“Milestones for African Americans in the California Judicial Branch” has a number of Supreme Court connections

From the news release by Karen Datangel:

“This February, California courts and the Judicial Council of California join the nation in recognizing Black History Month. As of Dec. 31, 2022, 8.6% of California judges identify as Black or African American, compared to 4.6% in 2006. The state judicial branch’s strategic plan includes the goal of Access, Fairness, Diversity, and Inclusion, where ‘The makeup of California’s judicial branch will reflect the diversity of the state’s residents.’ ” 

The release includes a timeline with reviews of 18 significant moments in the State’s legal history regarding African-Americans. Some of them relate to California’s Supreme Court:

1. In re Perkins (1852) 2 Cal. 424. Even though California’s constitution prohibited slavery, the Legislature passed and the court upheld a law requiring that people enslaved in other states be returned to their enslavers.
2. Ex parte Archy (1858) 9 Cal. 147. The court ordered an enslaved person — Archy Lee — returned to his enslaver, a Mississippi citizen. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the court stated, “where slavery exists, the right of property of the master in the slave must follow as a necessary incident.” (9 Cal. at p. 162.) Lee later got his freedom from a federal court ruling.
3. Ward v. Flood (1874) 48 Cal. 36. The court validates a state statute requiring that “[t]he education of children of African descent, and Indian children, shall be provided for in separate schools.” In the separation, the court holds, “there is certainly to be found no violation of the constitutional rights of the one race more than of the other.”
4. Historic Supreme Court justices. Wiley Manuel was the Supreme Court’s first Black justice. Janice Rogers Brown was the first female Black justice on the court.
5. Other Black Supreme Court justices. The appointments of Justices Leondra Kruger, Martin Jenkins, and Kelli Evans are discussed. All are now serving on the court. For some reason, the Milestones don’t mention the appointment of Justice Allen Broussard, who was a member of the court from 1981 to 1991.
6. Historic jurists serving as Supreme Court pro tem justices. Vaino Spencer was the first female Black judge in California, ultimately becoming the presiding justice in the Second District, Division One, Court of Appeal. Arleigh Woods was the first Black Court of Appeal justice. Both served on the Supreme Court as pro tem justices in a number of cases.

The Milestones could also have included Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 876 and Crawford v. Board of Education (1976) 17 Cal.3d 280, where the court not only retreated from Ward v. Flood, but also held that school boards had the affirmative constitutional obligation to end school segregation and to do so regardless of the segregation’s cause. A 1979 initiative cut back on those decisions, aligning California’s Constitution with the federal Constitution, which the U.S. Supreme Court had held required that only de jure segregation needed to be remedied. (See Ettinger, The Quest to Desegregate Los Angeles Schools (March 2003) Los Angeles Lawyer, p. 54.)