brown v board of education homework help

brown v board of education homework help

Analyzing the Impact and Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education

1. Introduction to Brown v. Board of Education

Since 1954, Brown has become both an educational and a legal icon for the struggle for civil rights in America. Given its status as a social icon, it has been carefully researched from a historical perspective by numerous scholars in a variety of fields. These careful studies reveal that Brown was part of a tradition of legal arguments advanced by African Americans themselves in the previous half-century designed to win their people’s rights using the constitutional principles that were the system’s highest law. The strategy that led to the Brown decision was tried first in the courts, and second, when that failed, outside the courts, as a direct-action tactic. The story of Brown is also part of a broader narrative of civil rights in the United States, a tradition of anti-racist educational struggles that continues right down to the present day.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Court unanimously ruled that the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprives the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities. This instrumental case catalyzed the struggle for civil rights in the United States in the era after World War II and had a powerful impact on the American legal landscape and the nation’s social fabric.

2. Legal Background and Context

By the late nineteenth century, the two-party system of laissez-faire Republicans grafted long-term policies of racism onto the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Supreme Court validated racial segregation as public policy in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, using a concept of “separate but equal” rights that reflected both a vindication of some Republican beliefs and a repudiation of others. With Plessy, the Supreme Court declared that racially separate facilities were not unconstitutional so long as the facilities were equal. But in fact, as the Plessy Court acknowledged, the facilities were grossly unequal. In the hands of white supremacists, separate but equal was used to impose oppressive and discriminatory measures, including brutal public lynching and legal executions, as tools to enforce a version of racialized social order known as the Jim Crow way of life.

The Brown decision was the result of more than a century of conflict and struggles over race and rights. Following the Civil War, three amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth—abolished slavery, established fundamental rights and privileges, and provided one-man, one-vote. These amendments reflected a national determination to achieve radical reform of the land and its people in the aftermath of war, and they invested the federal government with power to enforce these rights through an expanded notion of national citizenship. But initially, white Democrats and their nuclear allies in the West, as well as members of the Democratic Party in the North, resisted vigorously this exercise of federal power.

The historical & legal background

3. Landmark Supreme Court Case

The Supreme Court decided that the case did not entail an advisory opinion and on December 7, 1953, it reported: “The motion to affirm is granted and petitioners shall recover their costs of this proceeding against defendants.” The Supreme Court, on June 7, 1954, affirmed the separate but equal opinion of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. By combining several cases, it ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It said separation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws and ordered defendants to effectuate a prompt and reasonable beginning toward the elimination of racial segregation from public schools. In subsequent decisions, it tangled in the implementation process, the Court enforced its mandate that school authorities provide an integrated school system.

On December 9, 1952, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In September 1953, the Department of Justice had argued before the Supreme Court that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) counsel was asking for an advisory opinion because no valid judgment of a federal three-judge District Court had been obtained. In order to obtain an opinion from the Court, the agreed record should be settled and further hearings should take place, if necessary, to compile the background of the final decree. The Court and counsel continued to discuss the status of the case on December 8 and for a short time on the morning of December 9, 1952.

4. Impact on Education and Civil Rights

Brown is also viewed as a precursor to important social and political changes in areas beyond education. Subsequent legal and historical analysis has revealed the social construction of “Brown” as a vehicle for broader struggles for equal justice. The decision helped to launch a social movement, and its enormous moral strength flourished amidst a variety of legal and non-legal initiatives to expand civil rights under the law. Then, as now, African Americans and other civil rights advocates held a vision of full human and political rights, including better housing, secure employment, adequate family income, real political power, and good schools. While many things remain to be done, there are clear signs of achievement as a result of Brown and the civil rights movement.

In the area of education, the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education had several impacts. In the realm of school desegregation, parents, students, legal advocates, and organizations have engaged in lawsuits and other actions to bring about school integration. However, complete success in that effort has been limited for a variety of reasons, including the development of racially identifiable housing and neighborhood patterns and legal challenges to integration efforts. On the positive side, Brown increased educational opportunities for racial and ethnic minority pupils. Increasing numbers of these students now attend integrated schools that afford a host of academic and social benefits. In addition, the ruling inspired curricular reforms to reflect the contributions and perspectives of diverse racial and ethnic groups in the nation.

5. Legacy and Ongoing Relevance

Since the mid-20th century, Brown v. Board of Education – the landmark civil rights case that declared school segregation unconstitutional – has yielded an enormous impact on American society. In the 1950s and 1960s, the case led to civil rights reform legislation and government-provided educational resources to “desegregate” public schools. A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s and 1980s fundamentally shifted the operation of the desegregation rules, which widened the racial divide between public schools in the South and the rest of the nation. Fast-forward, and the landmark case continues to influence contemporary school policies, most notably in guiding public and judicial inquiries in promulgating charter schools and voucher programs. However, public school segregation today remains as entrenched as it has been over the past half-century. Federal judicial action is, at its best, anemic in terms of addressing residential segregation and “free to choose” segregation in public schooling for hundreds of thousands of students.

In the decades since Brown, political and legal changes have helped pave the way for educational opportunities that extend beyond high school: first, a push for “excellence” across American public schools, a goal rekindled by President George W. Bush’s signature education initiative No Child Left Behind. Later, President Barack Obama called for a “cradle to career” education agenda that sought to expand resources for prekindergarten all the way through college. And more recently, Buttigieg and other Democrats have begun to talk up “education as a right,” using Brown as a reference for promises of free college, although they haven’t explicitly articulated school adaptation of this idea – nor did the 14 presidential hopefuls The 74 spoke to mention Brown when discussing diverse policy proposals designed to promote equity and access across the K-12 landscape. Many candidates see public education through the lens of it being a human right regardless of race, ethnicity, class, or geography. As a result, they endorse policies designed to increase access or resources. But they rarely, if ever, talk about Brown or the principles it established for reform.