Cooper v. Aaron, decided September 12, 1958, is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stopped Arkansas from delaying the desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School and declared that no state governor, legislator, or official can defy a federal court order interpreting the Constitution. All nine justices signed the opinion jointly, something the Court had never done before and has not repeated in the same way since.1Justia. Cooper v Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958)
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
Four years after Brown v. Board of Education ordered public schools desegregated “with all deliberate speed,” the Little Rock School Board had a court-approved plan to begin integrating Central High in September 1957. Governor Orval Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine Black students from entering. After weeks of standoff and a violent mob scene on September 23, President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas Guard and sent 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to escort the students into the building.2National Archives. Executive Order 10730 – Desegregation of Central High School (1957)
The 1957–58 school year at Central High was chaotic. The state legislature passed laws designed to obstruct integration, invoking a pre–Civil War theory called interposition — the claim that a state could place itself between the federal government and its citizens to nullify federal law it considered unconstitutional. Citing the disruption, the Little Rock School Board went back to federal district court in early 1958 and asked to suspend its desegregation plan for two and a half years. The district court granted the delay in June 1958. The Eighth Circuit reversed. The board appealed to the Supreme Court.1Justia. Cooper v Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958)
With the next school year about to start, the Court convened a special summer term. Oral argument was heard on September 11, 1958, and the decision came the following day. A full written opinion followed on September 29.
What the Supreme Court Decided
The Court unanimously affirmed the Eighth Circuit and reinstated the desegregation plan, effective immediately. Two questions drove the ruling.
The first was whether violence and public hostility could justify pausing the constitutional rights of Black students. The Court said no. Those rights “could not be sacrificed or yielded to the violence and disorder” that had followed the governor’s and legislature’s actions. Public resistance to a constitutional right does not suspend that right. The Court also noted that the unrest had not appeared on its own — state officials had encouraged and organized it, and the Court would not let them use the resulting chaos as a reason for delay.1Justia. Cooper v Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958)
The second question was more fundamental: could a state governor and legislature simply refuse to follow a Supreme Court ruling they disagreed with? Again, the answer was no, and the Court’s reasoning here is the reason Cooper v. Aaron is still cited today.
Why All Nine Justices Signed
Chief Justice Warren and Justices Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Burton, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, and Whittaker all signed the opinion together. Several justices had joined the Court after Brown was decided, and the joint signature made clear that every sitting member personally endorsed Brown and its application to Little Rock. The unusual format was itself a message to state officials still hoping the Court might soften its position.
Judicial Supremacy and the Rejection of Interposition
The Court grounded its answer in Marbury v. Madison’s 1803 declaration that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”3Congress.gov. ArtIII.S1.3 Marbury v Madison and Judicial Review Building on Marbury, the justices held that the Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Brown “is the supreme law of the land,” and that Article VI of the Constitution makes that interpretation binding on every state.4Congress.gov. Article VI – Supreme Law
This went further than Marbury. Marbury established that the Court could strike down laws conflicting with the Constitution. Cooper v. Aaron said the Court’s reading of the Constitution carries the same binding force as the constitutional text itself. Every state legislator, governor, and judge takes an oath under Article VI to support the Constitution, and supporting the Constitution means following the Court’s interpretation of it. No state official can substitute a personal reading for the Court’s.1Justia. Cooper v Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958)
The opinion explicitly rejected interposition and nullification. Any state attempt to obstruct a federal court order, the Court said, violates the supreme law of the land.
What Happened After the Ruling
Governor Faubus did not comply. On September 12, 1958, the same day the Court announced its decision, he signed a package of bills the Arkansas legislature had passed in special session. Act 4 authorized the governor to close any school facing integration. Three days later, Faubus shut all four of Little Rock’s public high schools: Central High, Hall High, Little Rock Technical High, and Horace Mann.5Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Lost Year
The closures lasted the entire 1958–59 school year — the “Lost Year.” A special election held under Act 4 showed voters backing the closures three to one. The buildings sat empty, though 177 teachers and administrators were still required to report for work, and Faubus allowed high school football to continue. Thousands of students went without school. Some enrolled in private academies, some left the state, and many, disproportionately Black students, lost a year of education.5Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Lost Year
The closures eventually collapsed politically. A group called the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools grew past 1,600 members and led a recall campaign that removed three Faubus-allied segregationists from the school board in May 1959. The schools reopened that fall, and integration resumed.
Why Cooper v. Aaron Still Matters
Cooper v. Aaron is cited whenever a government official questions whether a Supreme Court ruling is binding on them. The principle it announced — that the Court’s constitutional interpretations bind all government officials, not just the parties to the particular lawsuit — is known as judicial supremacy, and it remains one of the strongest and most contested doctrines in American constitutional law.
Courts have relied on the case well outside the school context. It has been cited for the propositions that all state officials are agents of the state for equal protection purposes, that public opposition to a constitutional right cannot justify denying it, and that the Supreme Court will enforce orders issued by lower federal courts. It has also been used to reject federal executive branch agencies that refused to follow circuit court precedent within the same circuit.
The ruling closed the door on interposition. No court since 1958 has accepted a state’s claim that it may nullify a federal court ruling within its borders. Cooper v. Aaron stands as the definitive rejection of the idea that states can decide for themselves which parts of the Constitution, as interpreted by the judiciary, they will obey.