Brown v. Board of Education: Landmark School Desegregation Case

Introduction

It was only a few decades ago when students were segregated by color as well as ability. Those born white received the best school buildings, textbooks, and supplies for their educational path. Those born Black, however, were relegated to schools designated as "Black schools." They were given the textbooks that white schools no longer needed, and their supplies were substandard at best. One of the most famous court cases in the field of education is Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled on school law as it pertains to the United States Constitution. The events that case launched changed the way public education in America is delivered — from racial issues to special education needs. While it is an older case, it remains the foundational base from which thousands of subsequent cases have been measured.

The case began when a little girl named Linda Brown had to walk a mile through railroad switch yards to reach her designated Black school, even though her family lived less than seven blocks from a neighborhood white school. When Brown's father tried to enroll her in the white school, he was denied, and when he approached the school district itself, his concerns were ignored. Brown then took his case to the NAACP.

Synopsis of the Case

At the NAACP, the legal department became very interested. It had long sought a case it could use to challenge the national segregation of students but had difficulty finding parents willing to be on the front lines. Oliver Brown had no fear, and the NAACP launched on his behalf what would become one of the biggest court cases in the history of American education. By the time the case reached court, 12 other Black families had joined, making it a class action suit.

The defendants argued that school law mandated schools be equal but maintained that districts had the right to make them "separate but equal." Rather than methodically document the many ways in which Black and white schools were treated unequally by government funding bodies, the plaintiffs argued a different point: sending Black children to schools designated for Black students sent a message to every student in America that Black children were inferior to white children. This practice, they contended, made the schools inherently unequal in violation of the school law mandating equality.

"If the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90% of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum, or any school curriculum, cannot be equal under segregation."

The school board then argued that segregation was a fact of life outside of schools and that the district was actually doing Black children a service by providing them with a separate education in keeping with the national division of color. The board also argued that segregated schools were not necessarily harmful to Black children, pointing to great African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver, who had overcome more than just segregated schools to achieve what they achieved.

The initial ruling came down in favor of the school board, citing the earlier precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the judges had held that segregation was legal. The NAACP took the case to the appeals division of the Supreme Court, where it was joined by cases from three other states regarding school segregation. The judges could not reach a decision following the first round of arguments and agreed to hear a second round, at which time they rendered a landmark decision that forever changed the face of American education.

The Supreme Court's Decision

By unanimous vote, the panel ruled that there was no place for "separate but equal" in the nation's public school system. The ruling held that previous school laws allowing racially divided "separate but equal" schools actually violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, making the practice illegal at the federal level.

The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision did not abolish segregation in other public areas, such as restaurants and restrooms, nor did it require desegregation of public schools by a specific date. It did, however, declare the permissive or mandatory segregation that existed in 21 states unconstitutional.

At the time the case was filed, several states prohibited school segregation while others required it, creating a situation in which children were segregated depending solely on which state they happened to live in. This case ultimately paved the path for special education students to be moved out of isolated classrooms and included, as often as possible, in classrooms alongside their general education peers. It was the case from which schools were told they could no longer ignore disabled students, Black students, or female students — the case that provided the foundation for every student to be treated equally and fairly for the first time since the nation's public school system had been established.

Conclusion

The case of Brown v. Board of Education created the backbone for future cases addressing equal treatment in every area of education. It was a landmark decision in which the court publicly denounced the substandard treatment of Black students in the nation's schools, and it was a decision that helped strengthen the diverse character of this nation.