Tape V. Hurley

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Tape V. Hurley •

Background

The Tape V. Hurley Case took place during the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (click here to learn more about the Chinese Exclusion Act). According to California State Legislature California Code 1662, all children in the state were entitled admission to public schools; however, social customs and local school board policy in San Francisco excluded Chinese children from attending white public schools.

The Tape Family

Joseph and Mary Tape emigrated from China to the United States when they were children and married in 1875. Joseph Tape was a well-regarded businessman within both the white and Chinese communities, and the Tape family was a middle-class Chinese American family that lived in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco, which had few Chinese residents. In the fall of 1884, Joseph and May Tape tried to enroll Mamie Tape, their eldest daughter, in the Spring Valley Primary School in their neighborhood. Principal Jennie Hurley refused to admit her because of the school board policy against admitting children of Chinese descent.

The Case

  • 1885

    In 1885, the Tapes sued the San Francisco Board of Education and Principal Hurley for Maime’s denial and brought the case to the California Supreme Court. The Tape Family argued it was a violation of the state school law to prevent Maime from attending Spring Valley Primary School.

  • January 9, 1885

    On January 9, 1885, Supreme Court Judge McGuire wrote, “To deny a child, born of Chinese parents in this State, entrance to the public school would be a violation of the law of the State and the Constitution of the United States,” in favor of the Tape Family. 

  • January-April 1885

    In contrast, the Superintendent of Public Schools in San Francisco strongly opposed the ruling. The Superintendent of Public Schools in San Francisco wrote in the Sacramento Daily Record Union on January 16, 1885, “...native -born Chinese children were entitled to be educated in our public schools. These reports are none of them complete and are not the same in all aspects, but all agree in the main fact that the decision would throw open our public school to the Chinese.” On April 8, 1885, Maime Tape was again denied admission to Spring Valley Primary School because she did not have certification of vaccination and the classes were at capacity. 

  • 1885 - Bill 268

    The Supreme Court ruling determined that all children, including immigrants, were entitled to public education; nevertheless, in the same year as the court ruling, the California State Assembly enacted Bill 268. The bill created separate schools for children of “Mongolian or Chinese” descent, and once the schools were established, these children were not allowed to attend any other schools.

Mary Tape’s Letter

On April 16, 1885, a letter Mary Tape wrote to the School board was published in the Daily Alta California. The letter defended the right for Maime to attend the school rather than a segregated school for Chinese students, and it was later reprinted in newspapers across the country. Consequently, on May 22, 1885, The New North-West (Deer Lodge, MT) labeled Mary as “An Indignant Mother.” 

In her letter, Mary Tape wrote that Mr. Moulder had a grudge against her 8-year-old daughter and that Maime would never attend any of his Chinese schools. The letter wrote, “I will let the world see sir what justice there is when it is govern by the race prejudice men! Just because she don’t dress like you because she does. Just because she is descended of Chinese parents: I guess she is more of a American a good many of you that is going to prevent her being educated.”

  • “My children don’t dress like the other Chinese. They look just as phunny among them as the Chinese dress in Chinese look amongst you Caucasians”

    “It seems no matter how a Chinese may live and dress so long as you know they Chinese. Then they are hated as one. There is not any right or justice for them”

    “I will let the world see sir what justice there is when it is govern by the race prejudice men! Just because she don’t dress like you because she does. Just because she is descended of Chinese parents: I guess she is more of a American a good many of you that is going to prevent her being educated”

    “Is it a disgrace to be Born a Chinese? Didn’t God make us all!!!”

    “Do you call it a Christian act to compel my little children to go so far to a school that is made in purpose for them”

    “You told [my husband] it wasn’t Maime Tape you object to. If it were not Maime Tape you object to, why didn’t you let her attend the school nearest her home? Instead of first making one pretense then another pretense of some kind to keep her out?”

    “Maime Tape will never attend any of the Chinse schools of your making! Never !!!”

Aftermath

On April 13, 1885, Maime and her younger brother Frank were the first students to attend the Chinese Primary School when it opened in Chinatown despite Mary stating they would never attend a Chinese segregated school. Maime Tape never was admitted into the Spring Valley Primary School, but Chinese children began increasingly attending white schools in San Francisco after the Tape v. Hurley case.

Later…

Gong Lum V. Rice (1927)

On November 21, 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that a Mississippi school board had not violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause when Rosedale Consolidated School prevented Gong Lum’s daughter, Marta, a native-born US citizen of Chinese descent, from attending a white high school.

Brown V. Board of Education (1954)

On May 19, 1954, the US Supreme Court ruled Brown vs. Board of Education, stating segregated schools were unconstitutional–in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Written by Alana Arcilla

Sources