170 Ga. 680 | Ga. | 1930
The facts appear in the statement preceding this opinion. Our able and learned brother of the trial court based his judgment upon the proposition that the equity of the petition was sworn off by the answer of the defendants, and by the evidence which was introduced by them in support thereof. This proposition is not supported in toto by the denials of the answer and by the evidence in support thereof. The petitioners alleged that their children attended this school until October 21, 1929, when the superintendent informed them that they must pay a specified amount as tuition, or cease to attend school. The defendants denied this allegation. In paragraph six of the petition it is alleged that on October 21, 1929, the superintendent of the school, acting upon the instruction of the trustees of the school, caused the children of petitioners to be separated from the student body as a whole, placed them in a separate schoolroom, regardless of their ages, grades, or degrees of advancement, under the watch and tutelage of one teacher; and that the rest of the student body obtained the usual course of instruction, which was denied t® these children. The defendants deny the allegations of this paragraph as pleaded. They allege that at the beginning of the school tejrm a common or free school was established, that a first-grade teacher was placed in charge thereof, that the regular course of study prescribed by the State Board of Education had been
These allegations of the answer do not deny the 'discrimination which petitioners charge is made against their children when admitted to this school. On the contrary the answer establishes this discrimination. Children whose parents pay the matriculation fees enjoy the full benefits of the school from the first to the seventh grade. The children of parents who do not pay the matriculation fees are put in a separate room which the trustees denominate the free-school department of the institute, and. are furnished with a first-grade teacher only. It is clear that these children do not receive the same and equal benefits which the pay children get in this school. The school is not free to the non-pay pupils. Their privileges are circumscribed. Their opportunities are not equal. They are placed in a position of more or less humiliation. A charge for matriculation can not be imposed as a condition precedent to the admission of children to a public school forming a part of the general school system of children living in the territory of the school and otherwise qualified. Irvin v. Gregory, 86 Ga. 605 (13 S. E. 120); Mayor &c. of Gainesville v. Simmons, 96 Ga. 477 (23 S. E. 502); Edalgo v. Southern Ry. Co., 129 Ga. 258, 266 (58 S. E. 846); Wilson v. Stanford, 133 Ga. 483 (3), 485 (66 S. E. 258); Brewer v. Ray, 149 Ga. 596 (101 S. E. 667); Claxton v. Stanford, 160 Ga. 752 (128 S. E. 913). Under article 8, section 1, paragraph 1, of the constitution of this State (Civil Code of 1910, § 6576), as amended (Acts 1911, p. 46), “there shall be a thorough system of common schools for the education of children, as nearly uniform as practicable, the expenses of which shall be provided for by taxation, or otherwise. The schools shall be free to all children of the State, but separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored races.” Glaxton v. Stanford, su¡jra. A public school which makes a discrimination between children of parents who pay matriculation fees, and the children of parents who do not pay such fees, violates
Judgment reversed.