Brown_V._Board_Of_Education__A_Major_Civil_Rights_Decision

Brown V. Board Of Education: A Major Civil Rights Decision In May 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education [of Topeka, Kansas], the United States Supreme Court decided unanimously that public education systems segregated by race were inherently unequal and therefore deprived certain students of both an adequate education and their rights under the 14th amendment to the Constitution. In so doing, the court reversed its 1896 precedent (Plessy v. Ferguson), which had found in favor of separate but equal public facilities. BACKGROUND TO THE BROWN CASE During the 1940s, lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) successfully litigated a number of cases which resulted in making available to blacks certain publicly funded educational opportunities for which they had previously been denied. For example, in Maryland, blacks were deprived access to the state university’s law school. Comparable education was not available in the state’s publicly funded black colleges. The court ruled that the plaintiff was being denied his rights under the 14th amendment and must be admitted. However, the argument against segregated systems was more complex. The core issue was “separate but equal.” The court ruled in 1896 that states could establish racially segregated, publicly funded programs (e.g., education, transportation), provided that court, education, brown, school, public, decision, case, equal, amendment, systems, supreme, social, plessy, segregated, schools, precedent, naacp, issue, authors, 14th, states, society, separate, one, deprived, both, board, blacks, unequal, under, topeka, thinking, state, segregation, scientists, science