Document E: "Segregation of School Children. Mexican Children Not Embraced in Segregation Law"
Biennial Report of the Attorney General of Arizona, 1915-1916

Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
15 (Winter 2001). ISSN 0882-228X
Copyright (c) 2001, Organization of American Historians

Mrs. Luther Stover
Williams, Arizona

Dear Mrs. Stover:

Your letter of December 30th, addressed to the Attorney General has been received, in which you ask whether or not Mexican children can legally be segregated from the white children in the public schools.

In reply thereto will say that Subdivision 2 of Paragraph 2733, Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913, in prescribing the powers and duties of the Board of Trustees of School Districts, provides:

"...They shall segregate pupils of the African race from pupils of the white race, and to that end are empowered to provide all accommodations made necessary by such segregation."

You will therefore see that our law empowers trustees to segregate children of the African race, but does not empower the trustees to segregate children of the Mexican race unless, of course, children of the Mexican race might also be of African descent, by being intermingled with African blood through birth.

I am therefore of the opinion that we have no law empowering trustees to segregate Mexican children from white children in our public schools.

Very truly yours,
GEORGE W. HARBEN
Asst. Attorney General