From Brown v.

« From Brown v.

Board of Education Below is the Supreme Court's final opinion on Brown v.

Board of Education, which overruled Plessy v.

Ferguson, the 1896 ruling that established the “separate but equal” doctrine in education and public facilities.

Certain terms, while appropriate in the 1950s, are no longer considered standard usage. Brown v.

Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Decided May 17, 1954 Mr.

Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases...are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidatedopinion. In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of theircommunity on a nonsegregated basis.

In each instance, they have been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permittingsegregation according to race.

This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.

In each ofthe cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine announced bythis Court in Plessy v.

Ferguson, 163 U.S.

537.

Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, eventhough these facilities be separate.

In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to thewhite schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools. The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of thelaws.

Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction.

Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heardthis Term on certain questions propounded by the Court. Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

It covered exhaustively consideration of theAmendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment.

Thisdiscussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced.

Atbest, they are inconclusive.

The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among “all personsborn or naturalized in the United States.” Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them tohave the most limited effect.

What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history, with respect to segregated schools, is the status of public education at that time.

In theSouth, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold.

Education of white children was largely in the hands ofprivate groups.

Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate.

In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law insome states.

Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences as well as in the business and professional world.

It is truethat public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generallyignored in the congressional debates.

Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today.

The curriculum was usuallyrudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states; and compulsory school attendance wasvirtually unknown.

As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect onpublic education. In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposeddiscriminations against the Negro race.

The doctrine of “separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v.

Ferguson,supra, involving not education but transportation.

American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century.

In this Court, there have been sixcases involving the “separate but equal” doctrine in the field of public education.

In Cumming v.

Board of Education of Richmond County, 175 U.S.

528, and GongLum v.

Rice, 275 U.S.

78, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged.

In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in thatspecific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications.

State of Missouri ex rel.

Gaines v.

Canada, 305U.S.

337; Sipuel v.

Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 332 U.S.

631; Sweatt v.

Painter, 339 U.S.

629; McLaurin v.

Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S.637.

In none of these cases was it necessary to re-examine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff.

And in Sweatt v.

Painter, supra, the Court expresslyreserved decision on the question whether Plessy v.

Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education. In the instant cases, that question is directly presented.

Here, unlike Sweatt v.

Painter, there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have beenequalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other “tangible” factors.

Our decision, therefore,cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases.

We must look instead to the effect ofsegregation itself on public education. In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v.

Ferguson was written.

Wemust consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

Only in this way can it be determinedif segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws. Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.

Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for educationboth demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society.

It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities,even service in the armed forces.

It is the very foundation of good citizenship.

Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, inpreparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment.

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably beexpected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must bemade available to all on equal terms. We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other“tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. In Sweatt v.

Painter, supra, in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on “those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school.” In McLaurin v.

Oklahoma State Regents, supra, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: “...

his ability tostudy, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.” Such considerations apply with added force tochildren in grade and high schools.

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to. »