Editing Fred Phelps (section)

====''Johnson v. Topeka Board of Education'', et. al.====

Phelps' national notoriety first came from a 1973 lawsuit (settled in 1978) on behalf of a 10-year-old African-American plaintiff, Evelyn Renee Johnson (some sources say Evelyn ''Rene'' Johnson), against the [[Topeka, Kansas|Topeka]] Board of Education (which had, in 1954, famously lost the pivotal racial discrimination case of ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]],'' ending legal racial segregation in U.S. public schools), and against related local, state and federal officials. In the 1973 case, Phelps argued that the Topeka Board of Education, in violation of the 1954 ruling, had not yet made its schools equal, and by attending Topeka's east-side, predominantly minority schools, the black plaintiff had received an inferior education.<ref name="phelps_dies_2014_03_20_wichita_eagle" /><ref name="new_suit_1973_10_23_nytimes_com">Ayres, B. Drummond: [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/23/archives/nearly-20-years-after-landmark-court-case-new-suit-charges-topeka.html "New Suit Charges Topeka Schools Still Discriminate Racially,"] October 23, 1973, ''[[New York Times]],'' [[Optical character recognition|OCR]] text retrieved from the ''New York Times'' print archive, August 26, 2020</ref><ref name="twenty_years_1974_06_usccr">[https://books.google.com/books?id=w77DdV_RigoC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17 ''Twenty Years After Brown: The shadows of the past:''] A report of the [[U.S. Commission on Civil Rights]],  June 1974, p.17, footnote #15, retrieved from [[Harvard Law Library]] copy, as reproduced in [[Google Books]]' photocopy, August 26, 2020</ref>

Initially, Phelps attempted to file the case as a [[class action]], in the U.S. District Court for Kansas. Asking the court to order an end to the alleged discrimination and suggesting that busing might be at least one remedy, Phelps also sought $100 million in actual damages, plus another $100 million in punitive damages—or, alternatively, $20,000 for each of the 10,000 students he claimed were in the aggrieved class of victims.<ref name="phelps_dies_2014_03_20_wichita_eagle" /><ref name="new_suit_1973_10_23_nytimes_com" /> Nevertheless, the federal district and appellate courts denied the class action filing, limiting the case to Phelps's initial plaintiff, Evelyn Johnson, alone.<ref name="settlement_1979_04_18_gardencity_telegram">[https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1631454/ "School Settlement,"] April 18, 1979, ''[[Garden City Telegram]],'' [[Garden City, Kansas]], [[Optical character recognition|OCR]] text retrieved from [[Newspapers.com]] August 26, 2020</ref>

The case fueled a national debate about [[racial integration]] of schools,<ref name="integration_1973_10_28_nytimes_com">[https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/28/archives/fighting-an-old-war-on-same-front-school-integration-the-nation-a.html "School Integration,"] October 28, 1973, ''[[New York Times]],'' [[Optical character recognition|OCR]] text retrieved from the ''New York Times'' print archive, August 26, 2020</ref> and prompted the U.S. [[Department of Health, Education and Welfare]], by 1974, to order the Topeka board to develop corrective remedies.<ref name="twenty_years_1974_06_usccr" />

Topeka's school board did not contest the charges. On the guidance of its insurance provider, it settled the litigation (with no admission of wrongdoing) for $19,500—$12,400 of which went to Phelps. While the settlement drew some praise, controversy arose when the judge ordered the settlement amount sealed at the request of the insurer—apparently with Phelps's approval. (Details leaked out to the media anyway.) Phelps announced he would file more such cases, as class actions, but the insurance company stated it would not pay for any more of them.<ref name="phelps_dies_2014_03_20_wichita_eagle" /><ref name="new_suit_1973_10_23_nytimes_com" /><ref name="settlement_1979_04_18_gardencity_telegram" /><ref name="explanations_1979_04_17_manhattan_mercury">[https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/424063700/ "Explanations badly needed,"] editorial, April 17, 1979, ''[[Manhattan Mercury]],'' [[Manhattan, Kansas]], [[Optical character recognition|OCR]] text retrieved from [[Newspapers.com]] August 26, 2020</ref>