You mean separate schools of instruction?
Q. Like lip at the University of Texas? As I understand, it is to be equal.
A. Are you talking about its prospective curriculum?
Q. What is there now?
A. The Texas State University for Negroes, you want to know how many schools have been set up there now?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I would say that I think it improbable that any one has been set up.
Q. So that it is at the present time still on paper, is it?
A. Well, if you wish to put it that way. Every step in its organization thus far contemplated by law has been taken, and $2,350,000.00 in money is in the bank to pay for its operation during the next two fiscal years. That is substantial paper.
Q. And, of course, the statute says two million, or what-[fol. 94] ever it is, or as much thereof as might be needed?
A. That is the customary language in our appropriation bills.
Q. That is the custom. As the Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, have you deemed it your responsibility during the whole time you have been on the Board of Regents to give equal educational facilities to all citizens of the State of Texas'?
A. My—as far as it is within my power, yes. It happens to he that I actually believe in education, and I think one of the very most forward-looking things the State of Texas could do would he to provide a comprehensive plan of higher education for members of the Negro race.
Q. But prior to this year the University of Texas has done what to provide education for Negroes'?
A. Well, you will understand that the University of Texas is governed by the Constitution of the State, and that we have done exactly what the Constitution authorizes us to do in the conduct of the University of Texas, which is the school set up for the education of children of the white race, but we are, rightly or wrongly, the University is regarded as the head of the educational system of Texas) and as Chairman of the Board, I have conceived it to be my duty to do what I could to promote within the provisions of the[56]law the best of educational facilities for all of the citizens of Texas.
Q. What provision have yon made for Negroes prior to 1946? [fol. 95]
A. Prior to 1946. I came on the Board at the end of 1944. The Legislature, the 49th Legislature, met in January following and there was no opportunity under conditions then existing at the University and elsewhere in the State for me to take any part in the deliberations of the 49th Legislature, other than as related immediately to the University of Texas. I attended to that. No member of the University of Texas, so far as I know, and no member of the governing board of officers of  A. & M. College was consulted about the passage of Senate Bill 228, as far as I know. That is the Act that undertook to make Prairie View a university.
Q. A university?
A. When I got squared away, when the picture as a whole began to take shape, it was rather obvious to me that Senate Bill 228 had to be materially supplemented, if there was to be created in Texas a comprehensive program of higher education for members of the Negro race, which I thought was highly desirable.
Q. Isn't it true that prior to that time, as a matter of fact, the University of Texas had no facilities of any kind where Negroes were in attendance.
A. It is true today, and it has been true every day since the University of Texas was organized, that it could not lawfully extend the use of its facilities to members of the Negro race. That is a matter of constitutional limitation. [fol. 96] We had nothing to do with bringing it about at this time. It was passed in 1876. That is the reason, if you want a reason, why we haven't done anything of that kind; it is because we are prohibited by law, and naturally we can not conduct a public institution otherwise than in compliance with public law.
Q. You had no hesitancy in having the first, are the professors of law at the University of Texas white?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. There was no hesitancy in arranging for them to teach Negro students, was there?
A. None at all, as a branch of the Texas State University for Negroes. We had a legal right to do that, and I was extremely proud of their cooperation in doing it. [57]
Q. But although the teachers had no objection to teaching Negroes, the Board of Regents couldn't admit the Negroes at the Law School?
A. You understand it perfectly, I am sure. You understand why we can't. We are bound—as good a lawyer as you are, you are bound to know that. we operate under the Constitution of the State of Texas. Your associate here knows it.
Q. Is it not true, since we want to get straight what the rest of us know about it, that the Constitution of Texas is, of course, dependent as to its validity on the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States? We agree on that, [fol. 97] don't we?
A. Absolutely, yes.
Q. All right. When compared with the advantages offered the students of law at Texas University, is there any measure of equality in a set-up which forces a Negro to begin a law course which will be shifted to another institution, the professorship has not. been selected, the quality and quantity of instruction, of which is not at the present time known?
A. What is your question? Is there any measure of equality?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. Well, if the relator was in school it would be a little easier to answer that. I will say this, that where the policy of the State of Texas has been. established by the adoption of a statute by more than two-thirds of the vote of both branches of the Legislature, with liberal appropriation made for its support, that there is no discrimination whatever, and no uncertainty, against a student who undertakes to avail himself of instruction in the law under the provisions of that statute. I don't think he is discriminated against in the least. I know as a practical matter that the opportunities which would have been afforded the relator, had he seen fit to enter the Law School, the opportunities for instruction in law in the school we set up on East 13th Street [fol. 98] would have been fully equal to that had he been permitted to enter the University of Texas. That may or may not answer your question.
Q. That doesn't answer the question.
A. I would be glad to make another try at it.
Q. The question in sum and substance is, working on this theory of equal facilities, separate but equal, do you consider[58]it equal for a Negro student to go to a school, knowing full-well that on next year he doesn't know where his school will be, who the professors will be, or anything about the school. Is that equal to the Law School that "was established at the beginning of the century.
A. Under the conditions existing, it affords him fully equal opportunity. You have not stated the question correctly, so that I will have to qualify it by "under the conditions existing." You have failed to state in your question that the Law School is established by the University of Texas, now established on 13th Street for the period ending August 31,1948. You have forgotten to state that Senate Bill 140 provides for the establishment of this university, not at any uncertain place, but at Houston in Harris County, Texas, and directs that it be conducted as a University of the first class in Houston. Those are the qualifications; my knowledge of the facts which may control my judgment in the case, my knowledge of the class of instructors he would [fol. 99] have here, and the opportunity he would have if he would avail himself of it, leads me to say that he is under no discrimination, if he availed himself of the training the State of Texas had made available for his legal education.
Q. He spends two or three hours a day in class?
A. I wouldn't know.
Q. What do you use as a basis for your statement?
A. I went to the University of Chicago Law School when it was small, and had the benefit of association with men like Mr. Meachem, and Mr. Hall and Mr. Bigelow, and relations with them which a man going there today as a member of a class of five or six hundred would not have. That is the reason that I know that the relator or any other members of his race, if they came to that school which we have established on 13th Street and in good faith undertook to complete their legal education, they would receive instruction and experiences which they would not have had anywhere else today. I know that, because I know the men who would be teaching. Those men are men who have devoted their lives to teaching. They are all full time professors in the Law School.
Q. Which ones are you talking about now?
A. Because they would come down there,—I am talking about all of the members of the faculty of the University of Texas. [59]
Q. All of them? [fol. 100]
A. We haven't, as far as I know, unless it be an emergency matter, have none other than full time instructors.
Q. Do you consider it necessary to have full time instructors?
A. Well, I think it is desirable to have them, where you have an institution that can employ them all of the time. There are certain fields in which part time instructors are desirable, just as in my University of Chicago days we had Julian W. Mack, whom you will remember was the Professor of Federal Procedure, Horace Kent Penney, who was a great lawyer and Professor of Pleading and Practice.
Q. Isn't it generally accepted that law schools should have full time professors?
A. I believe that is the current view, and I think it is a sound one. That is the reason that we provide here that the full time professors from the University of Texas should be made available here.
Q. They can't be full time at both places, can they?
A. We feel we can't be prejudiced by having them full time on 13th Street, and give them up at the University of Texas.
Q. They are all part time at the 13th Street law school?
A. It isn't a question of part time, in the sense that they are people engaged in the practice. They are, every one of them, State employees, engaged for their full time in the instruction in the science of law. The fact that they spend part of their time in one institution and part in another [fol. 101] doesn't make them part time, in the sense that a practicing lawyer would be. At the time I foolishly undertook to part time lecture in the law school it didn't work out for me or the law school, because I was a part time man, and that wasn't good, but if I had been able to be a professor in the Law School at the University, and spent part of my time on 13th Street, I would be none the less a full time employee.
Q. I am talking about part time law professors within the meaning of the standards of the American Association of Law Schools.
A. How do you define it?
Q. A teacher that isn't in the school full time.
A. In that specific school. I wouldn't say that made[60]any material difference, if he was in fact. a trained professor and was in a school as much as the—as was required for the number of students who were there.
Q. Isn't it true that the reason for full time professors is to have someone available at all times of the day, whenever the students want to see them?
A. I really wouldn't know whether that is the reason for it.
Q. And the Dean of the school? Dean McCormick of the University of Texas, who will be at this school part time?
A. Whenever he was needed he would be there.
Q. Where would his office be?
A. At the University of Texas, except when he came down [fol. 102] there. There would be space there when he had occasion to confer with anybody down there.
Q. Could these students go to see him at the University of Texas?
A. Without doubt. If they had occasion to, I imagine Dean McCormick would not object to conferring with a student anywhere.
Q. I am reading to you from Senate Bill 140, sir, the section of the statute which says:
"The entire school shall be operated separately and apart from the campus of the University of Texas."
A. That is right.
Q. You say that despite that provision?
A. Yes, sir, certainly. With the school operating there, the fact that a student may see Dean McCormick in this court room or on the street or in his office at the University of Texas wouldn't militate against the operation of the school apart from the campus of the University of Texas.
Q. So that if a student at the University of Texas wants to see him at the University he walks across the hall and there be is?
A. Yes, sir, in accordance with the hours of appointments.
Q. And the 13th Street student would have to go eight blocks?
A. Yes. It looks like to me you are magnifying things-[fol. 103] that any student in good faith in attempting to( get an education would not consider a hardship at all.
Q. I am basing mine on, not on what I think students do;[61]. I am basing mine on the rules of the Association of American Law Schools.
A. It looks like you are magnifying things of little moment compared to the scheme as a whole.
Q. I am not obliged to argue with you at this time. The final thing I want to get is that you are not familiar with the standards of the American Association of Law Schools.
A. Not other than in a casual way.
Q. Can you name any of them?
A. Not without reference to them, I wouldn't undertake it.
Q. You are not familiar with the standards of accreditation of the American Bar Association, are you?
A. Only in a general way.
Q, So that all of your testimony is based on your own personal observations and your own personal beliefs, is that correct?
A. It is based on my personal knowledge of the relevant facts over many, many years, over my experience—on my experience as a student in the University in its academic department and in the Law School of the University of Chicago, and upon the general information that I naturally have to acquire in the discharge of my duties.
Q. Your primary livelihood is practicing law? [fol. 104]
A. That happens not to be the fact.
Q. It isn't legal education, is it? That isn't your field?
A. The position I occupy, of course, carries with it no compensation whatever. It is—1 serve as a matter of public service without compensation at all, and naturally what information I acquire about educational matters comes merely from the discharge of my public duties, and not at all as a paid agent, or function of the State.
Q. Do you consider a school that is unapproved by either the Association of American Law Schools or the A. B. A. as equal to a school that is approved by both of them?
A. That, again, would depend on the circumstances under which the school was operated. You apparently are trying to draw a comparison between the provisions which the State of Texas has made upon the occasion of the first application ever made to it by a member of the Negro race for education in law. Now, we have laws on our books that have been here for a great many years, within the terms which we must operate, and do operate. The advisors[62]of the State of Texas have set up a plan here, which, when carried out according to the provisions of the statute, which it must be presumed will be complied with, will entitle this law school to accreditation anywhere.
Q. Judge Woodward—
A. So that there is in my mind not the least discrimina-[fol. 105] tion involved in providing the type of education which we have provided, as compared to that which is provided at the University of Texas, no discrimination. I don't think that a student studying law here and graduating from this school that we have set up would be prejudiced at all by reason of the fact that the school in its initial stages had not been accredited by these organizations.
Q. Are you familiar with the fact that in some states you can not take the bar unless you came from an accredited school?
A. No.
Q. Would you consider that a handicap?
A. The only handicap—
Mr. Daniel: We object to that question as to other states. He has alleged only that he wishes to prepare himself to practice here. The Court: I think he has answered the question, anyway.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. The last question I asked, I am limiting him to the present time, not the future, as of March 10, or as of today.
A. Which time, now?
Q. Take March 10th.
A. All right.
Q. With the facilities in the 13th Street school available there, and without considering the books that are on order [fol. 106] that are not there, do you say that that furnishes facilities equal to the facilities offered all other students at the University of Texas Law School?
A. An answer to that question would be wholly without value, because it would not take into consideration the facts as they existed at that time.
Q. I am talking about everything that was in that school at that time?
A. I will say this, I will answer your question this way, that the provisions which you relate, plus those definitely[63]and certainly available, provided for the relator, if he had applied, facilities fully equal to those then provided at the University of Texas Law School.
Mr. Marshall: If Your Honor pleases, I hate to insist on this, but I think the question is material and we are entitled to an answer to the question alone. The Court: Wasn't the last part an answer to it? Mr. Marshall: No, he said taking that into consideration. The Court: That may be the best he can answer it. I don't know.
Mr. Marshall: He has testified all along, if Your Honor please, that this set-up furnishes equal facilities. I think I have a right to test him as to what he means by it.
The Court: You can ask him. [fol. 107]
Mr. Marshall: And I want to find out what is in. this law school they are talking about. I am not interested in what is outside. We have gone into that. I am talking about what is in existence.
The Court: Perhaps you can limit it to the first of March.
Mr. Marshall: The 10th, sir.
Q. Judge Woodward, the question is that on March 10th, as to that date, which is the date the school was to open, considering all of the facilities that are available, in existence in the law school building at 13th Street, do you say that that furnishes educational facilities equal to the facilities offered at the University of Texas to all other students?
A. Beyond any question, it does. I will call your attention to that—
Mr. Marshall: If Your Honor please—
The Court: He has answered it.
Mr. Daniel: I believe he has a right to explain his answer.
The Court: He can. He has answered it, however.
