17th_Street_School
Westminster School District
Public school district in Orange County, California (USA)
The Westminster School District (WSD) is an elementary school district in Orange County, California, established in 1872 and headquartered in Westminster.[7] It operates schools in Westminster, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, and Midway City.[8]
It operates elementary and middle schools. High school students attend schools in the Huntington Beach Union High School District as well as in the Garden Grove Unified School District.[9]
Racial segregation and discrimination against Mexican-American students by the school district resulted in a 1947 federal court case, Mendez v. Westminster, which ordered desegregation of the district's schools, so that Mexican and non-Mexican children attended the same schools. The plaintiffs had argued that Mexican-Americans were white and therefore should be allowed to attend the schools reserved for white children. The courts ruled that even if the students were not white, public schools "must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage", except when segregation was explicitly authorized by state law.[10]