CENTENNIAL REFLECTIONS

Law School Beginnings - Part II
By Orben J. Casey

A pattern of racial segregation in the Oklahoma school system had been established by the constitution, Art. 13, Sec. 3, and subsequent statutes. Consequently Ada Lois Sipuel, a black honor graduate of Langston University, a school for blacks in Oklahoma, was denied admission to the University of Oklahoma Law Schools when she sought to enroll in January of 1946. Leaders in the NAACP retained Amos T. Hall, a black attorney practicing in Tulsa to represent Sipuel in a test case against Oklahoma's segregation laws. Thurgood Marshall, later a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, came to Oklahoma to assist Sipuel in his capacity as chief counsel for the NAACP.

After defeat in the lower courts, the Sipuel case was appealed to the US Supreme Court. The court reversed the judgment of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in January of 1948 and ordered the state to provide Sipuel a legal education equal to that received by white students under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The State Regents for Higher Education undertook immediately to furnish "separate but equal facilities by creating Langston University School of Law at the state capitol building in Oklahoma City. Within a week the regents arranged for a faculty of three headed by Jerome E. Henry of Oklahoma City along with Randall S. Cobb and Arthur Ellsworth.

Only one student, T.M. Roberts, ever attended the Langston School. Mrs. Fisher, the former Ada Sipuel, refused to enroll in the institution which Thurgood Marshall labeled a "Jim Crow" school.

Mrs. Fisher was again refused admission to the University of Oklahoma. Her attorneys filed a motion in March of 1948 contending that the Langston law facilities were not "substantially equal" to those at the University of Oklahoma. After the court denied the motion, a Fisher appeal to higher courts was deferred while the NAACP turned its attention to admission of another black to the University of Oklahoma Graduate College. That student was admitted on a segregated basis to take graduate courses not offered at Langston University.

The legislature in May of 1949 amended Oklahoma statutes to allow all qualified black to attend white schools, although on a segregated basis, in order to pursue programs of instruction not offered at black institutions. The Langston University School of Law was scheduled to close effective June 30, 1949 so Mrs. Fisher was permitted to enroll at the University of Oklahoma for the summer term. In 1950 the U.S Supreme Court ruled that black students should be permitted to attend previously white schools on a non-segregated basis.

Mrs. Fisher completed her law course at the University in the summer of 1951. Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher passed the Bar Examination in 1951 and joined the firm of Bruce and Rowan in Oklahoma City.

Excerpts from And Justice For All, The Legal Profession in Oklahoma, 1821-1989, Chapter 24 printed with permission of the publisher, Oklahoma Heritage Association.