Sánchez, George I. (1906–1972)

George Isadore Sánchez is the pioneer in the fight for Mexican rights in the United States, especially equal rights for the education of Mexican American children. Although born in Albuquerque in the U.S. Territory of New Mexico, his own education began in Arizona Territory where he lived in the mining town of Jerome. His experience with the public schools was a positive one, but when he returned to New Mexico [Page 1256]during his senior year, he became aware of discrimination against persons with Spanish surnames and Native Americans. He came to hate discrimination of any group and devoted his life to working for equity for all, but especially for Mexican Americans.

After high school graduation, he worked in rural schools while completing his bachelor's degree at the University of New Mexico (1930). During the 1930s, Sánchez received his master's (1931, University of Texas in Educational Psychology and Spanish) and doctoral degrees (1934, University of California at Berkeley in Educational Administration), both funded by the General Education board; led a successful battle to provide equal funding for rural school districts where most Mexican American and Native American children lived; served as the General Education Board Director of Information and Statistics for the state of New Mexico from 1931 to 1935; worked for the Carnegie Foundation (resulting in his 1940 book Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans); revived a normal school for teachers in Venezuela (1937–1938); and conducted research in the South and in Mexico for the Julius Rosenwald Fund, resulting in his book Mexico: A Revolution by Education.

In 1940 he accepted a full professorship at the University of Texas. In 1941 he was national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens. In the 1940s, Sánchez also wrote Spanish text books. His master's thesis, which researched the use of IQ tests for placement of Mexican American children in the public schools, was used in many court cases and resulted in his being called as an expert witness in many of those cases during the 1940s and 1950s. After World War II, he and James DeAnda walked the schools of the Travis County School District. They found separate schools and different facilities and discriminatory policies for Mexican American students, including bus transportation for Anglos but not for “Latins.” Sánchez and Gus Garcia wrote the brief in Delgado v. Bastrop, et al. (1948) that charged segregation and asked for a permanent injunction against the defendants enjoining them from segregating Mexican American children. The case was decided through an agreed judgment whereby the Texas State Board of Education adopted a policy against the discrimination of children on the basis of Spanish surname and gave formal credit to Sánchez and Garcia. This decision policy gave attorneys a policy to cite in future cases.

In early 1950 he wrote a grant founding the American Council of Spanish-Speaking People, which contributed to the funding of many court cases concerning equity in education in Texas. The most famous case in which Sánchez was involved was Hernandez v. Texas (1954), which was the first case concerning Mexican American rights to go to the Supreme Court. The case involved a murder trial in Jackson County, Texas, where 14% of the population eligible to serve on juries was Mexican American but where no Mexican American had been placed on a jury selection list for 25 years. Carlos Cadena and Gustavo Garcia were the lead attorneys at the U.S. Supreme Court for the case, which was decided unanimously for the plaintiffs 2 weeks before Brown v. Board of Topeka. Cadena gave Sánchez credit for developing the “class apart” theory that they used in pleading the case.

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