Today in Supreme Court History: October 10

Lucy v. Adams, 350 U.S. 1 (decided October 10, 1955): Court reinstates injunction, meaning that University of Alabama can’t deny two black students admission; District Court had found that sole basis for denying entry was skin color; Ms. Lucy had been trying for three years to get in; she was still excluded from dorms and dining halls; riot broke out when she actually showed up and, being pelted with bricks and eggs and death threats, she was suspended for her own safety; University then expelled her for being litigious (!) and she moved out of state, at first staying with Thurgood Marshall’s (her lawyer’s) family in New York; years later returned to the University and got her degree in 1992

Montanans for a Balanced Federal Budget Committee v. Harper, 469 U.S. 1301 (decided October 10, 1984): Rehnquist refuses to overrule the Montana Supreme Court holding that placing a “Balanced Federal Budget” initiative on ballot violated the state constitution (the initiative would have directed the state legislature to apply to Congress for a convention to consider a balanced budget amendment; one assumes the Montana court believed that would usurp the power of the legislature)

United States ex rel. Skinner & Eddy Corp. v. McCarl, 275 U.S. 1 (decided October 10, 1927): shipping corporation created during World War I isn’t a United States entity (even though created by statute and the U.S. held all its stock) and therefore company about to get sued by it can’t get Comptroller General to rule on setoff; opinion by Brandeis, noting that such corporations are an “instrumentality of the Government” but are formed so that they can be free to “employ commercial methods and to conduct their operations with a freedom supposed to be inconsistent with accountability to the Treasury under its established procedure of audit and control over the financial transactions of the United States” (doesn’t that sentence smell funny)