Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and Equal Educational Opportunities

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ushered in an era that would end the rights of states to mandate the separation [Page 118]of the races in public education. While the Court's original ruling in Brown did not end segregated schooling, it afforded plaintiffs in segregated schools the right to seek an end to segregation in the more than 2,200 school districts that operated so-called dual systems. In dual or segregated systems, boards essentially operated two systems side-by-side, one for Whites, the other, usually of inferior quality, for Blacks. In ruling that segregation in public schools based on race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Court essentially repudiated its ...