A. My answer is, beyond any question, it does.
By Mr. Marshall:
Q. Go ahead.
A. I wanted to tell you why I am so firmly of that opinion. The third from the last paragraph of the resolution of the Board of Regents of the University, then in effect, reads as [fol. 108] follows:

"Be it further resolved that pending receipt and installation of such library the Dean of the Law School[64]of the University of Texas be, and he is hereby authorized to supply on a loan basis books from the law library of the University of Texas which may be needed in the efficient conduct of the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes."

That provision, together with the library of the State of Texas within. 100 yards of that school would meet the most exacting of requirements of any good faith student in the University.
Q. My question was, was it equal?
A. Yes, sir, fully equal.
Q. Do you mean equal, or do you mean if you use both of them you can get the same thing? Isn't that what you really mean?
A. I mean this, that the educational opportunity offered relator by those facilities at that date was fully equal to those offered on the same day in. the Law School of the University of Texas eight blocks away. That is exactly what I mean, because that is a fact.
Q. Do you know the curriculum of the law school of the University of Texas'? [fol. 109]
A. In a general way. It is identical in both schools.
Q. Do they have the Law Club set up in this school?
A. A Law Club is set up by the students. Perhaps if the relator came and other representatives of his race came, you could form one.
Q. You can't form it with one student, and you can't have moot court with one student, can you?
A. No, you couldn't do it.
Q. And you couldn't have any of the interchange common in law schools with one student?
A. I presume if there is a good faith desire on the part of the Negro youth of the State of Texas to attend law school, all of those facilities will be developed in a short time, just as I presume they are at Lincoln and Howard. You have to start somewhere.
Q. While this is going on it is true, is it: not, that the students are not getting the same things they are getting at the University of Texas? Isn't that true?
A. Are you talking about social contacts, or educational?
Q. Sweatt isn't interested in social contact. He is interested in getting the best legal education he can get. [65]
A. Why didn't he come on the 10th of March?
Q. Your lawyers will have the opportunity to ask Sweatt about that.
A. If that is his only interest he is sitting there within [fol. 110] one hundred yards of the Supreme Court of Texas, Court of Civil Appeals, and the Attorney General's office, and the Legislature, where the public legal business the State of Texas is centered. He has an opportunity surpassed to acquaint himself with those facts.
Q. He is in the middle of everything but the Law School the University of Texas'?
A. He is in the middle of the Law School provided by law for him.
A. That is right, but I mean the University of Texas. The other question is as of today. Is there any material change in the existing facilities in being in the 13th Street school of law from what it was on March 10th?
A. Compared to March 10th?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. None that I observe.
Q. Practically the same, is it not?
A. As far as I know. That is the way it appeared to me when I was over there the other day, practically the same.
Q. That is all.
(Court was recessed at 10: 45 a. m., May 13, 1947, until 1: 00 a. m.., May 13, 1947, at which time proceedings were resumed as follows:)
Redirect examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Counsel for relator has gone into the establishment or .fol. Ill] future establishment of the Texas State University for Negroes in Houston, and you stated that 53 acres of land were available there between Rice Institute and the University of Houston, in the City of Houston, for this University. I will ask you, have you inspected that 53 acres of land?
A. I have.
Q. Is that the tract of land on which the buildings are located that you have testified the State University for Negroes has available? [66]
A. Yes, that is the tract on the west end of which this new modern building has been completed.
Q. Are there any other buildings on that tract of land already?
A. Not of a permanent nature. There is one planned, and there was some preliminary work going on when I was there 60 days ago.
Q. Is a college or university being operated there now?
A. I don't know whether they are occupying the new building or not. It was just being completed. It was almost ready for occupancy when I was there, a beautiful building.
Q. What is the name of the school that has that 53 acres of land at this time?
A. It is called Houston College. It is a branch of the University of Houston, which, in turn, is a body corporate and politic created by the Legislature and operating within the Houston Independent School District. [fol. 112]
Q. Is it operated as a branch of the University of Houston?
A. The Houston College?
Q. Yes.
A. Such is my information, yes, sir.
Q. What is the approximate enrollment?
A. 1,800, as I now recall.
Q. Now, is that the school, the campus and so forth, that you have testified about that has been made available for transfer to the Texas State University for Negroes?
A. That is my interpretation of the statute which has been passed.
Q. The statute that you refer to is House Bill 780, is it not?
A. I couldn't recall the number, General.
Q. I will ask you to look over House Bill 780 and see if that is the act of the Legislature to which you refer.
A. The caption indicates that it is the statute. I can examine the whole bill if you like, but I am quite certain from examining the caption that it is the bill to which I have referred.
Q. I just simply call attention of the Court to House Bill No. 780 which has been enacted, which provides for transfer of such facilities as have been testified about to the Texas State University for Negroes by any school district within [67]
Which said facilities are set up. Now, I will ask you, do you your own knowledge know whether or not the University [fol. 113] of Houston Board has proposed to donate this property and the entire school to the Texas State University for Negroes?
Mr. Marshall: We object to it. In the first place, the minutes would be the best evidence, and second, there is duty for him to have received that at all.
The Court: Of course, the resolution would be the best evidence.
Mr. Marshall: Yes, sir.
Mr. Daniel: By agreement we will offer this plat as the next exhibit.
(Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 4.)
Q. Referring to that plat which has been introduced in evidence as respondents Exhibit No. 4, showing the floor space in that first floor of the building which you now have leased, I will ask you now to state to the Court how the second floor of that building which you say you have arranged for, for the State, will compare with the amount of pace on the first floor?
A. It will be equal to it.
Q. The arrangement of the rooms and number of rooms?
A. Substantially the same.
Q. Now, will yon answer the same question with reference to the third floor of the building; how much space, and the arrangement, as compared with the first floor? , fol. 114]
A. Substantially the same on each floor.
Q. How many rooms on the fourth floor?
A. My recollection is that that is a large room there. 1. don't recall the partitions in it, but substantially the same floor space.
Q. Substantially the same floor space?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, counsel for relator has asked you the question of whether or not this school as it now stands will meet the American Association of Law School standards and requirements. I will ask you whether or not you have plans if sufficient students enroll, to operate that school in such a way that it will meet those standards and requirements at "the very earliest possible date? [68]
A. We have.
Q. Do you have—have you considered whether or not your appropriation of a hundred thousand dollars is sufficient to meet those standards, or as many of them as can be met with students between now and September 1, 1948?
A. We have.
Q. Have you itemized the necessary expenses to meet those standards between now and September 1, 1948, provided you had students?
A. We have, as far as we could predict the use of the facilities.
Q. Do you have your estimated cost of operating such a school? [fol. 115]
A. I have.
Q. Does your estimated cost for the operation of such a school provide for full time professors?
A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Marshall: If Your Honor please, may we find out what the witness is reading from?
A. I will band it to you, if you like; a proposed budget which I requested my associates to help me prepare for the operation of the school through August 31, 1948, assuming that the relator and other qualified students apply for admission.
Mr. Marshall: May we ask a preliminary question for an objection?
The Court: Yes.
Mr. Marshall: Did you prepare it?
A. I helped prepare it.
Mr. Marshall: Are these your figures or somebody else's?
A. Part mine, and somebody else's also. Mr. Marshall: Partly somebody else's?
You understand that in an organization such as I represent it is rare that one man does all of the thing. That budget has been prepared by Dean McCormick and myself, as we prepared many other budgets of a similar nature in the operation of the University. You understand the academic matters are provided by the men skilled in that, and. [fol. 116] the administrative matters by those skilled in that, and the cooperation results. Mr. Marshall: It is part yours and part somebody else's. [69] A. Part both. I am familiar with the matters outlined here.
Mr. Durham: I want to ask a preliminary question. You prepared those figures, in part, in what capacity?
A. In what capacity? Mr. Durham: Yes, in what capacity?
A. In my capacity as Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University, and carrying out the duties imposed by that resolution.
Mr. Durham: Have those figures been approved by the Board as a whole?
A. The Board of Regents? Mr. Durham: Yes.
A. No. Mr. Durham: We object to it as not being official.
The Court: I think he has not offered them. He is simply using it to question him from.
Mr. Durham: If they are not admissible in evidence I don't think they are admissible to use them as a memoranda.
Mr. Daniel: You haven't given me a chance to prove them up yet. Mr. Durham: We object, until you do prove them up.
[fol. 117] By Mr. Daniel:
Q. As I understand, what you have is an estimated budget through August 31, 1948 of what amounts it would take to meet the requirements of the American Association of Law Schools, as far as they can be met within that period of time?
A. That is right.
Q; And you have prepared that for the purpose of deter-mining whether or not you have sufficient money to meet such requirements? A: Yes.
Q. How much do you take into consideration for rent that will be required for rent on the building until August 31, 1948?
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we want to make this object; that that isn't an official act of the Board of Regents. t is an individual opinion of two members of the Board[70]of Regents, and would not be binding on the Board of Regents. It is wholly inadmissible and speculative. The Court: If he knows what the rental is, I think he could testify.
Mr. Durham: I think so, too, but not what the Board of Regents estimate.
Mr. Daniel: I would like to call the Court's attention to the fact that the Board gave, in this resolution, the Chairman, all of the powers to go ahead with this plan.
Q. How much have you allowed in this estimate for rent on the building?
A. On the portion of it now occupied $1,875.00. That [fol. 118] is the contract rental of $125.00 a month. We have estimated it would require $3,000.00 to acquire the additional floors, in the event they are needed, and negotiations that I have made under authority of the Board are carried out. You understand this is just an estimate.
Q. I understand.
A. Made in the usual course of the discharge of my duties.
Q. Have you allowed anything in your estimate for repairs and improvements?
A. We thought $2,000.00 would be reasonably needed to make provision for rearranging the space to take care of the library, and we hope for students who might come.
Q. Do you know how much of that has been spent?
A. I don't know. Some considerable sum, but the Comptroller could tell you that.
Q. How much have you allowed for the books you have testified about having ordered?
A. $32,000.00 was estimated to be the cost of those volumes.
Q. Do you have any allowance in your estimate there for library upkeep?
A. $2,000.00, we thought would cover that.
Q. What estimate have you made as to salaries?
A. We have in there four professors at $6,000.00 per annum, which is the base pay for professors of law in the University, and figuring the time they would be employed, [fol. 119] that is on a nine months basis, we estimated it would take $30,000.00 to employ them, if we are fortunate enough to secure students.
Q. Have you made any allowance for summer school this year? [71]
A. Yes, four full time professors at $2,000.00 for the summer term each, which is the amount we would pay the same Men at the University.
Q. When does the summer semester begin at the University?
A. Right around the first of June; I would have to look at the calendar to see. I would say around June 3d, I think.
Q. Will the new law school be ready to open another semester around the first of June?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you allowed anything for a full time librarian?
A. Yes, sir, $4,500.00. That is at the rate of $3,600.00 per annum.
Q. Have you allowed anything for other employees?
A. Well, custodian and janitor, $100.00 a month, $1,600.00. Secretary, at $1,800.00 a year, $2,250.00; stationery and supplies, $500.00; contingent and miscellaneous expense, $1,000.00. Those figures total $88,725.00, and leave an unexpended balance of $11,275.00, from the appropriation of $100,000.00 which is today available.
Q. The attorney for relator asked you about the time that would be given by University of Texas professors in the [fol. 120] new law school before you have full time professors employed there for the new law school. I will ask you, what is your opinion if—the same kind of question he asked you—as to the amount of time that could be given to the students in the new school individually as compared with the amount of time the same professors could give to the same students if allowed to attend the University of Texas Law School.
Mr. Durham: We object to that for the reason this is one of the officials. We are not to assume that he knows his duty. I think he is entitled to testify "what time was required. This is not a witness who is presumed to state what his duties are upon presumption. He knows his duties.
The Court: If he knows that,—what time they could give to it, it would be all right. I just don't know.
A.. I am not entirely certain that I understood the question. If you are asking me to approximate it as a matter of hours per student per instructor, is that what you have in mind?
[72]
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. No, what I had in mind; following up the point that counsel made as to the fact that your professors from the University of Texas would be in the new law school par time, I am asking you whether or not, if you know, the: would be able to give the students in the new law school as much of their total time as they would give if the student were out at the University of Texas taking law under then in those classes out there. [fol. 121]
A. They would be required to give—
Mr. Durham: We object to that as being a presumption We have no objection to what the professors were hire( to do, but his opinion as to what they could do would b« a presumption and conclusion. If they hired the professor the contract of employment is the best evidence of the terms of it, whether it is verbal or written.
The Court: I think perhaps, counsel, he is asking for opinions. You can have your bill. Mr. Durham: Note our exception.
A. They are required, whenever the relator or any other student offers himself, to give to him all of the time an( attention necessary to carry the provisions of that resolution into effect.
The Court: I believe that isn’t an answer to your question.
Mr. Daniel: I withdraw the question for the time being Mr. Durham: We ask that that answer be stricken. The Court: Yes, sir.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Do you know how many applicants, or inquiries you had about the school prior to March 8, 1947?
A. Only by report. I didn't receive them personally. I-know from the records, and the reports at the University
Q. Do you know that there were some inquiries to) registration 1 [fol. 122]
A. There were.
Q. Do you know of any meetings held by an organization. of the Negro race and attended by any persons on this court room on March 8, 1947, in Dallas?
A. Through public reports. [73]
Mr. Durham: If Your Honor please, may we have that stricken?
The Court: Only of his knowledge.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Do you know of your own knowledge?
A. Only through public reports and conversation.
Mr. Durham: We object to that as not being responsive and hearsay. Mr. Daniel: That is all.
Recross-examination.
Questions by Mr. Marshall:
Q. Judge Woodward, 53 acres, you say, are available in Houston. Is that not at the present time the property of this, the Houston Junior College, a Negro school now in existence?
A. It is known as the Houston College Branch of the University of Houston; and it is the identical property contemplated by this statute that was read here.
