Background:

As anti-Chinese sentiment grew in the United States, Chinese people were excluded not only from immigration but also jobs, certain residential areas of cities, and even schools. Even U.S.-born Chinese people suffered from this exclusion and violence; their citizenship did not provide complete protection against racism or xenophobia. Having a good education is often associated with gaining upward social and economic mobility and is needed to truly participate in society. As such, the segregation of schools was one significant avenue through which white society oppressed the Chinese and other people of color. School segregation was a way to maintain power and privilege one group over others.

From 1859 to 1870, The Chinese School served as a public school for Chinese students in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chinese students were legally barred from attending other public schools. In 1870, the law was amended to drop the requirement to educate Chinese children. This led to San Francisco cutting funding for the Chinese School, which shut down. As a result, Chinese parents sent their children to church schools or hired private teachers. In 1884, Joseph and Mary Tape fought back by suing the San Francisco School District. Their case guaranteed the right of children born to Chinese parents to public education. In 1885, the San Francisco School District set up a separate "Oriental School" for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students. In response to the segregated Chinese School, Mary Tape wrote a letter, arguing for her daughter's right to be educated in her local public school.

Essay:

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States. However, Chinese Americans were racially excluded in other ways as well.

In California, the Tape family legally challenged the San Francisco Board of Education after their daughter was denied access to public education. This led to the landmark 1885 California Supreme Court case, Tape v. Hurley. This case was one of the earliest civil rights decisions on racist school segregation policies, occurring sixty-nine years before the U.S. Supreme Court deemed school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Joseph and Mary Tape were Chinese immigrants who came to California in the 1860s. Mary was an orphan and the Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society provided her with housing and taught her English. Joseph worked as a houseboy and a dairyman in his early years, and later became a successful broker. Mary and Joseph saw themselves as American, seeing no difference between them and the native-born Americans they lived amongst in San Francisco. They believed their American-born daughter, Mamie, should be allowed to attend Spring Valley Primary, an all-white school. The principal Jenny Hurley denied Mamie’s enrollment at Spring Valley because of her race. In response to this discrimination, the Tapes sued Hurley, and took the case to the California Supreme Court.

School officials argued that the California Constitution stated that the Chinese were “dangerous to the well-being of the state,” and thus, anyone of Chinese descent should not be admitted to San Francisco public schools. The Tape family argued that their children were entitled to attend public school as a birthright, expecting them to receive all the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens.

The California Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment protected the rights of citizens and thus, Mamie, a U.S. citizen, could not be denied the opportunity to attend school.

Although Mamie was guaranteed a right to an education as a U.S. citizen, widespread anti-Chinese hate led officials to find a way to discriminate against Mamie nonetheless. The Court ruled that segregated schools were not against the law, which led the San Francisco Board of Education to build separate schools for Chinese students. Later that year, the Tapes had no choice but to enroll their children at the Chinese Primary School but continued to fight for Mamie’s right to attend an integrated school.

Tape v. Hurley ultimately did not win Mamie Tape the ability to attend Spring Valley Primary School or create an integrated school system allowing all students to equitably access education regardless of race. However, this case was an important civil rights decision. Many years later, the federal court case Mendez v. Westminster (1947) and U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954) expanded on the Tape v. Hurley decision that all students should have access to schooling by ruling school segregation on the basis of race was unconstitutional.