April 18, 1957 - Florida to U.S.: Integration ruling unconstitutional
Here's a term you've probably never heard: Interposition. It's an asserted right of states to jointly declare a federal action unconstitutional. No federal court has upheld states' rights to "interpose," but that doesn't prevent states from trying. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling outlawing laws establishing separate schools for blacks and whites (Brown vs. Board of Education), the Florida Legislature joined nine other southern states in adopting interposition. Its resolution stated that Florida did not recognize the federal government's authority in the matter. It also told the court that compliance "is a factual impossibility at this time and that therefore Florida schools will not be integrated even though they are required to do so by court order." Although some states' governors supported efforts to fight the integration ruling, Gov. Leroy Collins said the Legislature's act made the state look foolish. "This act stultifies our state," he said in a formal statement. "It can do no good whatever and those who say it can perpetrate a cruel hoax on the people." A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Arkansas' passage of interposition was unconstitutional. In Florida, Orchard Villa and Air Base elementary schools were the first formerly white schools in Florida to admit black students in 1959. Other counties took a more gradual approach. Read the story in the Daytona Beach News-Journal: Senate Adopts Interposition