[EVENT] Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Mr. Chief Justice Dewey delivers the opinion of the Court:

 

We have been privy to hearing a number of cases from Southern and Midwestern states. In each of these cases, children of these states request—through legal counsel—for the Courts to recognize their right to attend places of public education on a desegregated basis. These children have been denied free access to schools on the basis of race alone. The system of segregation has denied plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.

In each of these cases, other than the case presented from the State of Delaware, a Federal District Court denied relief on the basis of the “separate but equal” doctrine presented in case 163, U.S. 537, Plessy v. Ferguson. This doctrine allows for the system of segregation that exists in our nation, but additionally requires the separate facilities to be truly equal. The Supreme Court of Delaware recognized this, ordering that plaintiffs be admitted to segregated white schools, on the basis that such schools were in fact superior to black schools.

Plaintiffs now contend that segregated public schools across the nation are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal” and as such are denied the equal protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court recognized the importance of the present question and has taken jurisdiction.

Arguments before this Court have been centred around questions surrounding the adoption and intention of the Fourteenth Amendment, as passed in 1868. Although this Court has done its due diligence to adjudicate and consider the many conditions that led to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment through Congress and ratification by the States, our settlement must be inconclusive. The post-War reality in the United States remained murky, it is difficult to determine with any guarantee of certainty what the intended reality of the legislation was.

With regards to the question at hand, this murkiness is compounded by the lack of a public school system in 1868 that functioned in a manner similar to our present school system. Schooling at the time remained largely private, and although slavery had been expunged by the Thirteenth Amendment, the living present for many black Americans was one of poverty and non-education.

Many of the initial cases presented to this Court understood the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to all black Americans; the “separate but equal” doctrine did not make an appearance in this Court until 1896 with the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, involving transportation services. This Court recognizes six cases that have invoked the “separate but equal” ruling. Neither Cumming v. County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528, nor Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, challenged the validity of the ruling. More recent cases involved with graduate level education have found inequalities in the state of education within our nation. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337; Sipuel v. Oklahoma, 332 U.S. 631; Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637. Each of these cases recognized a certain level of inequality existed between black and white students, although none of these cases required questioning the validity of the “separate but equal” ruling. Moreover, in the case of Sweatt v. Painter, supra, the Court specifically chose to withhold judgement on whether Plessy v. Ferguson is applicable to education.

The present question before the Court has left us with no other option. We must expand our gaze from the question of whether the present services are in fact equal, and to the wider question of whether an equal system is able to exist within a segregated one. We cannot do this by reviewing the circumstances as they existed with the drafting of the Amendment in 1868, nor the realities of America during the authoring of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Instead this Court is ushered to consider the reality of education across the United States as it exists today. Is the segregated system of education, as it exists across the United States today, in compliance with the equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment?

The modern way of life in America is built on the fundamental right of education. The system of compulsory education and the great expense the States of our nation go to ensure the functionality of our education systems demonstrate the immense importance of education. Our democratic system of government is built on the ability to train and equip future voters with understanding of our laws. Our great cultural exports the world over are built on a bedrock of public education; every American is exposed to the greatest accomplishments of American art, and are each given the chance to provide their own addition to our portfolio. The security and prosperity of every American is ensured with this nation-wide buy-in to the educational system. Any child that is denied education is doomed, doubtless to fail, unequipped for the modern world. It is on this basis that we must recognize that if a state is going to provide public education, it thus constitutes a right that must be available on fair and equal terms for all Americans.

Then we are once again presented with the question, does segregation of public schooling solely on the basis of race deprive children of the equal opportunity of education? Can two equal education systems exist in parallel, segregated from one another, even if the facilities are purported to be ‘equal’?

We do not believe that such a system can exist.

In Sweatt v. Painter, supra, this Court demonstrated that a segregated law school could not provide equal educational opportunities. This Court found that the reality of teaching could not be easily quantified to be measured.

In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, supra, this Court found that the ability for a black student to attend and be treated just as any other student formed an intangible foundation for the students education. The decision to segregate a pupil from the rest of their cohort on the basis of race alone creates a traumatic barrier to said pupil’s future prosperity that cannot be undone. This barrier was recognized in this very case by a lower Court which nonetheless felt compelled to rule against the plaintiffs.

Whatever may have motivated the initial ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, this Court feels that modern understandings of the psychological and sociological realities of education dismiss the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.

This Court finds that in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no basis. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly affected by the present system of educational segregation, are therefore being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision makes unnecessary any ruling on whether such segregation is also in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is so ordered.

 

Chief Justice, Thomas Edmund Dewey

Associate Justice, Hugo Lafayette Black

Associate Justice, Felix Frankfurter

Associate Justice, Stanley Forman Reed

Associate Justice, William Orville Douglas

Associate Justice, Robert Houghwout Jackson

Associate Justice, Harold Hitz Burton

Associate Justice, Joseph Barry Keenan

Associate Justice, Charles Fahy