In March of 1945, five families in Orange County, California, brought a class-action lawsuit against four school districts on behalf of their own children and five thousand other children who were forced to attend segregated schools for Mexican children. The lawsuit was filed as Mendez et al. v. Westminster et al. and represented five families: the Estradas, the Guzmans, the Mendezes, the Palominos, and the Ramirezes. On their behalf, attorney David C. Marcus challenged the existence of Mexican remedial schools in four districts of Orange County, California. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in an en banc decision that the forced segregation of Mexican American students into separate “Mexican schools” was unconstitutional.