Brown v. Board of Education, which was ruled on May 17, 1954, is an iconic case from the history of civil rights in the US. This essay will explore the background, verdict, and impact of the case, from a legal point of view, from the perspective of society and legacy. The case, which began in 1951 when Oliver Brown sued Topeka, Kansas public schools, denying his daughter Linda admission to white schools (‘Brown v Board of Education’), argued that racial segregation of schools violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause assuring equal treatment under law (‘Brown v Board of Education’). The court then in Kansas recognized injury in racial segregation but originally upheld separate but equal schools (Duignan). The cases were then consolidated in 1952, and presented in front of …show more content…
On 17 May 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were by definition unequal, reversing the doctrine of separate but equal set out in Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 (‘Brown v Board of Education (I) | Case Brief for Law Students |Casebriefs’). Warren said that it wasn’t possible to prevent students from being affected by race when they were segregated, and that this broke the 14th Amendment’s equal protection law. Despite the ruling of the Court, there was no prescription given as to how desegregation needed to take place. And so, there was much confusion, as well as resistance. The qualifier added by the Court in May 1955 – that desegregation needs to happen ‘with all deliberate speed’ – invited evasion. And then, in 1957 came the celebrated (and traumatic) scene of the Little Rock Nine – a group of nine Black teenage students hoping to attend Central High – who were denied access to the school; Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called out the National Guard in a blatant and violent obstruction of