The Judiciary

Brown v. Board of Ed

Yes. Despite the equalization of the schools by "objective" factors, intangible issues foster and maintain inequality. Racial segregation in public education has a detrimental effect on minority children because it is interpreted as a sign of inferiority. The long-held doctrine that separate facilities were permissible provided they were equal was rejected. Separate but equal is inherently unequal in the context of public education. The unanimous opinion sounded the death-knell for all forms of state-maintained racial separation.

The Supreme Court case that I’m going to talk about is Brown v. Board of Ed. Browns argument was to raise the legal issue of having separate school systems for black and whites. These separate school systems were unequal and unjust and also violates the Fourteenth Amendment that protects equality for free blacks. It was very hard for the Supreme Court to come to a decision because of that they were divided on the issue. Some wanted to keep the system but others wanted to change the system that was put into play from the Plessy case that continued to legalize Jim Crow and other form of racial discrimination. After many years they decided, “Separate but equal” was unconstitutional and the separate school systems were unequal and unfair to blacks.

The main reason why I picked this case is because I’m an African American who has graduated from an integrated public school. Those Supreme Court cases has changed the school system so that I could have a chance to be able to succeed from it. I believe that this case is important because at the time for many blacks this was a step towards segregation and even being looked as worthy enough to being the same schools as whites in an article called “History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment” states “relying on sociological tests, such as the one performed by social scientist Kenneth Clark, and other data, he also argued that segregated school systems had a tendency to make black children feel inferior to white children, and thus such a system should not be legally permissible.” They were once taught to feel inferior to white children to being able to go to school with them. This case is what helped many blacks to advance in education.

Work Cited

 

"Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1)." Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech, n.d. Dec 5, 2015. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

"History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment." United States Courts. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2015.