School Desegregation and the Supreme Court

in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct.

686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) with regard to its impact on public education, as well as its effect on old laws and similar cases in other areas. This case will also be placed into its historical context, and the judicial decision handed down will be evaluated.

This school desegregation case is justifiably famous for ending segregation practices which had been prevalent in the South and other areas since the days of Reconstruction, during which the South saw the return of "white man's government" and the passage

of state laws not unlike the "Black Codes" adopted right after the Civil War to "keep the Negro in his place." Under criminal penalties, these state laws required the segregation of the white and Negro races in public and semi-public places, including separate schools, parks, waiting rooms, bus and railroad accommodations. In light of this apparent violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which made it a crime and a civil wrong for anyone to deny any other person

. . . the full and equal enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color . . .(quoted in Cushman and

. . .
. . . with respect to segregated schools" (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 489). Moreover, until the present cases, it had not been necessary to "re-examine" the "separate but equal" doctrine "to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff" (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 492). In 1938 and 1948, the Supreme Court had ruled against two states--Missouri and Oklahoma--that they were not providing "substantially equal" tax-supported law schools for both whites and Negroes (Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada and Sipuel v. University of Oklahoma). Again, in a 1950 case, the Court noted that, since there was not an "equivalent" law school for Negroes in Texas, "the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that petitioner be admitted to the University of Texas Law School" (Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents). But in the 1954 cases, the Supreme Court finally had to come to grips with the "separate but equal" doctrine itself, and do so by considering public education "in the light of . . . its present place in American life through-out the Nation" (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 492-493). With respect to this latter point, the Court found that: Today, education is perhaps the most import
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Education Topeka, Supreme Court, Plessy Ferguson, Serrano Priest, Fourteenth Amendment, Kansas Segregation, Jim Crow, Rights Act, Milliken Bradley, Bolling Sharpe, education topeka, brown board education, board education, brown board, board education topeka, supreme court, plessy ferguson, separate equal, public education, fourteenth amendment, equal protection, school finance, separate equal doctrine, equal educational opportunity, plessy ferguson 163,
Approximate Word count = 2660
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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