Brown v. Board of Education

“ 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 presented: 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. ”

“ However, the inquiry it commends to the District Court fails to recognize explicitly the threatened reemergence of one-race schools as a relevant "vestige" of de jure segregation.
In my view, the standard for dissolution of a school desegregation decree must reflect the central aim of our school desegregation precedents. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) (Brown I ) , a unanimous Court declared that racially " [s] eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal." ”

“ Over the course of America's history, African American men and women have strengthened our Nation, including by leading reforms, overcoming obstacles, and breaking down barriers. In the less than 60 years since the Brown v. Board of Education decision put America on a path toward equal educational opportunity, America's educational system has undergone a remarkable transformation, and many African American children who attended the substandard segregated schools of the 1950s have grown up to see their children attend integrated elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities. ”

“ Once a privilege conferred on those fortunate enough to take advantage of it, it is now regarded as a right of a citizen and a duty enforced by compulsory education laws. Any thought of public education as a privilege which may be given or withheld as a matter of grace has long since passed out of American thinking.
It is neither novel nor radial doctrine that statutes once held constitutional may become invalid by reason of changing conditions, and those held to be good in one state of facts may be held to be bad in another. ”

“ We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.
In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout [ [ [347 U.S. 493] ] ] the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 438, and to "effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school [p755] system." Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 301. See Keyes, supra at 198-205. But in this case, the Court of Appeals approved the concept of a remedial decree that would go beyond the boundaries of the district where the constitutional violation was found, and include schools and schoolchildren in many other school districts that have presumptively been administered in complete accord with the Constitution. ”

“ While our decision may invalidate existing laws and regulations governing the school, the Court cannot substitute constructive laws and regulations for their governance. Local or state or federal action will have to build the integrated school systems if they are to exist. A gigantic administrative job has to be undertaken. ”

“ The Department of Justice concedes that uniform and immediate enforcement of a Court decree condemning segregation is impossible. It points out that school districts may have to be consolidated or divided, or their boundaries revised, and the teachers and pupils may have to be transferred. The Government points out that an essential part of the plan will involve placing white children under colored teachers, unless colored teachers are to be dismissed in some areas where they have been hired in substantial numbers. ”

“ The court found the Negro school inferior in physical plant, curricula, and transportation, and ordered the defendants forthwith to provide substantially equal curricula and transportation and to "proceed with all reasonable diligence and dispatch to remove" the inequality in physical plant. But, as in the South Carolina case, the court sustained the validity of the contested provisions and denied the plaintiffs admission to the white schools during the equalization program. ”

“ The Court can strike down legislation which supports educational segregation, but any constructive policy for abolishing it must come from Congress. Only Congress can enact a policy binding on all states and districts, and it can delegate its supervision to some administrative body provided with standards for determining the conditions under which sanctions should apply. ”

“ The majority is correct that the Court has never contemplated perpetual judicial oversight of former de jure segregated school districts. Our jurisprudence requires, however, that the job of school desegregation be fully completed and maintained so that the stigmatic harm identified in Brown I will not recur upon lifting the decree. Any doubt on the issue whether the School Board has fulfilled its remedial obligations should be resolved in favor of the Afro-American children affected by this litigation. ”

“ The judgments below, except that, in the Delaware case, are accordingly reversed, and 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. ”

“ To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. ”

“ If a high school administration continues to believe that it is sound policy to exclude controversial groups, such as political clubs, the Ku Klux Klan, and perhaps gay rights advocacy groups, from its facilities, it now must also close its doors to traditional extracurricular activities that are noncontroversial but not directly related to any course being offered at the school. Congress made frequent reference to the primacy of local control in public education, and the legislative history of the Act is thus inconsistent with the Court's rigid definition of "noncurriculum related groups." ”

“ All provisions of federal, state, or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle. ”

“ Each of them, through the suit of some discontented but unpenalized and untaxed representative, has as good a right as this plaintiff to demand that the courts compel the schools to sift out of their teaching everything inconsistent with its doctrines. If we are to eliminate everything that is objectionable to any of these warring sects or inconsistent with any of their doctrines, we will leave public education in shreds. Nothing but educational confusion and a discrediting of the public school system can result from subjecting it to constant law suits. ”

