Cooper v. Aaron

Cooper v. Aaron
Cooper v. Aaron
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued September 11, 1958; Decided September 12, 1958
Full case name	William G. Cooper, et al., Members of the Board of Directors of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Independent School District, and Virgial T. Blossom, Superintendent of Schools v. John Aaron, et al.
Citations	358 U.S. 1 (more) 78 S. Ct. 1401; 3 L. Ed. 2d 5; 1958 U.S. LEXIS 657; 79 Ohio L. Abs. 452
Case history
Prior	Suspension of order granted, 163 F. Supp. 13 (E.D. Ark 1958); reversed, 257 F.2d 33 (8th Cir. 1958); cert. granted, 358 U.S. 29 (1958).
Subsequent	Opinion announced September 29, 1958
Holding
	This Court cannot countenance a claim by the Governor and Legislature of a State that there is no duty on state officials to obey federal court orders resting on this Court's considered interpretation of the United States Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Court membership
	Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter; William O. Douglas · Harold H. Burton; Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II; William J. Brennan Jr. · Charles E. Whittaker
Case opinions
Majority	Warren, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Burton, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Whittaker
Concurrence	Frankfurter
Laws applied
	U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Supremacy Clause

Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that denied the school board of Little Rock, Arkansas the right to delay racial desegregation for 30 months.^[1] On September 12, 1958, the Warren Court delivered a decision that held that the states are bound by the Court's decisions and must enforce them even if the states disagree with them, asserting the judicial supremacy established in Marbury v. Madison (1803).^[2] The decision in this case upheld the rulings in Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II that had held that the doctrine of separate but equal was unconstitutional.^[3]

^ Freyer, Tony A. (March 2008). "Cooper v. Aaron (1958): A Hidden Story of Unanimity and Division". Journal of Supreme Court History. 33 (1): 89–109. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5818.2008.00180.x. ISSN 1059-4329. S2CID 143700384.
^ Harriger, Katy J. (2016). "In Defense of Cooper v. Aaron: Distinguishing among Judicial Supremacy Claims". The Review of Politics. 78 (3): 443–465. doi:10.1017/S0034670516000346. ISSN 0034-6705. S2CID 148135292.
^ Freyer, Tony (2009). Cooper v. Aaron. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199891511.

Cooper v. Aaron
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued September 11, 1958 Decided September 12, 1958
Full case name	William G. Cooper, et al., Members of the Board of Directors of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Independent School District, and Virgial T. Blossom, Superintendent of Schools v. John Aaron, et al.
Citations	358 U.S. 1 (more) 78 S. Ct. 1401; 3 L. Ed. 2d 5; 1958 U.S. LEXIS 657; 79 Ohio L. Abs. 452
Case history
Prior	Suspension of order granted, 163 F. Supp. 13 (E.D. Ark 1958); reversed, 257 F.2d 33 (8th Cir. 1958); cert. granted, 358 U.S. 29 (1958).
Subsequent	Opinion announced September 29, 1958
Holding
This Court cannot countenance a claim by the Governor and Legislature of a State that there is no duty on state officials to obey federal court orders resting on this Court's considered interpretation of the United States Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Harold H. Burton Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Charles E. Whittaker
Case opinions
Majority	Warren, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Burton, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Whittaker
Concurrence	Frankfurter
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Supremacy Clause