Q. Is it not true that that property is property that was purchased for the most part from private donations, including donations of Negroes?
A. There were substantial donations, I know, according [fol. 123] to the press reports, by members of both races, in part. I don't know whether that was so wholly. The title to it is vested in the body corporate, politic—it is known as the University of Houston.
Q. What arrangement in salaries was made with the professors at the 13th Street law school?
A. They would draw the same salary as they draw at the University of Texas.
Q. Was that part of their salary to be paid out of this $100,000.00?
A. Yes, for the services rendered at the law school, they would be paid.
Q. I understood you, when you were going through this proposed budget, they were going to pay them the same they were paid at the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes.
Q. But they didn't get two salaries; the proposal wasn't to give them two salaries? [74]
A. No, what we are hoping, in making up the budget, hoping very much that—these are outside figures based on the hope that the relator and other students of the Negro race qualify, and in sufficient numbers to permit us to conduct a law school, come in, and happily give us the opportunity to employ four full time professors.
Q. Do you mean you need a certain number before you can [fol. 124] run a law school?
A. Naturally, you would one kind of arrangement for one kind of student body, and another arrangement for another student body.
Q. Wouldn't the library be the same, with the exception of duplicate volumes, whether you had one or one hundred students?
A. The library has already been provided, adequate for any number of students who might reasonably be expected to apply, and it will be completely available.
Q. You testified under examination by the Attorney General that that budget was prepared in order to meet the standards of the American Association of Law Schools ?
A. I testified it was prepared to enable the school of law of this State University—the Texas State University for negroes—to comply with those standards under any reasonable set of circumstances that might arise. These are outside figures, or expenditures which the State of Texas has provided for. We can spend only so much of that as the circumstances, as they arise, may require.
Q. Who was the full time librarian?
A. We will appoint a full time librarian when the relator or some other qualified students apply for instruction there.
Q. Did you have a full time librarian when the school opened March 10th? [fol. 125]
A. No, we didn't have any students, either.
Q. Did you have any at that time at the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes.
Q. You do, do you not?
A. Certainly.
Q. And you have assistant librarians, too, don't you?
A. Where we need them, yes.
Q. That is all. [75]
Redirect examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Mr. Woodward, from your experience as Chairman of the Board, and on the law faculty, I will ask you your opinion, that if there were as many as 14 inquiries for this law school before March 8, 1947, would you, in your opinion, expect in the normal course of school operations that there would be at least some students report for admission on March 10th, if something had not happened to keep them from doing so?
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we object to that. The Court: I think it is rather speculative. Mr. Daniel: That is all.
(Witness excused.)
[fol. 126] Charles T. McCormick, a witness produced by the Respondents, having been by the Court first duly sworn, testified as follows:
Direct examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. State your name, please, sir.
A. Charles T. McCormick.
Q. Where do you live, Dean McCormick?
A. I live in Austin.
Q. What position do you hold with the University of Texas Law School?
A. I am the Dean of the school.
Q. How long have you been Dean of the Texas University Law School?
A. Seven years.
Q. Prior to that time what experience had you had in law school work?
A. Well, I became a professor of law at the University of Texas in 1922. From there, in 1925, after serving during the intervening period, I went to the University of North Carolina Law School as Dean of the Law School; and in 1930 I went to Northwestern University Law School as professor of law, and served there until 1940, when I returned to the University of Texas Law School as Dean. [76] [fol.l27]
Q. What degrees do you hold, Dean McCormick?
A. The A. B. Degree from the University of Texas, and L.L.B. Degree from Harvard Law School.
Q. Are you one of the authors of McCormick and Ray on Evidence ?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would you state to the Court what, if any positions, you have held in the American Association of Law Schools?
A. I have served as a member of the Executive Committee, and as President of the Association.
Q. When were you President of the Association of American Law Schools?
A. In 1942.
Q. On what groups within the Association have you served?
A. Well, I have served on the Executive Committee, as I mentioned, and upon various committees, such as the Committee on Cooperation of the Bench and Bar, and several other committees, the entire list of which I do not remember.
Q. Are you familiar with the terms of Senate Bill 140 that has been reviewed here to the Court this morning?
A. Reasonably so.
Q. Are you familiar with the terms of the resolution of the University of Texas Board of Regents, dated February 28, which was read in evidence this morning?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I will ask you if under that resolution you assumed the [fol. 128] position of Dean of the Law School for the State University for Negroes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you under the provisions of that resolution and the instructions of the Chairman of the Board of Regents establish, or help establish, such new law school?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Are you acquainted with the physical facilities of the Law School for the State University for Negroes?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. How many class rooms do you have at the University of Texas?
A. We have three class rooms.
Q. How many students do you have at the University of Texas Law School? Of course, I am talking about—
A. Approximately 850 at this time. [77]
Q. How many classrooms do you have in the law school for Negroes ?
A. Well, there are two class rooms.
Q. How do the physical facilities of the new law school compare with the University of Texas Law School, as far as lighting, ventilation and other such matters are concerned?
A. Well, I would say they were approximately the same, or similar.
Q. About how many inquiries or applications did you receive for admittance in the new Negro law school? [fol. 129]
A. Personally, I believe by letter or in person, I received five inquiries, but the inquiries would normally come either to me or to the Dean of Admissions, and the Registrar, Dean Matthews, of the University, and he received some of the inquiries.
Q. He received others, did he?
A. Yes, he so informs me.
Q. About what maximum load did you figure for students for the first year in the new law school, based upon the maximum load,—based on inquiries received?
A. Well, I hoped and expected there would be at least five or six at the beginning of the school, and that as the years went on and subsequent terms were opened, that perhaps ten or twelve would register. I say that in the light of the Negro population of the State, and my observation of some similar schools that have been established for Negroes in other states.
Q. Based upon the maximum load that you could reasonably expect for the first year of the school there, and compared with the maximum load of students at the University of Texas Law School, I will ask you to compare the physical facilities offered by the Negro Law School with those offered at the University of Texas Law School.
A. Well, with respect to the adaptability for use, for the expected number, the ones who would attend the Negro Law [fol. 130] School, as compared with the actual conditions of attendance at the University of Texas Law School, why, I would say that the physical facilities were roomier and more convenient than those at the University of Texas Law School.
Q. You mean the facilities—
A. Floor space per student would be substantially greater if an estimate of 10 students were made.
[78] Q. Do you have the figures on floor space per student at the University of Texas Law School at the present time?
A. Yes, I do. These figures were furnished me by the Comptroller, and from my observation of the situation, I would say they were correct.
Q. Approximately how many square feet of floor space do you have at the University of Texas Law School ?
A. We have 46,518 square feet.
Q. How many students do you have at the University of Texas Law School?
A. Well, there were 886 at the beginning of the year.
Q. Have you figured the approximate number of square feet of floor space there at the University of Texas?
A. Well, the figures as made by the Comptroller are 53 square feet per student. I haven't actually divided that number into the other. I assume that is correct.
Q. Approximately 53 square feet. Have you examined this floor plan of present space available in the new law school? [fol. 131]
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Approximately how many square feet of floor space are available there, total?
A. That, again, is a measurement by someone else, but it accords with my general observation; and it is reported to me as 1,060 square feet.
Q. Have you examined the space?
A. Yes.
Q. Does that appear approximately correct to you?
A. It does.
Q. Based on a maximum load of ten students, then, that would give you how many square feet per student in the new law school?
A. 106.
Q. 106 square feet?
A. Yes.
Q. Does that take into consideration any of the library space available in the State Capitol Building, the figures that you have given?
A. No, it does not.
Q. Now, on that basis of comparison, I will ask you to state whether or not in your opinion the physical facilities offered by the Negro Law School are substantially equal to those offered at the University of Texas Law School?
[79]
A. Yes, having in mind, as I said before, the respective [fol. 132] use by the respective number of students in each of the two institutions.
Q. Do you know about how many students were contemplated, or how many were figured in the needs for the University of Texas Law School Building, how many students it was built for, whether or not you are crowded or not?
A. Well, it was planned for four hundred students. It now has, as I said before, about 850.
Q. It now has about twice as many as the building was actually built for?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, as to library facilities in the new school, are you acquainted with the Texas State Library over at the Supreme Court Library on the second floor of the Capitol Building?
A. Only in the most general way. I have visited it and looked at it.
Q. Are you acquainted with the space and the desks and the places available for study?
A. I have such acquaintance as you would get from casual observation.
Q. Would such facilities there in the library offer as much room as the Texas University Library offers for its students ?
A. Well, I couldn't give an exact comparison as to that. I would be disposed to say, at a guess, that the University of [fol. 133] Texas Library area was perhaps larger than the State Library—
Q. Based, again, on the number of students that we have been talking about, which of the two libraries would offer more space and convenience for study?
A. Well, assuming that the State Library is not otherwise crowded by public users, and I think it is not, I would think that the facilities of the State Library would be more spacious for the use of a student body of, say 10 students in the near by school, than would be the facilities at the State University Law Library, which are now exceedingly crowded.
Q. That is, the University of Texas Law Library is now exceedingly crowded?
A. That is correct.
Q. Are you acquainted with the approximate distance? [80]
from the Negro Law School over to the State Law Library?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. Approximately how far?
A. Well, I would say it was 100 yards to the door of the Capitol, and then perhaps 25 yards the rest of the distance.
Q. If the evidence in this case should show that the books in the Texas State Library, the number of books, type of books, are substantially equal to those in the University of Texas Law Library, I will ask you if, in your opinion, the [fol. 134] library facilities for the Negro Law School are substantially equivalent to those at the University of Texas.
Mr. Durham: That is a hypothetical question, and we object on this ground; that if it isn't shown, we can renew our motion to strike this testimony.
The Court: Yes.
Mr. Daniel: Yes, that is all right.
Q. Based upon a showing, or substantial showing of the equality in the two libraries, in your opinion, will the library facilities offered the Negro Law School be substantially equivalent to those offered by the University to the University of Texas Law School students?
A. If you would add to that hypothesis that a selected group of books for immediate reference in connection with the class work is available in the quarters of the Negro Law School, and that other books that might be referred to and called for would be available for immediate loan, from the Law Library of the University of Texas, I would answer yes.
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, we ask that that answer be stricken for the reason that the witness asked himself, and he predicated it upon facts not stated, by counsel.
The Court: Well, he probably would just turn around and ask him the identical hypothesis.
Mr. Durham: We object again, unless he puts it in there. [fol. 135]
Mr. Daniel: I will not bring it up until I compare the books.
Q. Do you have a librarian on the staff at the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes, we do.
Q. State her name.
A. Miss Helen Hargrave. [81]
Q. Have you asked her to check the books in the State Law Library and make a comparison with the University of Texas Law Library for you?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Now, I will ask you if you did anything in accordance with this resolution about arranging a list, or having one arranged, of 10,000 books to meet the standards set by the American Association of Law Schools, to be placed in the building that now houses the Negro Law School?
A. Yes, sir, I requested Miss Hargrave to prepare a list of 10,000 volumes meeting the standards of the American Association of Law Schools. She did prepare such a list, and on the basis of that list, as I understand it, an order was made for the purchase of a certain number of the books on that list.
Q. Now then, in accordance with the resolution passed by the Board of Regents, and your instructions from the Chairman of the Board, I will ask you if you did adopt a curriculum for this new law school? [fol. 136]
A. Yes, we did.
Q. Is it, or is it not, the same as the curriculum and courses offered at the University of Texas Law School?
A. That is correct.
Q. Did you adopt the University of Texas courses as stated in your Bulletin of the University of Texas Law School?
A. We did.
Q. Do you have a copy of the bulletin?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you state to the Court on what pages you will find the courses of instruction that were adopted for the new school?
A. Pages 23 to 29.
Q. And you are referring now to the University of Texas Law School Bulletin?
A. Dated August 1, 1945.
Q. Dated August 1, 1945?
A. Yes, sir, that is the last printed bulletin that we have issued.
Q. So your curriculum—
A. I may say that that is the same curriculum which we adopted. We likewise made special provisions for an interim class to enter in March, 1947, in the Negro Law School. [82]
Q. Your general curriculum as compared with that of the University of Texas Law School is the same, is that correct?
A. Yes, sir. [fol. 137]
Q. What about your faculty for the Negro Law School? Compare that with the faculty for the University of Texas Law School. Is that the same faculty?
A. Yes. Mr. Woodward, the Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, requested me to consult the law faculty and ascertain their willingness to cooperate in the steps contemplated by the resolution in the founding and carrying forward of the Negro Law School, and the faculty assured me of their willingness to cooperate, and that contemplated, of course, the offering of all necessary courses in our curriculum as the school should develop.
Q. Will you state how the entrance requirements for the Negro Law School as set up by you compared with the entrance requirements for the University of Texas Law School?
A. Well, we adopted and announced that the entrance requirements and the other requirements for admission in the Negro Law School would be the same as in the University of Texas Law School.
Q. What about class room requirements, grades and examination requirements for the new school? Are they the same as for the University of Texas Law School?
A. All of the catalogue regulations for the University of Texas Law School were adopted, and were to govern the Law School of the State University for Negroes.
Q. All of the regulations here in the catalogue for the [fol. 138] University of Texas were adopted by the Texas State University for Negroes; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Mr. Durham: I didn't want to disturb the Attorney General. I want to ask a question for the purpose of an objection. You say the curriculum was adopted. How was it adopted?
A. As I understand, the resolution gave to the Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas the power to make all necessary arrangements for the establishment of the Negro Law School, and he, consulting with me, directed that the Negro Law School should adopt—
Mr. Durham: You had a resolution adopting the curriculum?  [83]
A. No, an announcement was made in writing by myself and the Dean of Admissions of the University, under the instructions of the Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas.
