Robert Lee Carter

CARTER, ROBERT LEE

Robert Lee Carter is a federal district court judge who, as counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), played a pivotal role in the SCHOOL DESEGREGATION cases of the 1950s. Carter argued BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954), before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Carter was born March 11, 1917, in Careyville, Florida. As a child he moved to New Jersey, where he attended public schools in Newark and East Orange. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania, in 1937, then went on to earn a bachelor of laws degree from Howard University Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1940. He also earned a master of laws degree
from Columbia University in 1941.
With WORLD WAR II heating up, Carter
entered the Army Air Force where he encountered
racism and SEGREGATION. During his time
in the army he pressed charges against two white
soldiers who had harassed him with racial slurs.
He also refused to live off base as black soldiers
were required to do. Because of his outspoken
defiance of segregation he was transferred to a
different base. Later he successfully defended a
black soldier charged with raping a white
woman. In retaliation for his participation in the
case he was given an administrative discharge,
which is neither honorable nor dishonorable
and leaves the recipient open to being drafted.
He enlisted the help of his mentor and former
law professor, WILLIAM H. HASTIE, who would
later become the first African American to sit as
a lifetime federal judge outside the Virgin
Islands. Hastie represented Carter in a petition
before the discharge review board, which finally
granted Carter an honorable discharge. When
Carter left the army, he had achieved the rank of
second lieutenant.
After leaving military service, Carter became
assistant special counsel with the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund (LDF), a position he held from
1945 to 1946. In 1948, he became director of veterans’
affairs for American Veterans (AMVETS),
where he served until 1949.
In 1950, Carter returned to the NAACP and
joined the fight for CIVIL RIGHTS. In 1951, he
brought an innovative challenge to the SEPARATE-
BUT-EQUAL doctrine when he summoned
social scientist Kenneth B. Clark as a witness for
the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott (98 F. Supp. 529 [E.D.S.C. 1951]). Clark testified that his research
with black children indicated that their selfimage
and self-esteem were damaged by any system
that separated them from their white peers,
whether the system was equal or not. At the
time, this was highly unorthodox evidence to
present at trial. Although the court ruled against
the plaintiffs in Briggs, “by holding that segregation
of the races in the public schools, as
required by the federal constitution and South
Carolina state law, was not of itself a denial of
the EQUAL PROTECTION of the laws guaranteed
by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Clark’s testimony
had set the stage for the arguments that
would be presented in Brown and other school
desegregation cases. Briggs was later appealed
with several other cases, including Brown, which
Carter argued and won. His victory in Brown
established him as a preeminent civil rights
attorney and he went on to participate in the
appeals of scores of other cases.
Carter continued as an assistant special
counsel with the NAACP until becoming general
counsel in 1956. He remained with the
NAACP for 13 more years before leaving to
enter private practice. During his years of practice
Carter argued 22 cases before the Supreme
Court, winning all but one.
In 1972, President RICHARD M. NIXON
appointed Carter to be a U.S. district judge for
the Southern District of New York. During his
long and distinguished career, Carter has
received numerous awards and recognitions. He
was named a Columbia University Urban Fellow
(1968–69) and has served as an adjunct professor
at New York University Law School (1965–70),
Yale University (1975–77), and the University of
Michigan Law School (1977). In 1991, he served
as a Shikes Fellow at Harvard University. He
holds honorary degrees from numerous institutions
including Howard University School of
Law; Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania; Northeastern
University; and the College of the Holy
Cross. Carter was a recipient of Howard University’s
Alumni Award for Distinguished Postgraduate
Achievement. In 1995, the Federal Bar
Council awarded its Emory Bucknor Medal for
Outstanding Public Service to Judge Carter.
In December 1986, Carter became a senior
judge on the court and since then, has continued
to be actively involved in a number of important
cases. One example included a 25-year-old discrimination
case where a New York City sheet
metal workers union was ordered to make millions
of dollars in back pay to minority workers
who claimed that they were denied work opportunities.
In 2001, Carter presided over the fourweek
trial of former Teamster president Ron
Carey on federal perjury charges. The trial,
which was interrupted by the September 11,
2001, attack on the World Trade Center, ended
in an acquittal for Carey.
Along with his work on the bench, Carter
also continued to lecture in the United States
and abroad, publish articles and essays in
numerous publications, and sit on boards, committees,
and task forces devoted to ending discrimination
and furthering social justice.

FURTHER READINGS
“Carter, Robert L.” Just the Beginning Foundation. Available online at  (accessed June 13, 2003).

Kohn, Alan. 1987. “Judge Carter’s Career Marked By Principle Over Pragmatism.” New York Law Journal 197 (January 2).

Wise, Daniel. 1989. “Judge in Princeton-Newport: ‘Flinty, With Keen Moral Sense.’” New York Law Journal 201 (June 19).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Marshall, Thurgood; Warren Court.