Directions: Use this sheet to help organize your understanding of this case. Remember our focus is looking at the language authors use and why they make those choices. But first, let’s get the facts of this case straight…
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- The major conflict of
Brown v. Board of Education
deals with the issue of ________________________________.
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- These are the 2 sides in the conflict and some of their beliefs:
Side 1: Side 2:
Their Beliefs: Their Beliefs:
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- As I read through the Supreme Court’s opinion, these are some of the lines that strike me as and important and why.
The Supreme Court said… That means…
(This is a direct quote from the opinion.) (Write this in your own words!)
The School Desegregation Case
Brown v. Board of Education
347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas
(Excerpts from the Court’s 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….
Today education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
We come then to the question…: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does….
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal…
Brown II
349 U.S. 294 (1955)
(Excerpts from the Court’s opinion)
Full implementation of [integration] may require solution of varied local school problems. School authorities have the primary responsibility for …solving these problems….Because of their proximity to local conditions and the possible need for further hearings, the courts which originally heard these cases can best perform this judicial appraisal. Accordingly, we believe it appropriated to remand the cases to those courts. ..
The…cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.
