Legal history brown v. board of education
Brown II.
Brown II was intended to work out the mechanics of desegregation. Due to the vagueness of the term "all deliberate speed," many states were able to stall the Court's order to desegregate their schools. The legal and social obstacles that southern states put in place and encouraged, in their effort to thwart integration, served as a catalyst for the student protests that launched the civil rights movement.
bolling v. sharpe (same day as brown v. board of education0
e Court ruled that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. In the wake of the decision, the District of Columbia and some school districts in the border states began to desegregate their schools voluntarily. State legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia adopted resolutions of "interposition and nullification" that declared the Court's decision to be "null, void, and no effect." Various southern legislatures passed laws that imposed sanctions on anyone who implemented desegregation, and enacted school closing plans that authorized the suspension of public education, and the disbursement of public funds to parents to send their children to private schools.
brown v. board of education
n August, a three-judge panel at the U. S. District Court unanimously held in the Brown v. Board of Education case that "no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination" existed in Topeka's schools. The U. S. District Court found that the physical facilities in White and Black schools were comparable and that the lower court's decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin only applied to graduate education
brown v. board of education
the court overturned please v. fuergson because it cviolated the equal protection clause of the 14th admenendment
1950 Bolling v. Sharpe
Charles Houston provided legal representation for the Consolidated Parents Group, who, under the direction of Gardner Bishop, attempted to enroll a group of Black students in all White John Philip Sousa Junior High School, in Washington, D.C. Significance: The Bolling case became one of the consolidated Brown cases. The U. S. Supreme Court would eventually file a separate opinion on Bolling because the 14th Amendment was not applicable in Washington, D.C.
1927 Gong Lum v. Rice
Chinese-american girl to attend a segregated black school rather an a white school The Court applied the "separate but equal" formulation of Plessy v. Ferguson to the public schools
1951 May Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.
NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia's segregated schools. Significance: Davis et al.ICounty School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., was another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education.
Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma
The Court ruled denial of entrance to a state law school solely on the basis of race unconstitutional
1950 Sweatt v. Painter
The Supreme Court held that the University of Texas Law School must admit a Black student, Heman Sweatt. The University of Texas Law School was far superior in its offerings and resources to the separate Black law school, which had been hastily established in a downtown basement. Significance: The Supreme Court held that Texas failed to provide separate but equal education, prefiguring the future opinion in Brown that "separate but equal is inherently unequal."
Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.
Thurgood Marshall and NAACP officials met with Black residents of Clarendon County, SC. They decided that the NAACP would launch a test case against segregation in public schools if at least 20 plaintiffs could be found. By November, Harry Briggs and 19 other plaintiffs were assembled, and the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit against the Clarendon County School Board. Briggs v. Elliott became one of the cases consolidated by the Supreme Court into Brown v. Board of Education.
1950 McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
he Supreme Court invalidated the University of Oklahoma's requirement that a Black student, admitted to a graduate program unavailable to him at the state's Black school, sit in separate sections of or in spaces adjacent to the classroom, library, and cafeteria. Significance: The Supreme Court held that these restrictions were unconstitutional because it interfered with his "ability to study, to engage in discussions, and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession."
Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.
his South Carolina case went to trial. Marshall and the NAACP presented a vast array of social science evidence showing how segregation harmed Black school children, including evidence from sociologist Kenneth Clark's controversial "Doll Study." Significance: The U. S. District Court denied the Briggs plaintiff's request to order desegregation of Clarendon County, SC, schools and instead ordered the equalization of Black schools. Judge Julius Waring was the lone dissenter.
