Docket NO. 1
Brown v. Board of Education
DecidedMay 17, 1954
9-0unanimous decision
Source: CourtListener.
Supreme Court rules that racially segregated public schools violate the Constitution
What it does
The ruling holds that racially segregated public schools are inherently unequal and therefore violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law, even if buildings, teacher qualifications, and other physical resources are made equal. It rejects the "separate but equal" framework as applied to public education and rules that any language in the earlier Plessy v. Ferguson decision suggesting otherwise, as it relates to education, no longer holds. The Court did not immediately order a remedy but instead asked the parties to submit further arguments on how to implement the ruling.
Who benefits
Black children attending racially segregated public schools in states that required or permitted segregation, and their families seeking admission to schools on a nonsegregated basis.
Who is affected
State and local governments in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and other states that operated racially segregated school systems under state constitutional or statutory authority requiring or permitting such segregation.
Practical impact
Public school systems across the country that legally required or permitted racial segregation could no longer justify that practice by pointing to equal physical facilities, teacher qualifications, or curricula. The Court did not issue an immediate implementation order, instead scheduling further argument on how relief should be formulated given the wide variety of local conditions, which led to a follow-up decision the next year addressing remedies.
Majority reasoning
The Court held that the historical record surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 was inconclusive about its intended effect on public education, partly because public education itself was undeveloped at that time, especially for Black children in the South. Because of this, the Court reasoned it could not decide the case by looking backward to 1868 or to 1896 when Plessy was decided, but instead had to consider public education "in the light of its full development and its present place in American life." The majority reasoned that education has become the most important function of state and local government, essential to citizenship, professional training, and social adjustment, so where a state provides it, it must be available to all on equal terms. Drawing on findings from the lower courts and psychological studies showing that separating children solely because of race generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to be undone, the Court concluded that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, and any contrary language in Plessy v. Ferguson was rejected as it applies to education.
Constitutional question
Does state-mandated racial segregation of children in public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even when the physical facilities and other tangible factors of the separate schools are equal?
Precedent changed
Language in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) suggesting that separate facilities can satisfy equal protection is rejected as applied to public education; the Court explicitly declined to extend the "separate but equal" doctrine to schooling.