Mr. Durham: Your Honor, I don't think I made myself clear. Did I understand you to say—
A. Which announces the adoption Mr. Durham: Is that in writing?
A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Daniel: We will prove it up. I would like to offer the catalogue referred to. [fol. 139]
(Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 5.)
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, do you have the list of law professors on the faculty of the University of Texas who were made available to teach courses in this law school, this new law school?
A. Do you mean the particular ones who were assigned to teach classes?
Q. First, I would like to have your complete list of the faculty.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you have the qualifications there of those faculty members?
A. Well, simply briefly summarized, not stated in full, giving their degrees and teaching experience.
Q. To save time, I would like to offer that. We just offer it in evidence without reading it. We offer the list of faculty members with the brief statement as to qualifications.
(Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 6.)
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, we have talked about the general curriculum and the faculty members available. I will ask you what particular courses you had already application for at the time you set up the new law school?
A. Well, we had not had application by any student for [fol. 140] admission, if that is what you mean. We contemplated and made ready for an entering class in March.
Q. First year class? A an entering class. we have during the war and post-[84]war emergency period provided for students, in order to accelerate their course, to enter in the middle of the school year, in March; in previous years, and in February of this year, and that was the class that we contemplated and provided for this spring by the immediate assignment of courses and professors for the teaching of such beginning classes.
Q. Then, you specifically provided before the opening of the school on March 10th for instruction in what courses?
A. Contracts, torts and legal bibliography.
Q. Are they the same courses that you offer first year law students at the University of Texas Law School?
A. They are the same courses.
Q. What instructors did you assign to teach those three courses ?
A. Associate Professor Leo W. Leary, Assistant Professor S. T. Morris, and Assistant Professor Chalmers M. Hudspeth.
Q. Are those the same instructors that teach those same identical courses in the University of Texas to first year law students?
A. That is right.
Q. Now, you mentioned a minute ago having prepared a written announcement of courses and the opening of this [fol. 141] law school. Do you have a copy of that announcement?
A. Yes, sir, I do.
The Court: We, then, will recess at this period and will take that up at two o 'clock.
(Thereupon Court was recessed at 12 o'clock noon May 13, 1947, until 2 o'clock p.m., May 13, 1947.) [85]
Afternoon Session.  May 13, 1947, 2 P.M.
Charles T. McCormick, having resumed the witness stand, testified further as follows:
Direct examination (Continued). Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Dean McCormick, is this the copy of your announcement of courses for the Negro Law School?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. We wish to introduce the announcement.
(Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Respondents' Exhibit No. 7.)
Mr. Daniel: May it please the Court, I will read a few paragraphs of this announcement, and review some of — [fol. 142] (Mr. Daniel read to the Court certain portions of said announcement, and summarized other portions of same.)
Q. I will ask you if your announcement contains, the facts stated therein are correctly—are correct representations as to what you were offering there on March 10th?
A. They are.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, I would like to ask, if in your opinion, the facilities set up at the new law school for Negroes furnishes to Negro citizens the equal opportunity for study in law and procedure as that offered in the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes, I believe they do.
Q. In your opinion, do you believe that the facilities set up in the Negro Law School furnished to the relator in this case, and would give to him, if he entered, equal opportunities to study law and procedure as he would have if he was admitted to the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes, they would do so.
Q. Was the school opening—was it opened on March 10th, as announced in your written bulletin?
A. Yes, it was.
Q. Were you down there?
A. Well, I was down there from time to time. [86]
Q. During that day?
A. I don't believe I was there on the first day. There [fol. 143] was no necessity for me being there.
Q. Were you there during the week of March 10th?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know—
A. I was there previous to that time also.
Q. And previous to that time?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know the relator, Heman Marion Sweatt, by
sight?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he register there at the school?
A. No, he did not.
Q. Is the school still being maintained, ready for instruction of the relator in this case, if he should see fit to enter?
A. Yes, sir, the facilities are held available.
Q. When will your next semester begin?
A. That depends on whether we have any applications.
Q. What about your semester at the University of Texas?
A. It begins on the 3d of June, the summer session.
Q. The summer session begins on the 3d of June?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you equipped to begin a summer session, a similar session for the Negro Law School on June 3d also?
A. Yes.
Q. I believe that is all.
[fol. 144] Cross examination.
Questions by Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, have you at any time examined the qualifications of Heman Marion Sweatt, the relator in this case, for admission to a law school?
A. No, I have not.
Q. Do you know whether he is qualified to enter the law school at the University of Texas?
A. I am so informed by the admissions office, Mr. Mathews.
Q. Did the Registrar so notify him?
A. That is my understanding. Of course, I have no first hand knowledge.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, in speaking of the faculty of[87]this supposed Negro Law School, I believe you stated that three professors 'or teachers at the University of Texas School of Law had been assigned to teach interim courses; is that correct?
A. That is correct. That is, for the first semester.
Q. Leo W. Leroy, is that one of them?
A. Leary.
Q. Oh, Leary. Would you tell us what Mr. Leary taught at the University School of Law the first semester of the current school year?
A. Well, one of the courses that he taught was a course in Federal Regulations, substantive Federal Regulations. [fol. 145]
Q. That is clear. What else did he teach?
A. I don't remember what else he taught. You see, we have seventeen members of the faculty, and I don't remember offhand each of the subjects they teach each semester. I can readily look it up, however, and let you know.
Q. Would it take you—do you have the material here available that you could look it up?
A. No, I don't have it here, but I can get it by telephone.
Q. All right; just before you get it by telephone, and I think we want it, Mr. Chalmers Hudspeth; that is another teacher assigned to that school?
A. That is correct.
Q. What did he teach the first semester at the University of Texas Law School this current school year?
A. During the course of the year he has taught the course in domestic relations, and the course in legal bibliography, but there, again, I don't have at my finger tips what each of these teachers has taught because we have many sections of the courses.
Q. That is all right.
The Court: Would you like to take a minute and find out what you want and let him phone and get it? Mr. Nabrit: Yes, sir; I think it would be very good. The Court: Tell him what you want, then. Mr. Nabrit: I want to know what each of these teachers [fol. 146] taught at the first semester at the University of Texas during the current school year, how many hours each taught, and the second semester, this current semester, I want to know what each of these teachers is now doing, the course by name, hours and what classes. By classes, I mean, first, second or third year classes; those classes normally as[88]signed by you for the faculty of the School of Law of the University of Texas.
Mr. Daniel: May I suggest that he get that this afternoon and bring it in the morning?
Mr. Nabrit: I would like to get it now, if he can get it over the phone.
The Court: We can recess a few minutes, and he can go into the Reporter's room.
Further discussion was had off the record, and the witness requested Mr. Mathews to obtain the information outlined above.
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, moving from the faculty for the moment to the building for this proposed law school which is located, as I understand it, on 13th Street, approximately a hundred yards from the State Capitol, in which there is a law library that is available, according to your statement, to the students in this school of law, how many stories are there to this—first, I will ask you, have you visited this building?
A. I have. [fol. 147]
Q. How many stories are there?
A. Three.
Q. The floor on which the proposed law school is located, is that the basement floor?
A. Well, I would call it the ground floor. It is perhaps two or three depressed feet under the ground, but there are ample windows and lights. It is not an artificially lighted space.
Q. So that actually it is a basement floor in that building?
A. It isn't what I understand by a typical basement, which is what is underground.
Q. But it is at least half underground, isn't it?
A. Well, I wouldn't be sure. I wouldn't have thought so, no.
Q. It is a considerable distance depressed from the level of the sidewalk, so that it is necessary to go down several steps ?
A. Yes, sir; four or five steps.
Q. In your judgment, does it have adequate windows for a law building, that is, enough daylight, irrespective of[89]internal illumination? In your opinion, is that a satisfactory arrangement, purely from the standpoint of windows?
A. Yes, it impressed me so. Of course, most law buildings, so far as I know, need in many of the rooms artificial light in the daytime. I know ours does at the University of Texas. [fol. 148]
Q. Probably if you were securing one today, you would look at that as one of the things that you would insist upon in the building, would you not?
A. No, I wouldn't insist on a building that didn't need artificial light in the daytime in all of its rooms.
Q. I mean, in looking for a law building for the University of Texas, that would be one of the things you would take into account?
A. The adequacy of light, yes.
Q. All right. In the second place, in respect to that building, is it in your opinion adequate in size, this basement floor, which is, as I understand it, the only part of that building now under your control. Is there in the basement adequate space to place library stacks sufficient to hold these 10,000 books which are supposed to have been ordered?
A. No, there is not.
Q. Do you, of your own knowledge have at this moment information as to where those books will come, if they should arrive, where would they be placed?
A. Well, my information comes from Mr. Woodward, who is the Chairman of the Board and has the responsibility for the providing of physical facilities, and I understand from him that he has arrangements perfected whereby the University has an option on the remainder of the building, and when the entire building is put into use it would [fol. 149] be, of course, considered as a whole as to how the space would be utilized, and just which room or rooms it would be decided to put the library in, I couldn't say.
Q. Who would decide that? Not the Board of Regents, you don't mean that ?
A. Yes, they would decide upon—
Q. They would decide in what room you would have your classes and what rooms you would have your offices and your library?
A. Well, they would ultimately. The advice of the Dean[90]would, no doubt, be taken, and that of the business agents of the University.
Q. And no doubt the Dean's advice would be decisive in regard to arrangements in the building?
A. Probably so. That is if it didn't cost more than the University could command in the way of money.
Q. That is, if it didn't exceed that $100,000.00 which we are supposed to have?
A. That is right—I wouldn't say "supposed to have." I believe it has been appropriated.
Q. I don't know how much of it has been expended, therefore, I supply that phrase. You may be able to tell me later how much we have left. This question, Dean McCormick, in considering the announcement for the opening of school on March 10th, I take it from your testimony [fol. 150] that no library was available in the school at that date, nor at that date did the school possess any place in which it could have placed these 10,000 books; is that true?
A. Well, there was a small selection of reference books immediately accessible for these three courses in the building.
Q. That is right, but I am speaking of the 10,000.
A. No, there was no adequate space immediately provided, for the simple reason that getting the books is a matter of some time, and—
Q. Your Honor, I wish you would just strike—have the last part of that stricken.
The Court: That is right. It is by way of explanation, but probably wasn't responsive.
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, you are former President of the Association of American Law Schools?
A. Yes.
Q. And as I understand it from articles which you have written, one of the proponents of increased standards for law schools, is that true?
A. Yes, sir; I believe in raising the standards of legal education generally.
Q. The University of Texas is a member of that Association, is it not?
A. That is right. [91] [fol. 151]
Q. Are you familiar with the handbook of that association?
A. Well, it is a large volume.
Q. I mean by that you know that—
A. Generally, yes.
Q. Do you know John P. Dawson, who is Secretary of the Association?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. I would like to show you a copy of that. Do you have any objection to this?
Mr. Daniel: No.
Mr. Nabrit: No objection. I would like to enter this. Now, I would like to call the attention—
A. Would you tell me what year?
Q. I am going to call your attention to this
A. Will you tell me what year that was ?
Q. I want you to read the published letter of the Secretary-Treasurer certifying it.
A. 1945 Handbook?
Q. Yes. Are these the rules now in force in the association, to your knowledge ?
A. Yes, they are.
Mr. Daniel: No objection.
Mr. Nabrit: We would like to introduce, Your Honor, pages 259 to page 269, inclusive, which carry the articles of the association, and the names of the members of the [fol. 152] Association of American Schools of Law.
A. I believe you want to confine that to Article 6. I believe that is the one that contains the standards.
Mr. Nabrit: Article 6 on page 260, 261, all of it from Article 6 on.
(Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Relator's Exhibit No. 1.)
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, are you familiar with the rule of the Association of American Law Schools which states in substance that in order to be accredited by this Association a law school must have a minimum of four full time professors or teachers of law?
A. I am familiar with that.
At the University of Texas.
Mr. Nabrit: Your Honor, I would like to ask that all of the witness' answer from "but" be stricken.
The Court: I don't think it was by way of explanation either, so I believe he could have stopped there. It may be pertinent on cross examination. Mr. Nabrit: Yes, we will stop it right there, please.
[fol. 153]  Q. Dean McCormick, in assigning that faculty to the law school, or the Negro School of Law, were they to teach courses at the University of Texas at the same time? I don't mean the same hour, but I mean during the same semester that they were to teach in the Negro Law School?
A. That is true as to Mr. Leary and Mr. Morris, but not as to Mr. Hudspeth, I believe. He had taught the course in legal bibliography the previous semester, but my recollection is that he is not teaching it this semester. I am not quite certain about that, but that information will be verified.
Q. Do you recall what the usual number of hours a teacher at the University of Texas School of Law is required to teach?
A. Well, it varies from time to time with the necessities of the curriculum, and it runs usually from five to eight hours of teaching per week in a given semester, and I would gay on an average of about six.
Q. It seems that information is here. If it is I would like to ask him those questions right here.
The Court: Yes.
(Thereupon Mr. Daniel delivered an instrument to the witness.)
A. Do you want me to give this information to you now?
Mr. Nabrit:
Q. I would like for you to tell me what the three teachers assigned to the Negro Law School taught at the University [93] of Texas the first semester of this year, and what those [fol. 154] teachers are teaching at the University of Texas Law School the second semester.
A. Mr. Leary during the first semester was teaching Equity I, a three semester hour course, and the seminar in Federal Regulations, a two semester hour course, and he is teaching now in the second semester Contracts, which is a six semester hour course. Mr. Hudspeth during the first semester was teaching Procedure I, a four semester hour course, Legal Bibliography, two sections, each of one semester hour. During the second semester he is teaching Agency in two sections, of two semester hours each, and Domestic Relations, three semester hours. Starling P. Morris during the first term was teaching Personal Property, a three semester hour course, and Legal Writing and Argument, a two semester hour course. During the present semester he is teaching Torts, a six semester hour course.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, how long has Mr. Leary been teaching at the University of Texas School of Law?
