Brown v. Board of Education
347 U.S. 483 · 1954-05-17
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
Edition: U. S. Reports, bound volume
Source: U. S. Reports, volume 347, at 483 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
Voices: Mr. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.
In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs…Read it in the reading room ›