Tape v. Hurley, 66 Cal. 473, (1885) was a landmark court case in the California Supreme Court in which the Court found the exclusion of a Chinese American student from public school based on her ancestry unlawful. The case effectively ruled that minority children were entitled to attend public school in California. After the Court's decision, San Francisco Superintendent of Schools, Andrew J. Moulder, urged the California state assembly to pass new state legislation which enabled the establishment of segregated schools under the separate but equal doctrine, like the later Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). The establishment of the new school marked the continued segregation in the education system in California.
Tape v. Hurley case was brought by the Tape family, who were Chinese immigrants with an American-born child, in the wake of increasing anti-Chinese sentiments in California after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Joseph Tape and Mary Tape were informed that their daughter, Mamie Tape, was denied admission to Spring Valley School due to her ancestry. In 1885, Joseph Tape filed a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter in the local Court to force the San Francisco Board of Education to allow his daughter to attend the public school near home.
Tape v. Hurley is widely regarded as the starting point when Asian Americans began challenging school segregation and educational inequality. The result of the case gave greater legal foundations for eliminating segregation in the school system later on. Still, it was not until the mid-twenty century when minorities in California won the victory on the path of fighting for school desegregation.
History
In September 1859, the Chinese School was opened as a public school for Chinese students in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chinese students were legally barred from attending other public schools in San Francisco.
San Francisco established and operated the segregated Chinese School from 1859 until 1870, when the law was amended to drop the requirement to educate Chinese children entirely. As a result, Chinese parents often sent their children to church schools or hired private teachers.
In 1884, Joseph and Mary Tape challenged San Francisco's practice by enrolling their daughter, Mamie, in the all-white Spring Valley School at 1451 Jackson Street. After the school refused to admit Mamie, the Tapes sued the school district in Tape v. Hurley and won. San Francisco School District appealed the lower court's decision to the California Supreme Court, where the justices sustained the lower court's verdict. The case guaranteed the right of children born to Chinese parents to public education. In 1885, the San Francisco School District set up a separate Chinese Primary School; the "Chinese School" was later renamed the "Oriental School," so that Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students could be assigned to the school.
Background
Discrimination against Chinese immigrants
thumb|277x277px|Anti-Chinese sentiment, 1885
Chinese immigration started from the California Gold Rush in the 1840s when many Chinese immigrants hailed from South China to California to try their luck. Most Chinese immigrants were young males with poor financial backgrounds working on mining and railroad constructions. Chinese immigrants were seen as a threat to the white-dominated labor market due to their strong motivations to work. Protest, violence, and harassment toward Chinese immigrants intensified in 1850, and Chinese workers were subsequently excluded from white-dominated unions. The conflicts between Chinese and whites were at their peak in the 1870s, when Chinese workers were seen as the primary reasons behind massive layoffs and poor economic conditions in California. Hundreds of anti-Chinese riots and protests broke out in the 1870s, and such sentiments of hatred led to legal discrimination against Chinese immigrants extending throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Starting from 1870, state and local law placed a myriad of social and economic restrictions on Chinese immigrants. The Page Act of 1875 was the first restrictive federal immigration law that effectively prohibited Chinese women from entering the United States. In May 1882, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning all immigration from China and barring all Chinese immigrants from naturalization. In 1891, California explicitly enacted the state law: "The coming of Chinese person into the States, whether subjects of the Chinese Empire or otherwise, is prohibited." During the progressive era, the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties supported the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1943, Congress repealed the exclusion laws and permitted 105 Chinese to enter each year. It was not until 1965 when all restrictions of entry were lifted.
State legislation
The legislation in the State of California prompted tremendous changes in the education policies toward minority students from 1850 to 1880.
Prior to 1855
The earliest law establishing public education ("Common Schools") in California was passed in 1851 and divided state funding "by the whole number of children in the State, between the ages of five and eighteen years" without specifying race (Article II, §1). It was repealed and replaced by an 1852 law which also lacked racial restrictions.