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. In 1871, San Francisco quietly cut funding for the Chinese School, and the school subsequently closed. 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. In response to the establishment of the new segregated Chinese School, Mary Tape wrote a letter and argued her daughter's right to be educated in the public school near home.
Background
Discrimination against Chinese immigrants
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. Despite anti-Chinese feelings in the United States, the population of Chinese immigrants grew steadily from 1850 to 1880. Until 1880, there were about 105,000 Chinese immigrants in America.
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). Direct URL It was repealed and replaced by an 1852 law which also lacked racial restrictions. Direct URL
From 1855 to 1866
Growing anti-Chinese sentiments accelerates the changes of racial restrictions in law. The superseding 1855 Act to establish Common Schools counted only "the number of white children in each county between the ages of four and eighteen years" (§3, 12, 18) and allowed the establishment of a school upon "the petition of fifty heads of white families" (§22). Direct URL In 1860, California amended the 1855 law to bar "Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians" from public schools, and granted the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, then Andrew J. Moulder, the authority to withhold state funds from districts violating the amended code. The legislation allowed the establishment of segregated schools (§8). Direct URL The establishment of segregated schools was reiterated in the 1863 law (§68), when the term "Common Schools" was replaced by "Public Schools" Direct URL and reinforced in 1864, when a requirement was added that a petition by the guardians of "ten or more colored children" was needed to establish a segregated school (§13). Direct URL
From 1866 to 1880 In 1866, the law was rewritten specifically to restrict enrollment in public schools to "all white children, between five and twenty-one years of age" (§53), and required that "children of African or Mongolian descent, and Indian children not living under the care of white persons" be educated in segregated schools (§57), with an exception made for the enrollment of "half-breed Indian children, and Indian children who live in white families or under guardianship of white persons" into public schools upon a majority vote of the local school board (§56). As a last resort, the education of "children, other than white children" was permitted in public schools "provided, that a majority of the parents of the children attending such school make no objection, in writing" if there was no other means of educating them (§58). The law now required separate but equal schools (§59). Direct URL When the law was rewritten in 1870, the restriction of students to white children was retained (§53), and segregated schools were only provided for "children of African descent, and Indian children" (§56), dropping the requirement to educate Chinese children entirely. The potential exceptions for the enrollment of Indian children living with white families or with the written consent of a majority of other parents also disappeared. The separate but equal clause survived (§57). Direct URL
In 1880, the Political Code was modified to lift the restriction of enrollment to white students (§1662) and the sections requiring separate but equal (§1671) segregated schools (§1669) were repealed. Direct URL
Chinese school
Targeted by the restrictive education law, Chinese immigrants found private schools to educate their children. Some Chinese immigrants started the Chinese Language School, which enabled immigrants to teach Chinese to the next generation. Other children of immigrants were educated in religious schools and, as a result, were Christianized. Many parents wrote a letter to the education board, expressing the need to establish a Chinese School for all Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. The opening of the new Chinese school in Chinatown was not until September 1859, as the education board of San Francisco attributed the delay to lack of funding. The Chinese school operates as a day school for only nine months due to the low attendance rate.Hendrick, Irving G. “Public Policy Toward the Education of Non-white Minority Group Children in California, 1849-1970” National Institution of Education Project No.NE-G-00-3-0082, March 1975. One reason for the low attendance rate is the Chinese lost control over the school administration. However, Superintendent James Denman blamed the Chinese for the school's failure, expressing that Chinese immigrants had no interest in learning American ways, and it is not the school system's fault, but some Chinese children were no doubt prevented from attending when the school was moved outside of Chinatown. This required a longer commute whereupon the children became a target of verbal and physical abuse by white children. Though the Chinese school stopped its day school operation in June 1860, it continued as a night school for another eight months before closing. Later, the school was reopened and renamed the Chinese Primary School in 1885, the Oriental School in 1906, and continuously operates as Gordon J. Lau School today.
Incident
Tape family Mamie Tape was a Chinese American born in San Francisco. Her parents, Joseph C. Tape (趙洽) (1852–1935), and Mary McGladery Tape (1857–1934), were both immigrants from China arriving in California in 1864 and 1868, respectively. Joseph Tape was born in Guangdong province in China and arrived in the United States at the age of twelve. Mary Tape was an orphan who grew up in Shanghai and moved to California at eleven. Mary Tape lived in the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society*
"San Francisco Ladies' Protection and Relief Society, doing business as Heritage On The Marina, operates as a non-profit organization." in her early life, where she learned English and American culture. Joseph and Mary Tape met at Mary's home, the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society, and married in 1875. They had four children: Mamie, Frank, Emily, and Gertrude. Joseph Tape was a businessman and an interpreter for the Chinese consulate, while Mary Tape was an amateur photographer and artist. They lived as a prosperous middle-class family and settled in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco, a predominantly white community.
Before the court