Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Racial segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even when physical facilities and other tangible factors are equal.

Oliver Brown and twelve other parents filed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, challenging the state's racial segregation of public elementary schools. Under Kansas law, cities with populations over 15,000 could maintain separate school facilities for Black and white students. The named plaintiff's daughter, Linda Brown, had to walk six blocks to a bus stop to ride to a segregated Black school one mile away, despite a white school being only seven blocks from her home. The case was consolidated with four similar cases from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia.

Does the racial segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even when physical facilities and other tangible factors are equal, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Chief Justice Warren, writing for a unanimous Court, focused on the importance of education in modern American life and the psychological harm inflicted by state-mandated segregation. The Court considered social science research, including Kenneth Clark's doll studies, demonstrating that segregation generated feelings of inferiority in Black children that affected their motivation to learn. Warren concluded that separating children solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The Court declined to rely on the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment, finding it inconclusive, and instead evaluated segregation in light of education's current role in American life.

Brown v. Board of Education is among the most important decisions in American legal history. It overruled Plessy v. Ferguson's 'separate but equal' doctrine, declared state-mandated racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, and catalyzed the civil rights movement. The decision established that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits racial classifications that impose badges of inferiority, a principle later extended to other contexts including public facilities, transportation, and housing.

In Brown II (1955), the Court ordered desegregation to proceed 'with all deliberate speed.' Implementation faced massive resistance across the South. The decision's principles were extended and reinforced in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), Green v. County School Board (1968), Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), and numerous subsequent cases addressing de jure and de facto segregation.