Rosen, Robert N., 1947-....

Robert N. Rosen was born in Charleston, S.C. He was educated at the University of Virginia and Harvard University and received his law degree from the University of South Carolina. Rosen is the author of other short works on the history of Charleston, S.C. during the Civil War. He currently resides in Charleston, where he is a practicing attorney.

The son of Ida and Morris Rosen, Robert N. Rosen was born in 1947 in Charleston, South Carolina, where his mother was a teacher and his father an attorney. Rosen attended public schools in Charleston and was a student at Rivers High School when it became the first integrated school in the city. He graduated from University of Virginia in 1969, earned his Master's in history at Harvard University in 1970, and graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1973. He served as Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of Charleston (1976-1985); as general counsel for the Charleston County School District (1982-2003) and for the Charleston Housing Authority (1984-2003). Rosen has practiced criminal and personal injury law; civil and commercial litigation; and administrative and zoning law. In the three cases represented in this collection, he defended the Charleston County School system against the initial charge that the Charleston County School District violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Aside from being an attorney, Rosen is also the author of several books on historical topics.

The case of United States of America and Richard Ganaway, II et. al vs. Charleston County School District and State of South Carolina began in 1981, with the U.S. government and Richard Ganaway, an African American parent of Richard Ganaway, II, alleging that the 1967 SC General Assembly Act # 340, vesting the Charleston County School District with certain powers, violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Liability (non jury, 6 October 1987-27 September, 1988) and damages were argued separately. In June 1990, the court decided there had been no intent to discriminate in the 1967 Act. There was a slight discriminatory effect, however, but since intent and effect had to be established to be judged a violation of the clause, the case was dismissed. The plaintiffs then appealed. The case was argued from 1991-1992; the court upheld the verdict except in one instance, vacating it and remanding it back to court where it was originally heard. The one instance hinged on how student transfers were made at Memminger, then a Magnet School in downtown Charleston. Transfers were not made on the basis of integration alone, but it appeared that some otherwise valid transfers were denied based on the belief that desegregative inter-district transfers were not allowed. After the case was remanded back to the lower court, no settlement could be reached, so the court had to decide; it ruled that if a transfer for valid, non-racial reasons, from one district to another, inadvertently achieves integration or segregation, that transfer was still valid and not discriminatory. If a valid transfer was denied because of racial reasons it would constitute a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and if a transfer was requested to achieve integration it would have to be denied, since the court had found the school system to be already fully integrated. Thus dealing with the issues remanded it, the court affirmed the earlier rulings that the Charleston County School District operated a unitary (unsegregated) system.