A. He began his teaching last fall.
Q. This year is his first year?
A. That is correct.
Q. How long has Mr. Hudspeth been teaching at the University of Texas?
A. The same length of time.
Q. He began last fall? [fol. 155]
A. Well, now, I may be mistaken. He may have begun last summer.
Q. Let's say last summer, but this is his first year, and, Dean McCormick, how long has Mr. Morris been teaching at the University of Texas?
A. I think he probably began last summer, and has been teaching since that time.
Q. Do you recall, Dean McCormick, whether or not the teachers of the first year law students at the University of Texas, and I am not asking you to try to remember which sections they have or anything of that sort; just whether out of the total number of teachers at the University of Texas Law School who are engaged in teaching first year law students, whether there is a single teacher who has been teaching law longer than one year?
A. Well, I would have to go over the list.
Q. Here you are. [94]
(Mr. Nabrit handed the instrument to the witness.)
A. Yes, there are some.
Q. Do you know by looking at the list of the faculty which ones they are, and how long they have been teaching at the University of Texas, or teaching law at other universities?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you state those, please?
A. Mr. Davis has taught since 1940 in the University of [fol. 156] Texas, and from 1935 to 1940 at the University of West Virginia
A. Mr. Huey has taught, except for war service, at the University of Texas since 1936. Mr. Morris, Clarence Morris, taught at the University of Wyoming, 1926 to 1940, and the University of Texas since 1940, and Mr. Jerry S. Williams came to the University in 1946, and I believe he had had two years of previous teaching.
Q. Thank you.
A. I think I should explain that by qualification, however, to this effect; that the first year class which entered in February, beginning class, which corresponds most nearly to the beginning class in the Negro Law School, was taught only by teachers of this same experience, that they entered law teaching last fall, or last summer, with the exception of the one of the course in Legal Bibliography, which was taught by Miss Hargrave, to that group, and she has had several years of teaching experience in the field of Legal Bibliography.
Q. Let me ask you this, Dean McCormick. In the assignment of .this faculty to the School of Law, to the Negro School of Law, how was that assignment made, by lot, by designation, or by volunteering, just what method produced these three individuals as the faculty?
A. Well, it was done by myself, after consultation with other members of the faculty. [fol. 157]
Q. Were these teachers—
A. Including the teachers themselves.
Q. Yes. Were these teachers to receive under the arrangements which you had in mind at that date, March 10th, were they to receive their salary from the Negro Law School or from the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. Why, I would assume from the Negro Law School. As I understand the legal element, the Board of Regents of the University of Texas were to administer the financial [95] affairs of the Negro Law School until the time of the permanent organization of the University for Negroes.
Q. Maybe we can get it another way and bring it within your knowledge. Had you made plans for adding three other members to your faculty in place of these three who were going on the pay roll of the Negro Law School on March 10th?
A. No, these men were to continue their teaching at the University of Texas School of Law.
Q. Were you to continue them on the pay roll?
A. That is correct. They would get their same salaries, but—1 mean they would get the same salaries they had previously gotten at the University of Texas Law School and would be paid extra compensation for the work in the Negro Law School.
Q. Under that arrangement that existed in the University of Texas Law School for these three persons for the second semester, each of them had a load of from five to six hours. [fol. 158] If they taught in the Negro Law School first year subject, Torts and Contracts, four and six hour courses, would that not have been in excess of the hours which you use as your standard at the University of Texas? You said it varied from five to seven or eight?
A. It would have been an addition to their usual load, rather larger than usual, but I may explain this, that in the case of the two larger courses, Contracts and Torts, they would simply be teaching additional sections of the same subject with the same books, and the custom in law schools is to count that as only one-half of the corresponding number of hours of non-repeated course; so it would amount, under the custom of law schools, to a nine hour weekly load, which is heavy, but not excessive.
Q. But it is heavier than what you have as your usual load at the University of Texas?
A. Yes.
Q. Because the American Association thinks when you pass eight, you are watering down your instruction?
Mr. Daniel: Well, we object.
Mr. Nabrit: I withdraw the question.
A. I don't believe that is a fact.
Q. Yes. Is it your opinion, Dean McCormick, that law school students get the full use of a law library, assuming it is an adequate one for books, from that standpoint for the[96][fol. 159] moment, is it your opinion that they get the best use out of this library without a librarian who is there to serve students and teachers, people who are engaged in study and research?
A. I think a librarian is, of course, necessary for the operation of a library for the benefit of students or anyone else.
Q. Who was the librarian for the Negro Law School on March 10th of this year?
A. Well, we had not formally appointed a librarian, but Miss Hargrave, for a considerable period of time gave a great deal of service to the planning and provision of the library arrangement.
Q. Under the standards of the American Association of Law Schools, it is stated that in order for a school to qualify it shall have been in operation for a period, usually, for approximately two years, and then upon inspection by the Association, if it meets their standards, it will be accredited?
A. Two years is the minimum time, as I understand it.
Q. Yes, that is what I say. Now, is it your opinion that a law school that is not accredited is for the purposes of accreditment equal to the law school of the—to the University of Texas Law School T
A. I don't understand that question. [fol. 160]
Q. Well, let's put it another way. The Association of American Law Schools accredits certain law schools based upon those schools having reached certain accepted standards which are known to all people in the field of law in rating law schools on that basis. If I look in this book and see the University is listed as a member, I know it meets these minimum standards. Now, for the purpose of accreditment, that is, for that purpose, is a law school which is not accredited as a member of this Association equal to the University of Texas School of Law?
A. For the purposes of accreditment, why, obviously, a law school that is not accredited does not equal one that is accredited, but I still don't catch the significance of the question.
Q. It will follow. Is this Negro Law School which was open on March 10th a member of the Association of American Law Schools?
A. No, it is not.
Q. Is it accredited? [97]
A. Not in that sense, no.
Q. In what sense is it accredited?
A. Well, you mean by accredited, the opinion of people familiar with the situation and with the law school, their opinion as to the value of the facilities and instruction, why, then, it is accredited in that sense, by those who hold the favorable estimate of it. If you mean accredited by the Association of American Law Schools, why, it is is not. [fol. 161]
Q. I mean, is it accredited in the sense in which educators in the field of law speak of accreditment of law schools?
A. Well, they usually speak of it in the sense of being a member of the Association of American Law Schools, and of being an approved school on that list of the American Bar Association.
Q. Is a student at the University of Texas School of Law permitted under the regulations of the University of Texas and the School of Law at the time he is engaged in the study of law at the Law School, to also take courses in the University of Texas, for example, Political Science, Economic Theory, or some other course, Philosophy?
A. Yes, he is, provided the total amount of hours does not exceed fourteen.
Q. Now, where were—are these students of this Negro Law School to study courses like those, Economics and Political Science, under the set-up which you have stated has been adopted under your faculty?
Mr. Daniel: Your Honor, we object to that question because it is going into a field wholly irrelevant and immaterial to any issue in this case. Relator has sued for entrance into the Law School, says he has been denied the right to study law and procedure, and hasn't alleged that he cares to study anything else, and going into these other fields would certainly be beyond the issues of this case. [fol. 162] Mr. Nabrit: If Your Honor please, one of the things alleged by the relator is that in not being admitted to the University of Texas he is being denied equal opportunity with the students who do enter it. One of these opportunities is this opportunity to study, and the Dean has testified that the students in the law school do have that right, and I think it is quite—[98]
The Court: I will let him answer it, if he can.
A. You say where is he to study?
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Yes, sir. Where is he to get these courses in Economic Theory and Philosophy and other courses offered by the University of Texas which are available to the students in the University of Texas School of Law?
A. I could not answer that question. There are—in so far as it assumes any common practice or any encouragement by us of that practice in the University of Texas School of Law, it is unfounded.
Mr. Daniel: I would like to preserve our bill of exception on this testimony as to other courses not mentioned in relator's petition. The Court: Yes, sir.
A. If I might add to the question, I would say that it is customary that law students do come prepared in the fields of economics and government and similar courses, and [fol. 163] that we do not encourage them to take courses outside the School of Law when they are in the School of Law, because it tends to disrupt the regular progress of their law studies.
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. I agree with that, but you also do not forbid it?
A. No, we do not.
Q. And, as a matter of fact, you do have students at the Law School who not only take these courses, but take graduate courses, is that not true?
A. Well, if there are, they are very few. I don't keep close enough check on the actual registration to know whether there are actually in the law school now students who are taking academic courses, but it is a very nominal element, if any.
Q. So far as you know, the students at the Negro School of Law have no place where they could take those courses under your plans and arrangements ?
A. I have no information about that.
Q. As a former President of the American Association of Law Schools, and as the Dean of several law schools, and as an outstanding authority in several fields of law,[99]Dean McCormick, do you—are you of the opinion that one of the basic elements in a great law school is the history and traditions which have been built up over years of time, including the graduates who have become famous in the [fol. 164] State of Texas? Is that your opinion—that is an element in a great law school?
A. Yes, that is a source of pride to a law school that has that background.
Q. One other question' on that along that same line. Is it, in your opinion, a good thing for a law school to be unstable as to its location, and to its faculty, sort of a roving school of law? Is that, in your opinion, an unsatisfactory condition in which to operate a law school?
A.I would think that a roving law school would certainly not be an ideal school.
Q. Now, taking this hypothetical question, and assuming that the evidence will bear out the assumptions, if they have not already been proved, if a law school such as this Negro Law School, in its proposed location, with a faculty carrying a heavier schedule than the usual number of hours carried by the faculty of the University of Texas School of Law, without access to any University facilities other than the School of Law, with no accreditment, with an uncertainty as to its permanence in its present location, with library—with no library whatsoever in the building—and with inadequate space for housing a library, if the books were available, and with a faculty of instructors who are beginners in teaching law, a law school equal to the [fol. 165] Law School of the University of Texas?
A. Well, wouldn't you have to add some other elements in your description? That doesn't describe a law school. It doesn't tell the expected numbers of students or the actual numbers of students in attendance, and the facilities for small, as compared with large classes.
Q. Suppose, Dean McCormick, you answer mine that way, and then we will take the other. Take my hypothetical question. Is that law school which I have described equal to the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. I will say that I can't answer the question because your description is not complete, and you would have to give the expected number of students, and you would have to suppose a certain ratio of students to faculty, and a certain size of the classes. [100]
Q. If we are going to assume that, I would have to assume a certain number of graduates and a certain number of authorities on the faculty in the field of damages and other fields, and I would have to assume a certain number of judges. You see what I am trying to get from you, as one of the outstanding men in the field of legal education, is an answer on that type of school. It might not have some other elements that some other school might have, or that some other hypothetical question might give it, but I would like that opinion on that type of law school. [fol. 166]
A. You are contrasting what to me seems to be an incompletely described school with a school I know all about, and I can't take a fragmentary school and compare it with a school that I know about.
Q. Let's put it that way. Would that "fragmentary" described school in my hypothetical question equal the Law School at the University of Texas?
Mr. Daniel: We object to that question because the fragmentary school in the question leaves out matters which have been proved so far without any dispute in this case; leaving out elements that make the hypothetical question absolutely irrelevant and immaterial, and inadmissible in this case for any purpose.
The Court: I think he would have a right to make up his hypothetical case anyway he wanted to. It is purely imaginary.
A. If he is going to imagine; I can't make a comparison unless he imagines the numbers of students.
The Court: A hypothetical question presupposes a lot of things that may or may not be true.
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Is that school, Dean McCormick, equal to the law school of the University of Texas ?
A. Well, I would say that if you presuppose a class, a small class, of not to exceed 10 entering students there, [fol. 167] that then the facilities there and the law school in that situation, as it is now, would compare favorably.
Q. That isn't the hypothetical question.
A. With the University of Texas as it is now.
Q. That isn't the hypothetical question, Dean McCormick. [101]
What this question is, is the school which I described equal to the Law School of the University of Texas ?
A. Well, I would say yes, if you will presuppose a small number of students to which those facilities are adapted. If you are presupposing a larger number of students, to which those facilities are not adapted, I would say no; but I can't compare a law school with no student population presupposed with a law school where I know the student population, and I know the ratio of faculty to students, which is a very material factor in comparing law schools.
Q. My law school doesn't have all of those factors in it. My law school is the one in this hypothetical question. If it doesn't have something you think a law school should have you just answer it, because mine doesn't have that. Is my hypothetical question, the law school in that, equal to the Law School of the University of Texas without anything—
A. Without any students?
Q. Without anything other than my hypothetically stated question.
A. Which would presuppose that there were no students. [fol. 168]
Q. Is that equal to the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. Without any students, it is not.
Q. My question—I have stated all of the factors in my question that I want. Is that school equal to the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. As I said before, I am unable to make the comparison in my mind between the school having only the elements that you describe, without any description of the student body. I am unable to make that comparison.
Q. In other words, you want to fix my school. You see, I want to fix it. That is the best answer I can get. I will ask you another question, Dean McCormick. You stated in your direct testimony that as a result of studies made by you or some member of your staff on the University of Texas, that they had ascertained that there were 53 square feet of floor space per student at the University of Texas School of Law?
A. That is correct.
Q. And then on some basis you arrived at this figure, if I am quoting you correctly, that there are 106 square feet per student at the Negro School of Law?
A. I said that was on the assumption of 10 students. [102]
Q. Where did you get those ten students from?
A. We haven't gotten them. [fol. 169]
Q. Why did you pick ten?
A. Well, I picked ten as just an arbitrary figure of what I thought would be about the maximum of the student body of the beginning Negro Law School in Texas under normal conditions where no, where there was no influence that discouraged them from coming.
