"A Class Apart" is a documentary film chronicling the landmark 14th Amendment case,
Hernandez v. Texas. Discussion panel following the film featuring:

Carlos Sandoval
Producer and Director, A Class Apart; and
Recipient of the Sundance Special Jury Prize (2004) for his film Farmingville

In the tiny town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, field hand Pete Hernandez murdered tenant farmer Joe Espinosa after exchanging words in a gritty cantina. From this unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. "A Class Apart" tells the little-known story of a band of underdog Mexican-American lawyers who took their case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican-Americans.

In the landmark case, defense lawyers forged a daring legal strategy, arguing that Mexican-Americans were "a class apart" and did not neatly fit into a legal structure that recognized only blacks and whites. As legal skirmishes unfolded, the lawyers emerged as brilliant, dedicated, humorous and at times terribly flawed men. This film dramatically interweaves the story of its central characters -- activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens, murderer, and victim -- within the broader history of Latinos in America during a time of extraordinary change.