Today in History ^05/17/18

(1954) US Supreme Court rules school segregation unconstitutional

A lawsuit against unfair segregation is heard before the Supreme Court, and the unanimous ruling finds that establishing separate public schools for black and white students is unconstitutional. ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ will be a major landmark in the growing civil rights movement.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision effectively overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court’s unanimous decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the Civil Rights Movement, and a model for many future impact litigation cases. However, the decision’s fourteen pages did not spell out any sort of method for ending racial segregation in schools, and the Court’s second decision in Brown II only ordered states to desegregate “with all deliberate speed”.

Start date: 1951
End date: May 17, 1954
Majority: Warren, joined by unanimous

Judgment and order of the Supreme Court for the case
wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

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(1954) US Supreme Court rules school segregation unconstitutional.
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