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''Gebhart v. Belton'', 33 Del. Ch. 144, 87 A.2d 862 (Del. Ch. 1952), ''aff'd'', 91 A.2d 137 (Del. 1952), was a case decided by the Delaware Court of Chancery in 1952 and affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court in the same year. ''Gebhart'' was one of the five cases combined into ''Brown v. Board of Education'', the 1954 decision of the United States Supreme Court which found unconstitutional racial segregation in United States public schools. ''Gebhart'' is unique among the four ''Brown'' cases in that the trial court ordered that African-American children be admitted to the state's segregated whites-only schools, and the state Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's decision. In the remaining ''Brown'' cases, Federal District Courts all found segregation constitutional, though some judges questioned its effects on African American students. ==Background== The unusual status of ''Gebhart'' arose in large part because of Delaware's unique legal and historical position. At the time of the litigation, Delaware was one of 17 states with a segregated school system. Even though Delaware is nominally a northern state, and was mostly aligned with the Union during the American Civil War, it nonetheless was ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' segregated; Jim Crow laws persisted in the state well into the 1940s, and its educational system was segregated by operation of law. In fact, Delaware's segregation was literally written into the state constitution, which, while providing at Article X, Section 2, that "no distinction shall be made on account of race or color", nonetheless required that "separate schools for white and colored children shall be maintained." Furthermore, a 1935 state education law required: The schools provided shall be of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children. The schools for white children shall be free for all white children between the ages of six and twenty-one years, inclusive; and the schools for colored children shall be free to all colored children between the ages of six and twenty-one years, inclusive. ... The State Board of Education shall establish schools for children of people called Moors or Indians. Despite this optimistic language, African-American schools in Delaware were generally decrepit, with poor facilities, substandard curricula, and shoddy construction. Without substantial financial support provided by Wilmington's Du Pont family of chemical fame, segregated schools would likely have been in even worse shape. At the same time, as a remnant of its days as one of the original thirteen former British colonies, Delaware had developed a judicial system which included a separate Court of Chancery, hearing matters arising in equity rather than in law. As opposed to legal remedies, which usually involve awarding money as damages, equity—as expressed in the maxims of equity, "regards as done that which ought to be done." As a result, cases brought in equity generally seek relief which cannot be awarded as a sum of money, but rather "that which ought to be done". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gebhart v. Belton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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