Q. What about where there was an influence to encourage them to come ? Could we take 150 students and assume the influence is discouraging them? Divide that by that. We will only get 10 square feet per student.
A. It is a matter of which is the more reasonable assumption.
Q. Let's take the hypothetical question, and let's compare 150 students, and then ask you is it equal to the University of Texas School of Law?
A. Presupposing those other factors included, including the present quarters assigned to the law school, they are inadequate for 150 students. Consequently, my answer would have to be accordingly.
Q. Thank you. Dean McCormick, did I understand you to state that the Negro Law School had adopted these announcements and courses and other things as a part of that law school for Negroes?
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, where is the moot court in this Negro Law School? I see here the moot court. That is where—what [fol. 170] arrangements under the faculty for the Negro Law School are there for this law group competition and the moot court?
A. Well, that, of course, has not been instituted. It can't be instituted until you get some students.
Q. But when you have got the place and—a place for it?
A. There would be no trouble about the place for it.
Q. Where is the place in this building across from the Capitol?
A. Well, any one of the class rooms could be used for that purpose.
Q. So one of those class rooms is for moot court?
A. It is certainly susceptible to that use. Of course, we don't have that in the beginning semester of the first year. [103]
Q. Where does the first year student—I will ask you this first—1 withdraw that. In the University of Texas School of Law is the first year law student permitted to visit the moot court?
A. Well, the moot course is now given in the course in Legal Argument, and it consists of competition in cases between groups of students. As I say, that isn't given in the first year.
Q. Your answer wasn't responsive to the question. The question was, are the first year students of the University of Texas permitted to visit the moot court, sit in and hear the cases ?
A. I presume so. [fol. 171]
Q. I mean, do you know?
A. Well, the preliminary arguments, nobody visits them, they are not worth visiting. The last argument, it is customary for some visitors to attend, including, of course, the first year students.
Q. Do the students of this proposed Negro Law School in the first year class, or did they on March 10th, 1947, have access to such a final competition?
A. No, they did not.
Q. What scholarships are available to the students at the Negro Law School? Are these that I find in here that have been adopted? This has been adopted. Are these available to the students, on page 10, law scholarships and loan funds, of Respondents' Exhibit No. 5; are these law scholarships and loan funds available to students, were they available to students in the Negro Law School on March 10,1947?
A. No, they were not. I may say that those are mostly, in fact, all of them are contributed from private sources, and not contributed by the public funds.
Q. They are available to the students in the law school of the University of Texas?
A. Yes.
Q. And they are not available to students in the Negro Law School? On page 8 of this same exhibit under "Honors and Aids", I notice the Order of the Coif. That is, as I [fol. 172] think you will agree is one of, if not the highest, legal honorary societies, and honor students in the upper tenth or upper number of the graduating classes at the University of Texas School of Law are eligible for that, is that not so? [104]
A. That is correct.
Q. And their grades are taken from their first year right on up to the time that they are chosen, together with character and other qualifications?
A. Yes, that is right.
Q. Were those honors, or that particular honor available to a student at the Negro Law School on March 10th? Could his grades then begin to accumulate so as to give him an opportunity for the Order of the Coif?
A. Not unless that Order of the Coif should later authorize that school to confer that award. The Order of the Coif, again, is a privately constituted, rather than a public organization.
Q. Yes, but it is operated by the faculty in the Law School in the University of Texas?
A. That is right.
Q. So that to all intents and purposes it is a faculty, locally guided and directed organization?
A. That is right.
Q. Now then, it is obvious—I won't say it is obvious. We will strike that out. The Order of the Coif is only found [fol. 173] at accredited law schools; is that not true?
A. I believe that is right.
Q. The minimum period in which this law school could be accredited would be two years, a minimum of two years after it had been in operation?
A. That is right.
Q. So that we would know thereafter the applications would go to the Order of the Coif for a Chapter, so that any student who entered on March 10th would have finished school before an application for the Order of the Coif would have been proper and in a position to have been acted on? That is just a mere matter of time, and assuming everything else went exactly as it should go, and we had a fine school, and it was accredited, the time wouldn't permit the establishment of an Order of the Coif so that you could get the student elected prior to his graduation?
A. I think it would be unlikely.
Q. On page 12 of this same exhibit, Dean McCormick, there is a paragraph, two paragraphs under the heading "Legal Aid Clinic." How does that clinic operate?
A. Well, it is operated by a part time director, Mr. Woodrow Patterson, an Austin lawyer, who in conjunction[105]with students in the University of Texas Law School, carries on legal aid for persons unable to pay a lawyer, and' the cases come to the Legal Aid Bureau, and they are handled [fol. 174] by the students under the direction of Mr. Patter son.
Q. Are the students who assist in this work at any time first year law students?
A. They are not.
Q. They are second and third year students?
A. Practically all third year students.
Q. Third year students. Now, on page 9 of Respondents ' Exhibit No. 5 there is a paragraph headed "The Texas Law Review". Would you describe the classification of students who are eligible to work on The Texas Law Review?
A. The second year students, or rather students beginning in the second year, if they have a grade of approximately 80 or above, are invited to compete for the Texas Law Review, and at the middle or the end of their second year they may be elected to the Board of Editors.
Q. Now, in connection with these scholarships, keeping those in mind, the Order of the Coif and The Texas Law Review, all of which in a school of law go to the better students, or the students with the better records, better ability or more ability; in your opinion, Dean McCormick, are these, the scholarships, The Texas Law Review, and the Order of the Coif, incentives for a higher scholastic activity on the part of the students of the Law School of the University of Texas?
A. Yes, I think they are. [fol. 175]
Q. So, that any student who enters the University of Texas School of Law as a freshman and who reads this or who hears it discussed or finds out who won these honors, if he has it in him, he wants to qualify at some time, and that has a bearing on his work?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. What, on March 10th, was there over at the Negro Law School to stimulate this scholastic activity of a nature similar to these three ?
A. You mean what was there?
Q. Comparable. What did you offer? "What was offered a first year law student on March 10th at the Negro Law School which was of the same incentive value as a scholarship? [106]
A. Why, the influence which was comparable, and which I think would have served as an equal if not greater stimulus, was the increased contact with the faculty, due to the probable smallness of the student body.
Q. And you think that that would take the place of the value and effect of competition?
A. Well, there is always competition in every class, as you know, for grades, and that is a much more important competition than these extraneous matters of Coif and Law Review, the natural instinct of every able student to cope with his fellows, and it is fine in the training for his profession. That is the most important influence, that natural [fol. 176] intellectual impassion, which is stimulated by contact with good teachers.
Q. So that you consider the University of Texas Law Review an extraneous matter?
A. Yes; it was founded by the lawyers of Texas, not by the State of Texas, and is financed by their contributions.
Q. And you consider honors at the University of Texas School of Law as extraneous ?
A. Well, you mean the honors, the Order of the Coif and Texas Law Review?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, they are minor and extraneous.
Q. How about these cash scholarship awards; are they extraneous ?
A. They are in the sense that I have been speaking about. They are very microscopic influences. They are not large elements in the picture at all.
Q. So that so far as the University of Texas is concerned, it might as well get rid of all of those?
A. No, certainly not.
Q. Then they are of sufficient importance for us to ask again why, what was offered on March 10th to the law school student at the Negro Law School comparable to these? You say they are adopted. I want to know if—
A. Do you mean, do we have any system of awards beyond the natural competition in the classes themselves? [fol. 177]
Q. No.
A. And the incentive of grades, or success in the courses? None are provided for, if you mean were there any scholarships or prizes or Law Review.
Q. Then, you don't mean that this was adopted? [107]
A. I don't mean that, because none were provided for in the first semester, that that would not follow as a course of the natural evolution of a well-conducted school.
Q. Then, Dean McCormick, you don't mean that this was adopted for the Negro Law School?
A. Well, so far as applicable to a school just starting with an anticipation of one entering a beginning class.
Q. The first year student at the University of Texas Law School, everything in here is applicable to him unless it is specifically stated that it is not applicable; is that true?
A. Well, that is a large order. I am not prepared to say offhand without scrutinizing all of the regulations.
Q. As you stated a moment ago, one of the important elements in the School of Law is competition, in your opinion, one of the most important. A law student who entered the University of Texas on March 10th, 1947, would have the competition of several hundred law students from all over the State of Texas,, including the opportunity for hearing legal discussions by upper classmen, and engaging in [fol. 178] them with them. What about the law school for Negroes on March 10, 1947, did that law school offer to relator in this case that type of competition?
A. Well, I really think if you have a small class that the— where everyone knows each other, and his capacities, that the competition is, if the level of the class is fairly high, is apt, perhaps to be more intense than in an eight or nine hundred student group, where a given student knows only a small number of the total student body.
Q. Of course, that isn't responsive for the reason that you injected the question of the level of attainment of the class being high, which you, of course, agree is an assumption that we would not be able to validate, in the absence of the presence of students and a review of their 1.
Q. and their preparation; is that not true?
A. Well, our entrance requirements are at least three years of college for non-veterans, and at least two years of college for veterans, with a grade requirement of C or better, and I believe that that makes fairly sure the attainment of high level of intellectual quality. Of course, it is all relative.
Q. You assume that—you have no way of demonstrating that if your numbers become smaller?
A. No, it is a matter of observation and experience. I[108]have taught small classes and large ones, and I am inclined [fol. 179] to think that the competition in a small class may well be at as high a level as it is in a class of 150.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, are the facilities which have been set up for this law school for Negroes, are the facilities equal to the facilities at the Law School of the University of Texas, and I will explain then so that you will know what I mean. I mean the library, I mean the building. In the building I mean the offices, class rooms, lavatories, locker rooms, lounge room, librarian's office, the professors' offices, the recreation room. I mean all of those facilities in the building; are they, in your opinion, equal to those at the University of Texas School of Law?
A. Well, facilities are things that are to be used. Their quality is relative to how many and what kind of people are going to use them. Now, if you ask me, for the purposes of the relator, or of a small group of applying students, as compared with the adaptability of the University of Texas Law School facilities for its present student body of 850, I would say yes, they are equal.
Q. What I would like to know, just two points; (a) and (b), one a Negro boy and one a white boy, and one going to the University of Texas and one going to this Negro Law School, isolated from other students. Will the facilities which the white boy finds at the University of Texas, or [fol. 180] are the facilities which the Negro boy finds at the Negro Law School equal to the facilities the white boy finds at the University of Texas Law School?
A. I would say yes, with this explanation; that if that young Negro student goes to the Texas State University for Negroes School of Law, either alone or with a small group of fellow students, and enters the class there with the three faculty members assigned, compared with the University of Texas Law Schools entering on February 1st with a group of 175 other students in a law school already overcrowded twice its capacity, why, I would say, yes; the Negro student has at least equal and probably superior facilities for the study of law.
Q. So that you think that the Law School for Negroes has superior facilities to those at the University of Texas?
A. I said at least equal, and probably superior.
Q. Now, irrespective of numbers, point out the superiorities in this, in the facilities in this Negro Law School? [109]
A. I can not answer irrespective of numbers, because you are talking about facilities for human beings to be taught law by other human beings. To say irrespective of numbers, are your facilities equal or superior, or what not, is meaningless to me. I can't attach any meaning to that.
Q. I can agree with that. The only thing, you wish to take ten, and I would like for you to take 150, so that we [fol. 181] would have one-sixth of the population of it. We have about 850 at the University. Take about 150. Based on the population, at least, we have a basic reason for taking that number.
A. We have this basic reason for taking 10, that the University had received inquiries, I am informed by the Registrar, of approximately, did receive about 14, and so with that number of inquiries it is reasonable to assume that something less than that would be the practical number to anticipate as entering the law school, if there were no influences preventing them from entering.
Q. Do you think that as valid a basis for that conclusion which you came to might just as well be that the law school had moved from two cities inside of a month, and that that, in itself, would create that type of thing, without determining the number of persons who wanted to study law? Wouldn't that be valid?
A. I didn't undertake to say what the influences were that kept them from coming. I undertook to say what the indication of the maximum apparent immediate demand under the circumstances was.
Q. Let me ask you this, Dean McCormick. What, in your judgment is the maximum capacity of the proposed Negro Law School in its present location, based upon the same sort of overcrowded condition which exists at the University of [fol. 182] Texas School of Law?
A. Well, are you assuming the acquisition of the entire building, or assuming the present lease upon the ground floor?
Q. I am taking only what they have, that is the ground floor.
A. Well, I would say that it could accommodate 12 to 15.
Q. I would then ask you if the present facilities for the Negro Law School, which in your opinion would accommodate a maximum of 12 to 15 students, are equal to the facilities at the University of Texas Law School which—from[110]those figures- would take 886 as the maximum—accommodate 886 students as a maximum?
A. They are not equal in size, no.
Q. Are they equal in quality?
A. Yes, for that number of students, I believe that they are.
Q. Well, we have the maximum of each, you see. We have the maximum student body. Are they equal in quality to the maximum student body in each?
A. I am afraid I was—1 thought you asked me the maximum appropriate student body for that size quarters, and you are—1 think I misunderstood your question. You intended to presuppose an overcrowded condition commensurate with that at the University of Texas. Well, I think you would have, in that case, you would have to double the estimate that I have made of from 12 to 15, to 24 to 30.
Q. All right. Let's double it. Then, at the maximum ca-[fol. 183] pacity, are those facilities equal to the facilities in the law school in the University of Texas to their maximum capacity?
A. To their present overcrowded condition, you mean?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, I think so.
Q. You see, we are assuming both overcrowded?
A. Yes.
Q. And you say they are equal in quality?
A. They provide for 25 or 30 students about like the University of Texas premises provide for 850 students.
Q. Dean McCormick, are you familiar with some of the early history of the Law School of the University of Texas ?
A. Generally so.
Q. Do you recall the early enrollment at the Law School of the University of Texas, about the time that building was erected that is now there, roughly; not any exact figure?
