Naim v. Naim (1955)
In 1952, Ham Say Naim, a Chinese man, and Ruby E. Lamberth, a white woman, married in North Carolina in order to evade Virginia's Racial Integrity Act. A year later, Lamberth filed for divorce from Naim on the grounds that their marriage was invalid under Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute. After the marriage was annulled, Naim's lawyer, David Carliner, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), attempted to appeal to the Supreme Court to fight for the unconstitutionality of the anti-miscegenation laws. The Supreme Court did not accept or reject the appeal, but sent the case back to Virginia due to their fear of increasing already growing tensions from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.
[Click here to see Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924.]
[Click here to see Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924.]
"It seems clear that the statute involved is unconstitutional...[yet] review at the present time would probably increase the tensions growing out of the school segregation cases" (Wallenstein 172).
- Harvey M. Grossman, U.S. Supreme Court law clerk (1954)
- Harvey M. Grossman, U.S. Supreme Court law clerk (1954)