History Lesson: 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
Published: May 1, 2014
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the separate but equal doctrine in American public schools.
The case now known as Brown v. Board of Education actually began as five separate but similar court cases that were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 concerning the issue of segregation in public schools. Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court justice, served as the lead attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund who sponsored the cases.
Marshall argued that separate schools systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal and thus violate the “equal protection clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Initially, the justices of the Supreme Court were unable to come to a decision by the end of the 1952-1953 term, and decided to rehear the case in December 1953. During that time, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and Gov. Earl Warren of California replaced him. After the case was reheard, the justices unanimously agreed to declare segregation unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the court, writing that “we conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Brown was decided in phases, with the issue of implementation handled separately in what became known as Brown II that was announced more than a year later on May 31, 1955. In that decision, the Supreme Court sent all cases back to lower courts, asking states to desegregate their schools “with all deliberate speed,” replacing the previous language of “at the earliest practicable date.” Brown II set no deadlines and left the decision-making in the hand of local school officials.
Implementation of Brown varied with 70 percent of border states integrated within two years, while southern states remained relatively unchanged. Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act empowered the federal government to cut funding to schools that continued to segregate students and provided the U.S. Department of Justice with the authority to file lawsuits seeking desegregation of schools. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote at the time “there has been entirely too much deliberation and not enough speed in enforcing the constitutional rights which we held in Brown,” a reference to the Court’s earlier directive to implement the decision with “all deliberate speed.”
Widespread integration began after 1971 when Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in North Carolina allowed school systems to employ student busing as a way of integrating schools in segregated neighborhoods.
In the end, the Brown decision represented the notion that education could be the “great equalizer,” providing a level playing field for all students no matter their race or socioeconomic background. But it also proved that it would take much more than the Supreme Court to achieve the dream and transform what was a mere notion into a tangible reality for millions of Americans.
Look for additional coverage of the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education in the June issue of California School News, where we will examine the legacy of Brown and the connection to the new Local Control Funding Formula.