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COURT CASES
Cooper v. Aaron
1958
Cooper v. Aaron (1958) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed the supremacy of federal law and the binding authority of Supreme Court decisions on state governments. The case arose from the state of Arkansas’s attempt to delay school desegregation in Little Rock—specifically, Governor Orval Faubus and the Arkansas state legislature sought to block the court-ordered integration of Little Rock Central High School, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
Cooper v. Aaron helped frame the constitutional limits of state resistance and clarified that states could not ignore or delay desegregation.
The Little Rock School Board had originally agreed to a gradual integration plan. However, facing political and public pressure from segregationist forces, the board attempted to suspend the plan. A federal district court rejected this request, and the case was fast-tracked to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a unanimous per curiam opinion issued on September 12, 1958, the Court ruled that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land (Article VI) and that its interpretation by the Supreme Court in Brown was binding on all states. The justices emphasized that no state official had the authority to nullify federal law, and any resistance to federal court orders was a direct violation of the Constitution.
The decision in Cooper v. Aaron had a profound effect on the legal landscape of school desegregation, and it directly influenced the legal and political maneuvers in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Although Cooper reaffirmed the federal mandate to desegregate schools, it also revealed the extent of resistance that local and state officials were willing to pursue. In Virginia, rather than openly defy the courts like Arkansas had, Prince Edward officials took a more drastic—but legally evasive—route: they closed the entire public school system in 1959, claiming they were not obligated to operate schools at all. In doing so, they sought to circumvent Cooper’s emphasis on state compliance with federal court orders without directly violating them.
Thus, Cooper v. Aaron helped frame the constitutional limits of state resistance and clarified that states could not ignore or delay desegregation. While it did not prevent Prince Edward County from using school closures as a workaround, it set the precedent that ultimately allowed the Supreme Court in Griffin v. Prince Edward County (1964) to declare those closures unconstitutional. In this way, Cooper was both a warning and a foundation for later judicial intervention against Massive Resistance in Virginia and across the South.
Cooper v Aaron
