By Major W. Cox
U.S. District Judge Harold Albriton’s decision in Bethany Godby vs. Montgomery County Board of Education strikes another blow against government’s use of race categories. This case began in 1996, when Bethany Godby, a 13-year old Cloverdale Junior High School student, claimed her school racially discriminated against her and violated other of her Federal rights when she was not allowed to run in the school’s homecoming queen election as a white candidate. There were only two choices for candidates, black and white.
The essential facts of the case are this: Bethany Godby, is a mixed raced child. Her father is white, her mother is black, and she thinks of herself as being both races. Evidence in the case showed that when asked for her race on forms at school, she routinely checked both categories.
The case stemmed from her school’s policy of separately nominating "white" students and "black" students for homecoming queen. The resulting election outcome would insure a "white" queen and a "black" queen. The school board’s dual-race election policy was established during the time of transition from a racially segregated school system to an integrated one.
Recently, Judge Albritton dismissed the school board’s petition for summary judgment. The case was proceeding to trial, when in a surprising turn of events, the school board settled with Godby for an undisclosed amount of money in a confidential agreement.
More than any amount of money she received from her settlement with the Montgomery County School Board, Bethany Godby and her parents deserve our admiration for their courage. The Godby’s displayed rare courage by confronting this divisive and humiliating racial classification system. Just as Rosa Parks refused to stand behind the shameful and degrading color line on a Montgomery City bus, Bethany refused to divide her family along the school board’s benign color line.
It is regrettable, however, that this case did not go to trial. If it had, the issue of who is "black" and who is "white" would have been a central question. This was an ideal case to help resolve the color-line issue, which has plagued America since slavery ended.
During slavery, our laws codified slave status. Initially under these laws, only persons with dark skin held slave status. However, miscegenation brought on a new set of problems. How to classify the child that is half-white and half-black? What about the Quadroon or the Octoroon (a person one quarter or one eighth black respectively)?
From this dilemma emerged the infamous one-drop rule, which required a person with one drop of black blood in their heritage to be classified black. Today, we are still groping with echoes from the one-drop rule. Where do we draw the color line? And more to the point…why do we draw the color line?
Judge Albritton’s opinion provides much enlightenment for future litigants with respect to this contentious social issue. However, I look forward to the day when a judge rules that it is indeed a criminal act for a government official to use the government’s coercive power to classify any American in a racial category that offends their individual beliefs.
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Originally Published: 22 April 1998, Montgomery Advertiser
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