“ After remand, numerous opinions were written by the District Court and the Court of Appeals but the mandate issued at the time of the Brown case has never been implemented. In 1956 the Board of Supervisors decided not to levy taxes or appropriate funds for integrated public schools; and white children have attended white-only schools operated by the Prince Edward School Foundation, which has received state support. ”

“ To lay down a sweeping constitutional doctrine as demanded by complainant and apparently approved by the Court, applicable alike to all school boards of the nation, 'to immediately adopt and enforce rules and regulations prohibiting all instruction in and teaching to religious education in all public schools,' is to decree a uniform, rigid and, if we are consistent, an unchanging standard for countless school boards representing and serving highly localized groups which not only differ from each other but which themselves from time to time change attitudes. ”

“ We have, of course, sometimes found it necessary to limit local control over schools in order to protect the constitutional integrity of public education. "That [boards of education] are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes." ”

“ If a 14-year-old child may challenge a school board's decision to remove a book from the library, upon what theory is a court to prevent a like challenge to a school board's decision not to purchase that identical book? And at the even more "sensitive" level of "receiving ideas," does today's decision entitle student oversight of which courses may be added or removed from the curriculum, or even of what a particular teacher elects to teach or not teach in the classroom? Is not the "right to receive ideas" as much — or indeed even more — implicated in these educational questions? ”

“ On the other hand, as the plurality demonstrates, it is beyond dispute that schools and school boards must operate within the confines of the First Amendment. In a variety of academic settings, the Court therefore has acknowledged the force of the principle that schools, like other enterprises operated by the State, may not be run in such a manner as to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." ”

“ But if it be assumed that the board erred in supposing that its duty was to provide educational facilities for the 300 colored children who were without an opportunity in primary schools to learn the alphabet and to read and write, rather than to maintain a school for the benefit of the 60 colored children who wished to attend a high school, that was not an error which a court of equity should attempt to remedy by an injunction that would compel the board to withhold all assistance from the high school maintained for white children. ”

“ Frequently, parents know the teachers and visit classes. It is fair to say that no single agency of government at any level is closer to the people whom it serves than the typical school board.
I therefore view today's decision with genuine dismay. Whatever the final outcome of this suit and suits like it, the resolution of educational policy decisions through litigation, and the exposure of school board members to liability for such decisions, can be expected to corrode the school board's authority and effectiveness. ”

“ If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, 'good fences make good neighbors.'
Notes 1 For an exposition of the religious origins of American education, see S. W. Brown, The Secularization of American Education (1912) cc. ”

“ We note also that the district court did not fail to give due weight to the agency proceedings on this factor since the court's findings were based largely on new expert testimony that was not before the ALJ. Additionally, we agree with the district court's legal conclusion that, although including Rafael in a regular classroom would require the School District to modify the curriculum, the need for such modification is "not a legitimate basis upon which to justify excluding a child" from the regular classroom unless the education of other students is significantly impaired. ”

“ How are "fundamental values" to be inculcated except by having school boards make content-based decisions about the appropriateness of retaining materials in the school library and curriculum. In order to fulfill its function, an elected school board must express its views on the subjects which are taught to its students. In doing so, those elected officials express the views of their community; they may err, of course, and the voters may remove them. It is a startling erosion of the very idea of democratic government to have this Court arrogate to itself the power the plurality asserts today. ”

“ The plurality opinion today rejects a basic concept of public school education in our country: that the States and locally elected school boards should have the responsibility for determining the educational policy of the public schools. After today's decision, any junior high school student, by instituting a suit against a school board or teacher, may invite a judge to overrule an educational decision by the official body designated by the people to operate the schools. ”

“ As a practical matter, however, it is difficult to see the First Amendment right that I believe is at work here playing a role in a school's choice of curriculum. The school's finite resources — as well as the limited number of hours in the day — require that education officials make sensitive choices between subjects to be offered and competing areas of academic emphasis; subjects generally are excluded simply because school officials have chosen to devote their resources to one, rather than to another, subject. ”

“ It is contended this unprecedented intrusion in the curriculum by the State prohibits teachers from teaching what they believe should be taught or requires them to teach that which they do not believe is proper. The evidence reflects that traditionally the State Department of Education, local school boards and administration officials exercise little, if any, influence upon the subject matter taught by classroom teachers. Teachers have been given freedom to teach and emphasize those portions of subjects the individual teacher considered important. ”