| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | Minors of the negro race have been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting racial segragation. |
| Posture: | Suits in district court end up with mostly denials of relief. |
| Issue: | Are plaintiffs correct that separate schools are not equal and cannot be made equal, and therefore they're being denied equal protection? |
| Holding: | Yes. Reversed (except for DE, which got it right, apparently) |
| Rule: | Racial segregation in schools is a denial of equal protection of the laws |
| Reasoning: | The history of 14A is not sufficient to dispose of this-- it's
inconclusive. The more so because education itself has changed
since that time. We need to consider public education as it
is now, not as it was then: nobody can reasonably be expected
to succeed if he is denied the opportunity of an education, so where
the state undertakes to provide such an opportunity, it must
do so on equal terms.
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. |
| Dicta: | |