Nixon v. Herndon
E362095
Nixon v. Herndon was a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas law excluding Black citizens from Democratic Party primary elections as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Nixon v. Herndon canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3488620 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Nixon v. Herndon Context triple: [Grovey v. Townsend, relatedCase, Nixon v. Herndon]
-
A.
Minor v. Happersett
Minor v. Happersett was an 1875 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote, rejecting the argument that suffrage was a privilege of national citizenship.
-
B.
Kentucky v. Dennison
Kentucky v. Dennison was an 1861 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited federal power by holding that federal courts could not compel state governors to carry out interstate extradition.
-
C.
Chisholm v. Georgia
Chisholm v. Georgia was a 1793 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a state could be sued in federal court by a citizen of another state, a ruling that led directly to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment limiting such suits.
-
D.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
E.
Ableman v. Booth
Ableman v. Booth was an 1859 U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed federal supremacy over state courts in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Nixon v. Herndon Target entity description: Nixon v. Herndon was a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas law excluding Black citizens from Democratic Party primary elections as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
A.
Minor v. Happersett
Minor v. Happersett was an 1875 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote, rejecting the argument that suffrage was a privilege of national citizenship.
-
B.
Kentucky v. Dennison
Kentucky v. Dennison was an 1861 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited federal power by holding that federal courts could not compel state governors to carry out interstate extradition.
-
C.
Chisholm v. Georgia
Chisholm v. Georgia was a 1793 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a state could be sued in federal court by a citizen of another state, a ruling that led directly to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment limiting such suits.
-
D.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
E.
Ableman v. Booth
Ableman v. Booth was an 1859 U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed federal supremacy over state courts in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
civil rights case ⓘ constitutional law case ⓘ voting rights case ⓘ |
| affectedGroup | Black voters in Texas ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
civil rights law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ election law ⓘ |
| challengedLaw | Texas statute excluding Black citizens from Democratic Party primary elections ⓘ |
| citation | 273 U.S. 536 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted |
Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
Fourteenth Amendment ⓘ
surface form:
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
|
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| courtTerm | 1926 Term of the U.S. Supreme Court ⓘ |
| decidedBy | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1927-03-07 ⓘ |
| decisionDirection | pro-civil-rights ⓘ |
| defendant | C. F. Herndon ⓘ |
| fullCaseName | Nixon v. Herndon self-link ⓘ |
| hasJurisdiction |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| holding |
Texas law excluding Black citizens from Democratic Party primaries violated the Fourteenth Amendment
ⓘ
racial exclusion from primary elections by state statute is unconstitutional ⓘ |
| impact | limited states’ ability to use race-based primary election laws ⓘ |
| issueType |
denial of voting rights
ⓘ
racial segregation in politics ⓘ |
| languageOfProceedings | English ⓘ |
| legalDoctrine | state involvement in party primaries constitutes state action ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
constitutionality of white primary laws
ⓘ
equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment ⓘ racial discrimination in primary elections ⓘ state action in election regulation ⓘ |
| locationOfEvents |
El Paso
ⓘ
surface form:
El Paso, Texas
|
| majorityOpinionBy |
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
|
| originatingState | Texas ⓘ |
| partyAffected | Texas Democratic Party ⓘ |
| plaintiff | Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon ⓘ |
| plaintiffOccupation | physician ⓘ |
| plaintiffRace |
Black Americans
ⓘ
surface form:
African American
|
| precedentFor | later challenges to white primary systems ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Grovey v. Townsend
ⓘ
Nixon v. Condon ⓘ Smith v. Allwright ⓘ |
| remedy | Texas statute declared unconstitutional ⓘ |
| stateActionFound | yes ⓘ |
| subsequentHistory | Texas enacted new primary law later challenged in Nixon v. Condon ⓘ |
| timePeriod |
Jim Crow laws
ⓘ
surface form:
Jim Crow era
|
| vote | unanimous decision ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Nixon v. Herndon Description of subject: Nixon v. Herndon was a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas law excluding Black citizens from Democratic Party primary elections as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.