Brown V Board Of Education Essay

Don't all students deserve the right to an equal education? Most people would agree that they do; however, this was not the case during the 1950s in the United States. During this period, the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement aimed to end racial segregation that had persisted since the end of America's Reconstruction. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in the South, and past court case precedents justified segregation in public facilities, including public schools. This continued until one case arose and challenged these practices. The Brown v. Board of Education case argued against the injustice of racial segregation in schools. Brown v. Board of Education had a significant impact on society and transformed America by abolishing legal

All the parents' requests were refused, including that of Oliver Brown. He was told that his daughter, Linda Brown, could not attend the nearby white school and instead would have to enroll her in an African American school far from her home (Duignan 2024). In 1951, Linda Brown’s father and several parents from her school filed a suit against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. The District Court based its decision on the precedent case of Plessy v. Ferguson, stating "separate but equal," meaning that although they were segregated, the schools were equal. The families disagreed and appealed, arguing that the different schools were not equal and that this violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (Cornell Law, n.d.). Similar cases were also appealed, leading to their consolidation under the title Brown v. Board of Education. The nation's best attorneys were recruited to argue the case (“Brown v. Board of Education Podcast,” n.d.). The Supreme Court originally heard the case in 1952. Although most of the Justices wanted to overturn the Plessy v. Ferguson precedent, they could not reach an

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" (Warren, n.d.). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment, which prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions, making this practice unconstitutional (Duignan 2024). The Supreme Court's verdict did not specify how schools should be integrated, but it allowed for questioning segregation in schools. While Kansas and some other states complied with the verdict, many schools and local officials in the South resisted. Though the Supreme Court’s decision did not achieve school desegregation alone, it sparked the civil rights movement in the U.S. This decision set the stage for many significant legislative reforms such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which aimed to dismantle institutionalized racism. This case sparked a new national conversation about greater awareness and understanding of the inequalities faced by African Americans.