Berea+College+v.+Kentucky

=Berea College v. Kentucky= 211 U.S. 45 (1908)

Berea College, in Kentucky, admitted black students, in direct contravention of a state statute. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that the statute was permissible under the Kentucky Constitution. The question before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether the regulation was also permissible under the federal Constitution.

However, the Court did not test the validity of the statute on equal protection grounds, or really analyze its race discrimination whatsoever. Instead, the opinion focused on the state's power to regulate corporations formed in the state. It determined that the restriction could be "upheld as coming within the power of a state over its own corporate creatures."

Of special note to the Court was its determination that it would not be improper for the College to admit both whites and blacks, if it instructed the two races at different times or places. The races would be therefore merely separated by time and place of instruction.

Though the Court did not undertake any Fourteenth Amendment analysis, the effect of the opinion was to allow Kentucky to mandate that "any college, school, or institution within its borders be racially segregated." If one wishes to read the opinion restrictively, it is merely a case about a state's power over its corporations; read broadly, it is the Court's condoning the practice of racial segregation in schools.