''Naim v. Naim'', 197 Va. 80; 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955), is a case regarding interracial marriage. The case was decided by the

Supreme Court of Virginia The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative ...

on June 13, 1955. The Court held the marriage between the appellant (Han Say Naim) and the

appellee In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

(Ruby Elaine Naim) to be void under the

Code of Virginia The Code of Virginia is the statutory law of the U.S. state of Virginia, and consists of the codified legislation of the Virginia General Assembly. The 1950 Code of Virginia is the revision currently in force. The previous official versions we ...

(1950). The appellee, a white woman living in Virginia, and the appellant, a Chinese man not living in Virginia, went to North Carolina to be married on June 26, 1952, specifically because there was a Virginia statute, the

Racial Integrity Act of 1924 In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the Racial Integrity Act. The act reinforced racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage and classifying as "white" a person "who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasia ...

, banning interracial marriage, while North Carolina law banned marriages between whites and blacks but not between whites and Asians. They then returned to Virginia, where they lived as husband and wife. A year after the marriage, Ruby Naim filed for

annulment Annulment is a legal procedure within Law, secular and Religious law, religious legal systems for declaring a marriage Void (law), null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually ex post facto law, retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is c ...

, as the marriage was in contravention of Virginia's miscegenation laws, with Han Say Naim arguing that a marriage valid in North Carolina was valid throughout the United States. The circuit court of the

city of Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dense ...

granted an annulment, but Han Say Naim appealed to the state supreme court, which upheld the circuit court's decision. The Virginia statute stated: ::It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this chapter, the term 'white person' shall apply only to such person as has no trace whatever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding the intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this chapter Han Say Naim's attorney,

David Carliner David Carliner ( – ) was an immigration, civil liberties, and civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C. Among the earliest practitioners of American immigration and naturalization law, he was an early combatant of anti-miscegenation laws, challe ...

, attempted to appeal the state's decision to the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, with the backing of the

American Jewish Congress The American Jewish Congress (AJCongress or AJC) is an association of American Jews organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts. History The AJCongress was ...

, the Japanese American Citizens League, the Association on American Indian Affairs and the Association of Immigration and Nationality Lawyers. The justices, however, refused to consider the appeal, fearing that to do so would further encourage opposition to the enforcement of ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

''. As Justice Tom C. Clark said, "one bombshell at a time is enough."{{Cite journal, last=Delgado, first=Richard, date=2012, title=Naim v. Naim, url=http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=faculty, journal=Nevada Law Journal, volume=12, access-date=July 11, 2016

Sources

Further references

*Gregory Michael Dorr, "Principled Expediency: Eugenics, ''Naim v. Naim'', and the Supreme Court", ''American Journal of Legal History'' 42 (1998): 119-159. * Dennis J. Hutchinson, "Unanimity and Desegregation: Decisionmaking in the Supreme Court, 1948-1958", ''Georgetown Law Journal'' 68 (1979–80): 61-68. 1955 in United States case law Virginia state case law 1955 in Virginia United States family case law Interracial marriage in the United States Marriage law in the United States

See also

Sources

Further references