Cumming v. Board of Education

The Richmond County Board of Education (defendant), citing limited financial resources, closed the county's only black high school, leaving black high-school-age students without access to free public secondary education, though the county's white high school remained open; Cumming and other black taxpayers (plaintiffs) sued alleging an Equal Protection Clause violation, without directly challenging the state constitution's separate school-segregation requirement, and effectively asked the Court to order the white high school closed as well.