The Lost Episode of Gong Lum v. Rice
Publisher
The Green Bag Second Series
Date
2015
GONG LUM V. RICE1 has virtually disappeared from contemporary constitutional law discourse. Of the five constitutional law casebooks most frequently adopted in current constitutional law courses, none includes a full or even partial text of the decision. Two provide one-sentence summaries of its holding in notes on the constitutional status of racial segregation laws prior to Brown v. Board of Education, 2 two provide excerpts from the Brown opinion that cite the case,3 and one ignores it altogether. 4 One might predict, from the current treatment of Gong Lum, that the decision will soon become relegated to the category of Court precedents that were subsequently overruled and are best forgotten.
Citation
G. Edward White, The Lost Episode of <em>Gong Lum v. Rice</em>, 18 The Green Bag Second Series 191–205 (2015).