## Facts

- African American schoolchildren and their parents challenged state laws requiring or permitting racial segregation in public elementary and secondary schools.
- The cases arose from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware and were consolidated for a single Supreme Court decision.
- Lower courts in Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia denied relief under *Plessy v. Ferguson*’s “separate but equal” doctrine, though one court found segregation harmed Black children.
- Delaware’s court ordered Black students admitted to white schools on the ground that Black schools were inferior, while not rejecting “separate but equal” as a legal rule.
- The Supreme Court heard argument, ordered reargument with additional briefing on the Fourteenth Amendment’s historical understanding, and then decided the constitutional question while postponing remedial details.

## Issues

1. Whether state-imposed racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when tangible facilities are otherwise comparable.
2. Whether the “separate but equal” doctrine is constitutionally permissible in public education.
3. Whether segregation itself deprives Black children of equal educational opportunity due to intangible harms.

## Decision

- The Court unanimously held that state laws mandating or permitting segregation of public school children solely on the basis of race violate the Equal Protection Clause.
- The Court concluded that, in public education, “separate but equal” has no place and that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
- The Court rejected reliance on disputed historical evidence about the Fourteenth Amendment’s original understanding as determinative for modern public education.
- The Court reversed judgments upholding segregated school systems and remanded for further proceedings; questions of remedy and implementation were deferred for later consideration.

## Legal Principles

- Government-provided public education, once undertaken, must be made available to all on equal terms under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Segregation in public schools is unconstitutional even if physical facilities and other tangible factors are equal, because it deprives the minority group of equal educational opportunities.
- Equal protection analysis in education considers intangible effects of state action, including state-imposed stigma and harms to children’s development and educational opportunity.
- The constitutional violation arises from the state’s maintenance of a race-based dual school system; proof that minority schools are factually inferior is not required to establish the equal protection breach.

## Conclusion

The Court held that state-sponsored segregation in public education violates the Equal Protection Clause because separation by race is inherently unequal, reversed the decisions sustaining segregation, and remanded while reserving remedial details for subsequent proceedings.


Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)