Simkins v. Cone
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Seal_of_the_United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Fourth_Circuit.svg/180px-Seal_of_the_United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Fourth_Circuit.svg.png) |
Court
| United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
|
---|
Full case name
| G. C. Simkins, Jr.
, A. W. Blount, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, and United States of America, Intervenor v.
Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital
, a Corporation, Harold Bettis, Director of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, and Wesley Long Community Hospital, a Corporation, and A. O. Smith, Administrator of the Wesley Long Community Hospital
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Argued
| April 1, 1963
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Decided
| November 1, 1963
|
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Citation
| 323
F.2d
959
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|
Judges sitting
| Simon Sobeloff
,
Clement Haynsworth
,
Herbert Stephenson Boreman
,
Albert Vickers Bryan
,
J. Spencer Bell
(
en banc
)
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---|
|
Majority
| Sobeloff, joined by Bryan, Bell
|
---|
Dissent
| Haynsworth, joined by Boreman
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|
U.S. Const. amend. XIV
|
Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital
, 323 F.2d 959 (4th Cir. 1963),
[1]
was a federal case, reaching the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
, which held that "
separate but equal
" racial segregation in publicly funded hospitals was a violation of
equal protection
under the
United States Constitution
.
Background
[
edit
]
George Simkins, Jr.
was a dentist and
NAACP
leader in
Greensboro, North Carolina
. One of his patients, an African-American person, developed an
abscessed tooth
and Simkins felt that the patient required medical treatment, but none of the local hospitals that would accept African-American patients had space for the patient. With the assistance of the NAACP and other medical professionals in the area, Simkins filed suit, arguing that because the
Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital
and
Wesley Long Hospital
had received $2.8 million through the
Hill?Burton Act
that they were subject to the Constitutional guarantee of
equal protection
. The suit was filed in February 1962.
[2]
[3]
At district court, the suit was dismissed, the court finding that there was no involvement of the state or federal government. This ruling was appealed to the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
in November 1963.
[3]
Decision
[
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]
In a 3-2 decision, the Fourth Circuit overturned the district ruling, looking to whether the hospitals and the government were so intertwined by funding and law that the hospitals' "activities are also the activities of those governments and performed under their aegis without the private body necessarily becoming either their instrumentality or their agent in a strict sense."
[1]
[4]
The Court held that to be the case.
The Court then found the provision for segregated "
separate but equal
" facilities to be unconstitutional, and it struck down that portion of the Hill?Burton Act.
A dissent, authored by
Judge Haynsworth
and joined by
Judge Boreman
, argued that the hospitals' operations involved no "state action". They noted that hospitals had preceded the creation of the Hill?Burton Act.
[4]
[5]
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, who denied
certiorari
. As a result, the Appeals court ruling stood, but was only
precedent
within the jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit?Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
[6]
Subsequent developments
[
edit
]
In 1964, Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin for any agency receiving state or federal funding.
[7]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital
,
323 F.2d 959
(4th Cir. 1963).
This article incorporates
public domain material from this U.S government document
.
- ^
Nelson, Alondra
(2011).
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination
. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 39?.
ISBN
9781452933221
. Retrieved
July 7,
2014
.
- ^
a
b
Wisconsin-Madison, Vanessa Northington Gamble Associate Professor of the History of Medicine and Family Medicine at the School of Medicine University of (February 25, 1995).
Making a Place for Ourselves : The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945
. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 188?.
ISBN
9780195360066
. Retrieved
July 7,
2014
.
- ^
a
b
Rossman, George; Richard B. Allen (April 1964).
"What's New in the Law"
.
ABA Journal
. American Bar Association: 379?380.
- ^
4th circuit opinion at Leagle
- ^
Reynolds, P. Preston (May 2004).
"Professional and Hospital DISCRIMINATION and the US Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit 1956?1967"
.
American Journal of Public Health
.
94
(5): 710?720.
doi
:
10.2105/ajph.94.5.710
.
PMC
1448322
.
PMID
15117685
.
- ^
Richardson, Christopher M.; Luker, Ralph E. (June 11, 2014).
Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement
. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 412?.
ISBN
9780810880375
. Retrieved
July 7,
2014
.
Sources
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]
External links
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]