Supreme Court Case: Brown Versus The Board Of Education

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Brown versus the Board of Education, shaped public education for the better back in the 1950’s. Though the name states Brown was the plaintiff in the case, that was just the name given to combine five separate but similar court cases; those cases included: Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs versus Elliot, David versus Board of Education of Prince Edward County, Boiling versus Sharpe, and Gebhart versus Ethel. Each of these five cases focused on the segregation on public schools and the inequality the children were experiencing. Many may wonder why it took so long for a case like this to reach the Supreme Court, but there were similar cases in higher education brought to the Supreme Court prior. In 1938, Missouri ex rel Gaines …show more content…

In 1946, another African American man, Heman Sweat, was applying to University of Texas Law School, but was denied acceptance due to his race. In an attempt to get away with not admitting Sweat to the white law school, the University of Texas set up a black law school that did not live up to the standards it should have. Sweat knew he was not receiving the same education at the black law school that he would at the white law school, so he decided to sue and the case made it to the Supreme Court. In 1950, the Supreme Court completely agreed with Sweat, because of the obvious inequalities in the two schools. The University of Texas believed they were following the phrase “separate but equal,” when in reality nothing about the schools was equal. The Supreme Court ruled the University of Texas must admit Sweat into their white law …show more content…

The Fourteenth Amendment calls for equal protection of all citizens, which in my opinion applies to adults, as well as children; children are also citizens of the United States of America, and deserve to be protected by the Constitution, just as any adult citizen would be. As for education not being mentioned in the Constitution, I believe those writing it did not see education being such an issue in the future. I’m sure there were school systems in place when the Constitution was written, and they assumed that system would work many decades into the future, unfortunately those systems did not work, but this is why the constitution can be amended. The very first version of the Constitution cannot be expected to cover every issue that may arise of 2015, because no one back then would have known these issues would