The case, as we find it, then, is that the State has undertaken the function of
education in the law, but has omitted students of one race from the only adequate
provision made for it, and omitted them solely because of their color. If those
students are to be offered equal treatment in the performance of the function, they
must, at present, be admitted to the one school provided.123

Murray was the first victory for the NAACP in pursuing the Margold strategy to obtain
integrated public facilities. The path towards the elimination of segregation, however, was not a
smooth one. Courts were often willing to find that inequality in segregation was tolerable or that
integration was not an appropriate remedy. For example, Marshall met defeat when he attempted
to follow up the victory in the law school with a similar suit on the high school level. Baltimore
County had no high school for black students; instead, the county sent black high school students
to high schools in Baltimore City for which Baltimore County paid the tuition. The tuition
system had proved unsatisfactory, in part because only half of the black children taking the high
school admission test passed and in part because the county appropriations for tuition were
inadequate.

Margaret Williams passed her examinations in the seventh grade and was given a
certificate by her principal certifying that she was promoted to the eighth grade. She took
another examination given by county officials in Catonsville in which her marks were below
passing and the county refused to pay for her tuition in the city high school. Since the county
would not pay for her tuition in the city, Ms. Williams and her father brought suit to have her
admitted to the white public high school in Catonsville. The suit was widely regarded as directed
at forcing the county to build a high school for black students. Plaintiffs pointed to the Manual
of the State Department of Education which said that possession of an elementary school
certificate "is sufficient to entitle the pupil to enter an approved high school without an
examination." Marshall also argued that the test given was biased. White elementary school
children took it in their home schools and it was constructed with reference to the work they did.
Black children were bused to an unfamiliar central site and their coursework was not known to
the examiners. The Court of Appeals said that plaintiffs sought the wrong remedy. They should
have sued for tuition to the city school and for a better qualification test.124 In any event, the
Court said in Williams v. Zimmerman that there was no denial of equal protection. The language
of the manual was superseded by the established custom of administering a test systemwide.
Differences in the impact of the test were compensated for by using a lower passing standard for
black children.

Possibly there might be, under some circumstances, inequalities encountered in
dealing with the two races separately that would render the maintenance of the
separation inconsistent with the constitutional requirement of equal protection of
the laws, but the allowance of separate treatment at all involves allowance of
some incidental differences, and some inequalities, in meeting practical problems
presented. And it is the opinion of the court that the differences here amount to
no more.125

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