The Courts: Then and Now Matter 3
The Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) refuses to hear many more cases than it considers. When that happens, the lower court rulings stand as ordered. In 1954 a collection of cases, five to be exact, were combined and argued before the SCOTUS. Collectively, they came to be known as Brown v. The Board of Education. The five school districts were spread across the South: Kansas, Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware and DC. They would be among the greatest landmarks in American jurisprudence and certainly the most significant civil rights case of the century. It would change everything.
Backstory: Ever since Plessy v. Ferguson, the doctrine of “separate but equal” had dominated the social fabric of the South. Public facilities were segregated by law: everything from water fountains to schools, libraries to rail cars. Private facilities such as restaurants, hotels, stores.... did not have to accommodate black citizens at all. When they did, back doors or rear seating were the norm. Hospitals did not have to treat black patients and there was no such thing as transfusions across racial lines. The common thinking was that this was scientifically justifiable and to do otherwise would be 'to contaminate' the races.
Unusual Influences: Following WW II, Presidents Eisenhower and Truman were acutely aware of America's image overseas and how our treatment of minorities damaged our overseas image and efforts in fighting the Cold War. With that in mind, Justice William Brennan gave speeches regarding our image, Attorney General James McGranery wrote an Amicus Brief and Sec of State Dean Acheson addressed the issue of discrimination in his talks at home and abroad.
Powerful Personalities: Earl Warren, would preside over the court as Chief Justice, but his appointment was temporary until confirmed by the Senate so he tread lightly, at first. His views had changed dramatically over the years since his days when, during the war, he justified Japanese internment camps. Thurgood Marshall would be the chief legal counsel for the NAACP which had brought the case. Felix Frankfurter, associate justice would use re-argument as a stalling tactic to gather support among the jurists. William O. Douglas would argue fiercely in support of desegregation over opposition from other justices who did not believe in it or believed it to be a states' rights issue.
A new charge leveled at the court: judicial activism. Using UNESCO's 1950 statement which asserted that science had refuted many commonly held views on race, racial 'purity' and superiority, citing America's expanding role on the world stage with the need for moral leadership to maintain that position and putting segregation into the larger social context of Americans' inherent belief in fairness, the Court was persuaded to make the decision unanimous.
The Court concluded that the segregation of students based on race, in public schools, was a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because separation is inherently unequal. It essentially forbade state laws sponsoring segregation in education. It paved the way for the breakdown of institutionalized racism in America and it paved the way for segregation. To call it a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement is an understatement. It was such a milestone, landmark, that it became the model for all future litigation.
Using science in conjunction with moral dictates would cause the Court to be accused of judicial activism. It was the beginning of the supposedly impartial third branch, the judiciary, being politicized. Future SCOTUS candidates would be held to different standards, asked different questions and their nominations would be scrutinized by the Senate in entirely different ways because of the consequences of this case on the social fabric of American culture.
What it did NOT do: It offered no model to desegregate. There was no timeline, just a recommendation to get it done 'with all deliberate speed'. The nation would be moving forward without a blueprint. There would be resistance. There would be violence. The coming decades would be filled with turmoil over this issue.