A. No, I do not, but I would say it was somewhere between two and three hundred, but it is just a guess.
Q. Do you know how many students, or do you recall how many students there were at the University of Texas Law School the last year before the war?
A. Approximately 750.
Q. Approximately 750; and roughly,—
A. At least that was true in 1939, before the draft went into effect. [111] [fol. 184]
Q. At least, you consider that your last normal year?
A. Yes, I believe I do.
Q. In your opinion, was the present law school building for the University of Texas erected for a small number of students?
A. Yes, that is my understanding, is that it was contemplated that the maximum would be about 400.
Q. About 400?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, then, in your judgment, is the contemplation and the plan for this Law School for Negroes equal to that type of planning?
A. Would it be likely to have a similar development?
Q. Yes.
A. That is corresponding to a growth from 250 to 750 in the course of 30 years ?
Q. Several years, or whatever number—
A. That would be about 30 years.
Q. Yes.
A. Well, I would suppose that it would be something of a similar growth.
Q. That is all.
The Court: We will take a few minutes.
Court was recessed at 3:30 p. m., until 3:50 p. m., May 13, 1947, at which time proceedings were resumed as follows :
[fol. 185] Redirect examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Now Dean McCormick, I believe you have already testified that the basis of 10 students and your planning on that basis was arrived at by reason of the number of inquiries made. I will ask you if you had ever before establishing this school received more than the one application for attendance at the Law School at the University of Texas from a Negro ?
A. No, I have not.
Q. Going back to the matter of legal aid, is that a private set-up that is run there at the school to give legal aid to outsiders ? [112]
A. No, that is part of the Law School.
Q. Are any first year students entitled to participate in that legal aid program?
A. No, they are not.
Q. The Order of the Coif, is that a private organization operated there at the University Law School, Texas University?
A. Yes.
Q. Are first year students entitled to admission?
A. No, that is awarded only at the time of graduation.
Q. Are first year students entitled or required to participate in moot court?
A. No, they are not. [fol. 186]
Q. Are first year students entitled to places on The Texas Law Review?
A. No, sir.
Q. Is The Texas Law Review a private organization?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. I believe you said that the scholarships and loan funds were private set-ups, not furnished by the State?
A. The money came from private donors.
Q. Are all other things provided at the University of Texas Law School by State funds such things provided for first year law students by State funds, provided for Negro law students in the Negro Law School from State funds?
A. That is right.
Q. Now, it was mentioned several times on cross examination that you could not be accredited by the Association of American Law Schools without some students, and that you could not organize these various honor societies without students. Have you done anything whatever toward discouraging students from enrolling in the Negro Law School?
A. Quite the contrary. We hoped very much for an enrollment of a reasonable number of students after we had made the provision for training them.
Q. In view of these inquiries and applications received prior to March 10, 1947 did you anticipate having at least some students on the morning of March 10, 1947? [fol. 187]
A. Yes, I felt very confident that we would have at least five or six students. You said in view of applications. We didn't have applications, but inquiries.
Q. Inquiries. Now, if the relator had been admitted to[113]the University of Texas Law School for the spring semester, who would have instructed him in Contracts?
A. Mr. Leary.
Q. Mr. Leary?
A. That is right.
Q. The same professor that you provided to instruct him in Contracts in the Negro Law School?
A. That is right.
Q. Who would have instructed him in the University of Texas Law School in Legal Bibliography?
A. Why, I believe that Miss Hargrave had charge of the sections of Legal Bibliography of the group entering in February.
Q. If he had entered the previous semester, who would have taught him Legal Bibliography?
Mr. Durham: We object to that. There is no claim of any negro school in existence at that time.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. I say, at the University of Texas, had he been admitted to the University of Texas the previous semester, last fall, who would have taught him Legal Bibliography?
A. He might have been taught by Mr. Hudspeth, or by one or two others who were teaching various sections of [fol. 188] Legal Bibliography.
Q. If he had entered the Negro Law School on March 10th who would have taught him Legal Bibliography?
A. Mr. Hudspeth.
Q. If he had entered the University of Texas Law School for the spring semester who would have taught him Torts?
A. Mr. S. T. Morris
Q. The same Mr. Morris who would have taught him Torts if he had entered the Negro Law School?
A. That is correct.
Q. Had you assigned these professors to teach first year law students in the University of Texas prior to the establishment of the Negro Law School?
A. Yes.
Q. Had you assigned the professors to teach first year law students at the University of Texas prior to the resolution of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas authorizing you to give courses to the Negro Law School? [114]
A. Yes, sir.
Q. The classes were already in session, were they not?
A. Yes.
Q. What I am getting at; did you assign these professors to teach first year law in the University of Texas Law School, having anything in mind that they might also teach in the Negro Law School, at the time they were assigned. [fol. 189]
A. No, not at the time they were assigned.
Q. Now, on page 260 of Association of American Law Schools Handbook, in addition to the two year requirement for admission to the Association, I would like to take up with you each of the requirements, for the purpose of your opinion as to whether the separate Negro Law School financed in accordance with the plans already made and indicated by Senate Bill 140 could ever meet those requirements, after a two year period.
Let's take up the first one there, listed on page 260: (Reading)
"It shall be a school not operated as a commercial enterprise, and the compensation of any officer or member of its teaching staff shall not depend on the number of students, nor on the fees received."
Does your Negro Law School meet that requirement?
A. Yes, sir, it does.
Q. At this time?
A. Yes.
Q. Number two, the second requirement. I will ask you to state it briefly, rather than me read the whole requirement. It has to do with entrance requirements, the entire requirements, is that correct?
A. That is right. [fol. 190]
Q. Do you have the same entrance requirements for the Negro Law School that you have for the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes, that was so provided in our amendment.
Q. Then your entrance requirements meet the standards of the American Association now?
A. They do.
Q. Number three. It must be a school which occupies substantially the full working time of the students, required for work in the school, "shall be considered a full-time school. Does the Negro Law School meet that requirement? [115]
A. Yes, sir, it does. That standard differentiates between full-time and part-time schools, and sets up requirements for each, and the Negro Law School, under the provisions made therefor, met the standard here in regard to full-time schools.
Q. Number four. (Reading)
"The conferring of its degree shall be conditioned upon the attainment of a grade of scholarship ascertained by examination."
Do you have that same requirement for your Negro Law School at this time?
A. We do.
Q. Number five. That has to do with special students, that no such shall be admitted except under certain condi-[fol. 191] tions listed there. I will ask yon if you have that same requirement for the Negro Law School?
A. Well, our requirements at the University of Texas Law School are more stringent, in that they do not admit special students, and they would not be admitted to the Negro Law School.
Q. They would not be admitted to the Negro Law School?
A. That is correct.
Q. They meet that standard; is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. In the Negro Law School?
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, the sixth requirement, own a law library of not less than 10,000 volumes with certain specifications as to those volumes. I will ask you if you have ordered 10,000 volumes for a permanent library for the Negro Law School, to meet those requirements ?
A. We have ordered a sufficient number and kind of books to meet those requirements.
Q. In addition to that, at this time do you have a library available for this law school in the State Capitol Building within excess of 40,000 volumes of law books?
A. We do.
Q. Number eight provides that a complete individual record of each student must be kept. Do you have the [fol. 192] same requirement as far as the Negro Law School is concerned on the individual record of students?
A. Yes. Did you mean to pass over number seven? [116]
Q. I didn't mean to, but let's pass number seven for the time being, to number eight, individual record of students.
A. Yes, that would be satisfied by the regulations now in effect in the University of Texas Law School and which are adopted by the Negro Law School.
Q. Are those—number nine. (Reading)
"It shall be a school which possesses reasonably adequate facilities and which is conducted in accordance with those standards and practices generally recognized by member schools as essential to the maintenance of a sound educational policy."
I will ask you if, in your opinion, the Negro Law School meets the requirement laid down here by the American Association for reasonably adequate facilities?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, those are all of the requirements, as I understand them, except number seven, which we have passed. Is that correct, sir?
A. That is correct.
Q. Then, we at this time in the Negro Law School meet the requirements of the American Association of Law Schools except as to two years ' running, and number seven, which I will read, as (Reading)
[fol. 193] "Commencing September 1, 1932, its faculty shall consist of at least four instructors who devote substantially all of their time to the work of the school; and in no case shall the number of full-time instructors be fewer than one for each one hundred students or major fraction thereof."
I will ask you to state whether or not the present Negro Law School, as planned for your first semester, meets those requirements ?
A. Well, I believe that technically it does not.
Q. Technically, it does not, because your professors assigned are giving part of their time to another school, the University of Texas, it that right?
A. That is correct.
Q. Does it meet that part of the requirement which is intended to have only full-time professors teaching the students, instead of having lawyers who are practicing time? [117]
A. I think it certainly does, in substance, and I may add that it is quite frequent in law schools in the east which are near together, for instructors to be instructing at the same time in two schools. That is, instructors from Harvard, Yale or Columbia occasionally spend part of their time in instructing in one of the other schools, and, of course, technically, they would as to any particular school [fol. 194] be part-time, but in substance, of course, they are devoting all of their time to law teaching.
Q. Technically, you do not meet the requirements of four full-time professors, but as a practical matter for the first semester students that attended, as a practical matter, do you furnish them that which the full-time professors would have furnished them?
A. Yes, I believe we do.
Q. As a matter of fact, if the relator had been in the University of Texas Law School classes with a hundred or more in your first class for that spring semester—
A. There were nearly two hundred.
Q. Out at the University of Texas—and these same three instructors at the University teaching them, with the 200 students, in your opinion, or within your knowledge, would the relator have had as much personal attention from the professors and as much time from them as he would from those same three professors teaching in the Negro Law School?
A. Assuming a school of no more than a small number of students?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. In the Negro Law School he would have gotten a great deal more personal attention from the faculty than he would have had he been in the large entering classes in the University of Texas.
[fol. 195] Q. Isn't it a fact that the requirements of full-time professors, at least one to every 100 students, isn't the idea behind that to have the professors available to give care and attention to the individual students ?
A. Yes.
Q. And more care and time and attention could have been given to the Negro students, based on not more than 10 students, than in the University of Texas Law School?
A. Yes, that is right. They would have had not only their classes, but office hours in the Negro Law School, and[118]would have been available much more conveniently than to the students at the University of Texas Law School.
Q. Can you think of any reason why, if a student enters out there, and this school grows, as you testified on cross examination that it might be possible to grow, and with the Legislature furnishing the money Mr. Woodward itemized here today, can you think of any reason why that Negro Law School can not within a period of two years, before anyone can graduate from it, why, that school can not meet all of the requirements of the Association of American Law Schools ?
A. No, I see no reason why it should not comply with those requirements very rapidly, since the Legislature has announced that it was providing for a University of the first class, and a law school equivalent to that of the University of Texas, as exactly the same expectation and reliance on [fol. 196] the Legislative assurances are the only things we have to rely on for the continue development and stability of the University of Texas Law School.
Q. Are you acquainted with Lincoln University, and the separate law school operated for Negroes in Lincoln University, in Missouri?
A. I am somewhat acquainted with it. I haven't been there, but when I was on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, the Committee had a conference, I believe, with one of the faculty of that school there.
Mr. Durham: We object to that as hearsay.
The Court: He shouldn't testify to hearsay.
A. I am just stating the extent of my acquaintance with it.
The Court: Don't recite anything he said.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. Lincoln University Law School has met the requirements of the Association, has it not? .
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And is it a member of the Association?
A. That is correct.
Q. That is all. [119]
Recross-examination. Questions by Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, at the University of Texas School of Law, do you use the case method of teaching and study?
A. Yes. [fol. 197]
Q. Will you state briefly just what that is?
A. Well, it is the method most widely prevailing in American law school's today, where the books used as the basis for study in most courses is a collection of cases designed to illustrate and develop the principles of law in the particular subject.
Q. Now, you testified that the,—in your opinion, the library—Section 6 of Respondents' Exhibit No. 5—that the library at the Negro Law School met those requirements. I would like to read it to you.
A. Did I testify that the library met those requirements?
Q. No, the question was asked you by the Attorney General, does this law school meet the requirements and standards of Section 6, and you answered yes.
A. My recollection of our colloquy is that he asked me if we had ordered the books necessary to meet the requirements.
Q. Yes, but your answer was yes. I am going to read Section 6, and let you answer this way. (Reading)
"Commencing September 1, 1932, it shall own a law library of not less than 10,000 volumes, which shall be so housed and administered as to be readily available for use by students and faculty. Commencing September 1, 1940, it shall have, in addition to the four instructors specified in Section 7 of this article, a qualified [fol. 1&8] librarian, whose principal activities are devoted to the development and maintenance of an effective library service."
I would like to ask you, Dean McCormick, did the Negro Law: School meet the requirements of Section 6 as read to you on March 10, 1947?
A. Did it then meet the requirements? No, clearly not, and I didn't say it did.
Q. Does it meet the requirements today?
A. No, it does not.
Q. Assuming that in all other respects this Negro Law[120]School is the equal of the Law School of the University of Texas, for the sake of this question only, would the Negro Law School lose that equality by reason of the fact that it did not have a library as set forth in Section 6.
A. No, I think by no means would it lose the equality. In other words, you might have library facilities equal to that of the University of Texas, but not meeting that standard of ownership. This standard requires that the books be owned and the library of the Negro Law School is not owned by the Negro Law School, but I think that in respect to substantial equality, that matter of ownership is immaterial. The library facilities which are furnished to and are owned as the law school is owned, by the State of Texas, and if they are available to the students, and are equal in [fol. 199] range and quality to the library facilities of the University of Texas Law School, they would be equal, but would not meet this standard.
