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Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) issued an opinion Monday to formally overrule decades-old decisions that restricted interracial marriage and impaired the doctrine of 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� in public facilities 鈥� especially in public education.
Frosh, who will be stepping down in January after two terms, said the formal ruling reverses opinions from the attorney general鈥檚 office dating back as far as 1916 鈥渢hat upheld or applied racially discriminatory state laws.鈥�
鈥淚n years past the Office of the Attorney General issued opinions that upheld racially discriminatory laws in our state,鈥� Frosh said in a statement. 鈥淭he laws were abhorrent and ultimately held to be unconstitutional. We hope that our opinion today will help remove the stain of those earlier, harmful and erroneous works. We will continue to fight to stamp out racism and hate in all of our work for Maryland.鈥�
罢丑别听聽addressed to the General Assembly leadership 鈥斅燬enate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore County) 鈥斅爏ummarizes how the legislature passed discriminatory statues in the 17th century. In 1664, lawmakers passed a statute that all Black people would be enslaved for life, which 鈥渃odified a practice that had already existed for decades.鈥�
During that same year, the state enacted its first law that restricted marriages between English white women and enslaved Black men. Lawmakers continued to pass similar laws throughout the nearly three centuries that followed until the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case outlawed all bans on interracial marriage.
When it comes to school segregation, the Maryland General Assembly in 1865 approved a law to require each school district to have 鈥渙ne or more schools … which shall be free to all white youth.鈥�
Prior to 1920, the state offered no higher education opportunity to African Americans, according to the opinion. Sixteen years later, the state courts ruled the University of Maryland School of Law had to admit Black students because it had none.
Two years after the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared segregation of public schools unconstitutional, then-Maryland Attorney General聽聽(D) wrote a 1956 opinion that 鈥渃onsidered whether Brown and related cases also invalidated the Maryland statutes that created segregated training schools.鈥�
鈥淭he U.S. Supreme Court and the Maryland courts have made clear that laws prohibiting interracial marriage and providing for the racial segregation of public schools are illegal and contrary to the values of our federal and State constitutions,鈥� according to Frosh鈥檚 legal document. 鈥淩enouncing these unfortunate opinions cannot change the past, but we hope that it will serve to reinforce our Office鈥檚 current commitment to equality under the law.鈥�
