The NAACP's Amicus Curia Brief in Support of Mendez

The Mendez plaintiffs argued that the school districts made a concerted effort to segregate Mexican heritage children in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In February 1946, Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled: A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. The defendant school districts appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. People who later worked on the Brown v Board of Education case said that the Mendez amicus brief written by the NAACP was a useful dry run and testing the temperature of the courts without putting the NAACP itself in the field.