Mexican American parents and their children secured a major legal victory in 1930 with the course case Salvatierra v. Del Rio Independent School District. The case, filed in a Texas district court by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on behalf of Mexican American parents whose children attended a public elementary school in Del Rio, Texas, challenged the state’s existing “separate but equal” policy that allowed for distinct facilities for white and Mexican American students. Supporters of segregation contended that the Mexican American students’ comparatively weak grasp of English and below- average attendance records justified the policy, but District Court Judge Joseph Jones decreed that schools should be desegregated. The Texas Court of Appeals subsequently overturned Jones’s ruling, contending that the separation was based not on the students’ ethnicity but on their specific needs in the classroom.