Brown v Board of education case brief + full opinion

here you will see the Brown v Board of  Education case brief.

Brown v Board of education case is a landmark case in U.S constitutional law.

Brown v Board of education case paved the way for equal opportunity in U.S public schools regardless of race by declaring U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

Here I will share with you the Brown v Board of education case brief to help you understand everything you need to know about the Brown v Board of education case in a simple and accurate way.

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Brown v Board of education case brief

Brown v Board of education – 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954)

Decided on May 17, 1954

by

Justice Warren, Supreme Court of the United States

Parties

Oliver Brown, Mrs. Richard Lawton, Mrs. Sadie Emmanuel, et al., Appellants and Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al., Appellees.

Procedure

The Appellants sued Appellees in the District Court for the District of Kansas.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas held in favor of the Appellees.

The appellants appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Facts

The public school system in Topeka, Kansas, denied admitting local black resident Oliver Brown’s daughter in the closest elementary school, forcing her to take a bus to a segregated black school further away.

The Browns, along with twelve other black families in the area, filed a representative action against the Topeka Board of Education in federal court, claiming that its segregation policy was unconstitutional.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas held in favor of the Appellees by relying on the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court held that racial segregation was not in itself a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause if the facilities in question were otherwise equal, a doctrine known as “separate but equal.”

Dissatisfied with the decision of the District Court, the Appellants appealed to the Supreme Court.

Issue

Does the racial segregation of children in public schools unconstitutional?

Rule

In reaching its decision the court applied the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Equal Protection Clause is located at the end of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Reasoning

When applying the law to the facts, the court reasoned that Separate educational facilities are “inherently unequal,” and hence laws requiring them violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.

Even if the “tangible” factors of segregated schools are equal, Chief Justice Earl Warren (J. Warren) stated that separating black children from others of similar age and qualifications solely on the basis of race generates a sense of inferiority with respect to their status in the community and may affect their hearts and minds in a way that is unlikely to be undone.

Holding

Yes, the racial segregation of children in public schools is unconstitutional.

Judgment

The court requested the parties to re-appear.

Brown II

The Brown II case followed when the Supreme Court requested the parties to re-appear on the following term.

This time the Supreme Court heard arguments from schools seeking relief from the desegregation process.

Finally, the responsibility of enforcing school desegregation was given to district courts, with the requirement that desegregation takes place “with all deliberate speed.”

Public reaction

This decision of Brown II displeased supporters of the previous decision.

Critics argued that the phrase “all deliberate speed” was too unclear to ensure that the court’s order was implemented with reasonable haste.

Many Southern states and school districts interpreted “Brown II” as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years.

Read the full Decision here

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