Q. Then, in your judgment, and as a former President of the Association of American Law Schools, you do not consider that Section 6 of the Association are necessary or are valid?
A. No, I wouldn't say that.
Q. All right, then. Assuming that all of these other factors are equal, is this requirement with respect to a library, if it isn't met, does that not make the Negro Law School less—unequal to that of the University of Texas Law School?
A. No, sir. I think that the compliance with the standards is merely evidence of a qualification, evidence of quality, I would say, but I think you can have substantial equality of facilities quite regardless of the complete compliance with the Association of American Law School regulations, if the substance of the educational facilities are provided. That form of ownership, I think, is not a prerequisite to the equality.
Q. As a former President of the American Association of Law Schools, on what basis did you require law schools being considered by your Association, and as a former member of the Executive Committee and passing on it, what was your reason for requiring the law schools that applied dur-[fol. 200] ing that time for admission to the association, and for accreditment by the Association of American Law Schools to comply with this as a minimum standard, if, in 121]your opinion, it is not necessary in order to have equality with the University of Texas Law School?
A. Normally, in order to have the books available, you would need to own them, but you may well have a special situation, as I think you do here, where they are fully and completely available, though ownership is not in the school.
Q. Departing from that for just a moment, I understood you to say with 'respect to Section 7 of Respondents' Exhibit No. 5, where it stated that the faculty shall consist of at least four instructors who devote substantially all of their time, that technically it did not meet it, but it met it, you thought, substantially, by reason of the fact that these men taught at the University of Texas and taught in this law school, and, therefore, were giving all of their time to instruction, and you illustrated it by stating that in the East that goes on frequently.
A. I would say occasionally.
Q. Do you know of any institution in the East where that goes on, and where, outside of the men who do visit from school to school, there are not in each of those schools four other full-time law school teachers ?
A. No, there isn't any such. [fol. 201]
Q. Also, the Negro Law School where they have three, I think we probably forgot to point out to you that only three teachers have been assigned. There are not four, if they could be denominated full-time.
A. Of course, the three teachers is limited to the first semester, and the instructions from the Chairman of the Board of Regents were to plan to use all of our faculty, so far as necessary, to maintain a full curriculum for the students who did come during this interim period until four or more full-time professors could be employed for the Negro Law School.
Q. One other question, Dean McCormick. As a Dean of a law school, is it your opinion that three teachers who are teaching a full schedule at the University of Texas, where they are resident instructors, and who are visiting professors, or who teach over at the Negro Law School—1 won't use the word "visiting"—who teach those same courses over at the Negro Law School, is it your opinion that they are as available for consultation and for working with the students in the school where they are not residents, as they are at the University of Texas ?
A. Well, I think under the plan that we had adopted they[122]would be more available for a group of the size indicated of Negro students than they would be available to the large sections of 150 or 175 students at the University of Texas. [fol. 202]
Q. Where were their offices to be, as you had arranged them?
A. Well, we had planned for them to spend a reasonable time in meeting office hours at the Negro Law School in this reading room and office room, and then they would also have offices at the University of Texas.
Q. Are the offices for the teachers at the University of Texas in the reading room?
A. Well, my office is in part of the library, and I am subject to constant interruptions by people coming in and getting books in my office.
Q. I understand your office, but the teachers; are their offices in the reading room ?
A. Well, there is a tier of offices on the first floor that opens up into the reading room on the lower level. Some of them open up—one of them is in part of the library, and the others are divorced from the reading room.
Q. And you have in this law school for Negroes offices equal to those?
A. Well, we don't have separate offices for the three instructors, but there are ample facilities for them to meet office hours in the room called the reading room where the desks are.
Q. But the offices are not equal?
A. No, I would not say they were.
Q. I think you stated, Dean McCormick, that these 10,000 [fol. 203] books have been ordered; is that correct?
A. Well, there are a certain number of that 10,000 that is on hand now, and the balance have been ordered.
Q. How many are on hand?
A. Well, Miss Hargrave can give you the details of that. She is the librarian who compiled the list. I think there are some 1,300 or 1,400 on hand, and about 8,700 for which she has placed an order through the Comptroller to the Board of Control.
Q. Which Comptroller is that, of the University of Texas, or the State?
A. The University of Texas.
Q. That is all—Dean McCormick, what is the name of the Comptroller to whom you refer?
A. Mr. Simmons. [123]
Q. Mr. Simmons?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know his initials?
A. C. D. Simmons, I believe.
Q. Mr. G. D. Simmons?
A. Yes.
Q. On page 261 of Respondents' Exhibit No. 5, there is this paragraph which I will read, Dean McCormick.
A. I have it before me.
Q. You have it before you? [fol. 204]
A. Yes.
Q. Does this school meet the requirement of that provision, that is, the Negro Law School?
A. Which one, which provision?
Q. The last paragraph on page 261, beginning "No school shall be or remain * * *."
A. Well, that is my understanding, yes.
Q. Here is why I asked you that, Dean McCormick, so that you will know before you answer. If a student enters the Negro Law School which has been set up here, it isn't accredited under the rules of the Association of American Law Schools, if after one year or a semester, or two years, or any period short of graduation, if for any reason he desires to transfer to another school—maybe this one goes out of existence, or maybe he prefers another one, or he may get a scholarship—or if for any reason he wishes to transfer to another school, no school that is a member of the Association of American Law Schools can admit him and give him credit for the work done here. Is that equality with the students of the University of Texas Law School? As a former President of the Association, in your opinion, is that equality?
A. Certainly that privilege of transferring credit would not be available to the students of the Negro Law School until that school had become accredited. [fol. 205]
Q. Don't you consider that a lack of equality, in that he has to remain there or lose all that he has done?
A. No, not in the larger outlines of substantial equality. The transferrence of credits from one school to another is a matter of not very frequent concern to students. I don't suppose we have five percent of our students that have transferred any credits, not to my knowledge.
Q. You would say that the fact that of that five percent, in that five percent, any student in the University of Texas[124]who wanted to transfer, had the privilege and that right, and under those regulations, since the University of Texas is a member of the Association, could transfer those credits to any other school; whereas, a Negro in this Negro Law School would lose all of the work that he has done.
A. Yes, I would call that a minor and temporary inequality or deviation.
Q. At least, you call it an inequality?
A. One which would disappear as soon as the school had carried out for two years the plan that the Legislature has made for its development.
Mr. Nabrit: Your Honor, I would ask that you strike out the last, about what the Legislature intends to do.
The Court: I think that probably was not germane to the answer. [fol. 206]
A. He asked me about equality and how that bore upon equality, and I thought that was an explanation of what bearing I thought it had upon equality.
By Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, I wish to show you some pictures purporting to be pictures of the law school for Negroes, of which you are the Dean. I wish you would look at them and see if these are pictures of the building of that law school.
A. I am the Dean of both of them.
Q. Yes. I just want you to now be Dean of this one. (Counsel for relator handed the witness two photographs.) Dean McCormick, do you recognize these as being pictures of the law school for Negroes ?
A. I recognize one of them, the small picture of part of the entrance, I wouldn't recognize.
Q. But you do recognize this one?
A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Nabrit: We would like to offer this in evidence. Said instrument was admitted in evidence as Relator's Exhibit No. 2.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, would you state so that the Court might see it, and point out where the law school is in that area? (Referring to Relator's Exhibit No. 2.)
A. This doesn't picture any of the interior of the law[125]school. Just from this view, I don't know where the en-[fol. 207] trance to the—
Q. It is right here.
A. Where is the step-down?
Q. (Indicating on photograph to the witness).
A. Well, the law school occupies the entire ground floor
of which a part of the outer wall is shown here.
Q. And this is a sign of some occupant of some other part?
A. Of the second floor, yes.
Q. The consulting petroleum gas engineer that occupies
the second floor or some part of it, is that correct?
A. That is correct, as far as I know.
The Court: I believe, if you will permit, I will ask you to indulge me, and we will resume in the morning. We will resume at 9 o'clock in the morning.
Court was recessed at 4:35 p. m., May 13, 1947, until 9 o'clock a.m., May 14, 1947.
[fol. 208] Morning Session. May 14, 1947. 9:00 a. m.
Charles T. McCormick, having resumed the witness stand, testified further as follows:
Recross-examination. ( Continued). Questions by Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, I wish to show you two pictures, purporting to be scenes of the building housing the Law School of the University of Texas. I wish you would look at them and see if you can identify them as that building, as the building housing the school?
A. Yes, these are different views of the same building, the law school building on the campus of the University of Texas.
Q. Thank you. We wish to offer those in evidence.
Said instruments were admitted in evidence as Relator's Exhibits Nos. 3 and 4, respectively. Mr. Nabrit: That is all. [126]
Redirect examination.
Questions by Mr. Daniel:
Q. Dean McCormick, do you at this time have any picture available of the Negro Law School that shows as much of the housing facilities, as broad a view of the building as the picture that has just been introduced here showing the [fol. 209] University of Texas Law School?
A. No, I do not.
Q. The picture that was introduced yesterday, would you state to the Court whether or not that shows the entire building from the outside, of the Negro Law School, like these pictures do of the University of Texas Law School Building?
A. No, the view of the building in which the law school is situated is incomplete.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, yesterday counsel for relator asked about the credits that would be earned by the relator in the Negro Law School, and whether or not they would be recognized upon a transfer to some other school. I will ask you to—1 believe you started to explain your answer there. I will ask you to explain whether or not the credits earned in the Negro Law School in the two years preceding recognition by the American Bar Association, if they would then be subject to transfer to a school recognized by the Association of American Law Schools?
A. Yes, that is provided in the last clause of the rule which appears in the last two lines on page 261, and the top of page 262.
Q. Will you read that for the information of the Court? It has been introduced in evidence here.
A. (Reading)
"Provided, however, that credit may be given for work taken in another American law school within the [fol. 210] two year period immediately preceding its admission to this Association."
Q. Now, yesterday in showing wherein the Negro Law School had already met all of the requirements except the full-time professors and the two years ' time, on the library requirement, I believe you testified that you had ordered the necessary number of books to meet the library re-127]quirement of the Association of American Law Schools, is that correct?
A. Well, I had given directions for their ordering. I didn't myself order them.
Q. What about the feature of a full-time librarian. Do you have any arrangements or any plan for the appointment of a full-time librarian at any date in the future?
A. Well—
Mr. Durham: We object to that, Your Honor. It is too speculative, about any date in the future. It wouldn't have any probative force on any issues.
The Court: I believe I will let him answer it, Counselor, for the present. It may not be material. I will let him answer at this time. Mr. Durham: Note our exception, if Your Honor please.
A. We have the funds available, and have been instructed to secure a full-time librarian, and the necessary additional full-time faculty at such time as the student demand makes [fol. 211] the need for their services apparent, and at such time as the librarian and faculty of the highest caliber, which is what we need, can be secured. That is always a matter of search and negotiation.
Q. I will ask you, have you examined the second and third floors of the building, the Negro Law School Building?
A. Well, I went over yesterday evening after court and tried to get in, but I was unable to do so because the building, the tenants of the two upper floors had left, and those floors were locked.
Q. I will ask you if those floors contain the same floor space, at least as much floor space, as the first floor that you now have rented? I am talking now about the remainder of the building, the second and third floors that Mr. Woodward, the Chairman of the Board, testified he had made arrangements, or had refusal on, for the Negro Law School. I will ask you if those floors each contain at least the same amount of space, if they would furnish suitable space for your permanent library of ten thousand volumes.
Mr. Nabrit: We object your Honor. Mr. Durham: We object to that because the witness has
testified he hasn't seen it. The Court: I hardly see how he could testify to the space,
not having examined it. [128]
Mr. Daniel: I based it on if it had the same floor space, [fol. 212] the same space as the first floor.
The Court: That is an assumption that I expect we had better have verified.
By Mr. Daniel:
Q. I will ask you, Dean McCormick, if you will look it over during the noon hour so that we can talk with you about it.
A. Yes.
Q. That is all.
Recross-examination. Questions by Mr. Nabrit:
Q. Dean McCormick, you stated, I believe, that the law school was open on March 10th?
A. That is correct.
Q. And I presume that according to your announcement the facilities and personnel necessary were available; is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. You stated just a moment ago that you would get a librarian when a demand was made?
A. No.
Q. I would like to ask you—
A. I didn't—I don't believe that I said that.
Q. You didn't say that?
A. I said that we had instructions to get one as soon as the student demand became apparent and we were able to [fol. 213] secure one of the high quality that we would insist on.
Q. Now, Dean McCormick, on March 10th did you have a librarian for the Negro Law School?
A. Well, we didn't have a separate librarian, but Miss Hargrave, the Librarian of the University of Texas Law School, under my instructions, did the work that was needed to be done by a librarian for a beginning school, in preparing the list of books to be secured, and in preparing the orders for books, and all of the other work that would be necessary to be done by a law librarian at that juncture.
Q. Had you on March 10th secured a full-time librarian for the Negro Law School?
A. No, we had not. [129]
Q. Have you today secured, as of this date, secured a full-time librarian for the Negro Law School?
A. No, we have not.
Q. The section of the standards Association of American Law Schools to which you referred, and from — you read a moment ago about transfer of credits, the acceptance of those credits depends itself upon a prior accreditation by the American Bar Association, does it not?
A. I am not quite certain about that. It—I would think it may well be that if a school makes its compliance so apparent that it is, that the officers of the Association would predict that it would be admitted, I would be inclined to [fol. 214] suppose that this rule would permit the credit to be given before the actual admission into the Association, but I don't know of any ruling on that.
Q. No, and you don't—
A. There is nothing in the wording of the rule to rebut that conclusion.
Q. Thank you. That is all.
Mr. Daniel: That is all, Dean McCormick.
The Court: All right. You may have your seat.
(Witness excused.)
 
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