PSC
314: Political theory and Constitutional Law.
Supreme Court Opinions:
BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION,
347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Compiled (thanks) by Dr. Jeremy
Lewis |
Revised 11 Feb. 2003.
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U.S. Supreme Court
BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION,
347 U.S. 483 (1954)
BROWN ET AL. v. BOARD
OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS. * No. 1.
Argued December 9, 1952.
Reargued December 8, 1953.
Decided May 17, 1954.
Segregation of white and
Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of
race, pursuant to state laws
permitting or requiring
such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the
laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment - even though
the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro
schools may be equal. Pp.
486-496.
(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education. Pp. 489-490.
(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined, not on the
basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth
Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public
education and its present place in American life
throughout the Nation. Pp. 492-493.
(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education
in its public schools, such an opportunity is a
right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.
(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race
deprives children of the minority group of equal
educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other
"tangible" factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.
(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163
U.S. 537 , has no place in the field of public
education. P. 495. [347 U.S. 483, 484]
(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified
questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp.
495-496.
[ Footnote * ] Together with
No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., on appeal from the United States
District Court for the Eastern
District of South Carolina,
argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et
al. v. County School
Board of Prince Edward County,
Virginia, et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of
Virginia, argued December
10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton
et al., on certiorari to
the Supreme Court of Delaware,
argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.
Robert L. Carter argued the
cause for appellants in No. 1 on the original argument and on the reargument.
Thurgood Marshall
argued the cause for appellants
in No. 2 on the original argument and Spottswood W. Robinson, III, for
appellants in No. 4 on the
original argument, and both
argued the causes for appellants in Nos. 2 and 4 on the reargument. Louis
L. Redding and Jack
Greenberg argued the cause
for respondents in No. 10 on the original argument and Jack Greenberg and
Thurgood Marshall on
the reargument.
On the briefs were Robert
L. Carter, Thurgood Marshall, Spottswood W. Robinson, III, Louis L. Redding,
Jack Greenberg,
George E. C. Hayes, William
R. Ming, Jr., Constance Baker Motley, James M. Nabrit, Jr., Charles S.
Scott, Frank D. Reeves,
Harold R. Boulware and Oliver
W. Hill for appellants in Nos. 1, 2 and 4 and respondents in No. 10; George
M. Johnson for
appellants in Nos. 1, 2
and 4; and Loren Miller for appellants in Nos. 2 and 4. Arthur D. Shores
and A. T. Walden were on the
Statement as to Jurisdiction
and a brief opposing a Motion to Dismiss or Affirm in No. 2.
Paul E. Wilson, Assistant
Attorney General of Kansas, argued the cause for appellees in No. 1 on
the original argument and on the
reargument. With him on
the briefs was Harold R. Fatzer, Attorney General.
John W. Davis argued the
cause for appellees in No. 2 on the original argument and for appellees
in Nos. 2 and 4 on the
reargument. With him on
the briefs in No. 2 were T. C. Callison, Attorney General of South Carolina,
Robert McC. Figg, Jr., S.
E. Rogers, William R. Meagher
and Taggart Whipple. [347 U.S. 483, 485]
J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., Attorney
General of Virginia, and T. Justin Moore argued the cause for appellees
in No. 4 on the original
argument and for appellees
in Nos. 2 and 4 on the reargument. On the briefs in No. 4 were J. Lindsay
Almond, Jr., Attorney
General, and Henry T. Wickham,
Special Assistant Attorney General, for the State of Virginia, and T. Justin
Moore, Archibald G.
Robertson, John W. Riely
and T. Justin Moore, Jr. for the Prince Edward County School Authorities,
appellees.
H. Albert Young, Attorney
General of Delaware, argued the cause for petitioners in No. 10 on the
original argument and on the
reargument. With him on
the briefs was Louis J. Finger, Special Deputy Attorney General.
By special leave of Court,
Assistant Attorney General Rankin argued the cause for the United States
on the reargument, as amicus
curiae, urging reversal
in Nos. 1, 2 and 4 and affirmance in No. 10. With him on the brief were
Attorney General Brownell, Philip
Elman, Leon Ulman, William
J. Lamont and M. Magdelena Schoch. James P. McGranery, then Attorney General,
and Philip
Elman filed a brief for
the United States on the original argument, as amicus curiae, urging reversal
in Nos. 1, 2 and 4 and
affirmance in No. 10.
Briefs of amici curiae supporting
appellants in No. 1 were filed by Shad Polier, Will Maslow and Joseph B.
Robison for the
American Jewish Congress;
by Edwin J. Lukas, Arnold Forster, Arthur Garfield Hays, Frank E. Karelsen,
Leonard Haas, Saburo
Kido and Theodore Leskes
for the American Civil Liberties Union et al.; and by John Ligtenberg and
Selma M. Borchardt for the
American Federation of Teachers.
Briefs of amici curiae supporting appellants in No. 1 and respondents in
No. 10 were filed by
Arthur J. Goldberg and Thomas
E. Harris [347 U.S. 483, 486] for the Congress of Industrial
Organizations and by Phineas Indritz for
the American Veterans Committee,
Inc.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from
the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are
premised on different facts
and different local conditions,
but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this
consolidated opinion. 1 [347
U.S. 483, 487]
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, [347 U.S. 483,
488] 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.
In each of the cases
other than the Delaware
case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs
on the so-called "separate but equal"
doctrine announced by this
Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 . Under that doctrine, equality
of treatment is accorded
when the races are provided
substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate.
In the Delaware case, the
Supreme Court of Delaware
adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to
the white schools because of
their superiority to the
Negro schools.
The plaintiffs contend that
segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and
that hence they are deprived
of the equal protection
of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented,
the Court took jurisdiction. 2
Argument was heard in the
1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded
by the Court. 3
[347 U.S. 483, 489]
Reargument was largely devoted
to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
in 1868. It covered
exhaustively consideration
of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then existing
practices in racial segregation,
and the views of proponents
and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation
convince us that,
although these sources cast
some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced.
At best, they are
inconclusive. The most avid
proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove
all legal distinctions
among "all persons born
or naturalized in the United States." Their opponents, just as certainly,
were antagonistic to both the letter
and the spirit of the Amendments
and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress
and the state
legislatures had in mind
cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.
An additional reason for
the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history, with respect to segregated
schools, is the status of
public education at that
time. 4 In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported
[347 U.S. 483, 490] by general
taxation, had not yet taken
hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups.
Education of Negroes was
almost nonexistent, and
practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of
Negroes was forbidden by law in some
states. Today, in contrast,
many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences
as well as in the business and
professional world. It is
true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced
further in the North, but the
effect of the Amendment
on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates.
Even in the North, the conditions
of public education did
not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary;
ungraded schools were
common in rural areas; the
school term was but three months a year in many states; and compulsory
school attendance was
virtually unknown. As a
consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the
history of the Fourteenth Amendment
relating to its intended
effect on public education.
In the first cases in this
Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption,
the Court interpreted it as
proscribing all state-imposed
discriminations against the Negro race. 5 The doctrine of [347 U.S. 483,
491] "separate but equal" did
not make its appearance
in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, involving
not education but
transportation. 6 American
courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In
this Court, there have been six
cases involving the "separate
but equal" doctrine in the field of public education. 7 In Cumming v. County
Board of Education, 175
U.S. 528 , and Gong Lum
v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 , the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged.
8 In more recent cases, all
on the graduate school [347
U.S. 483, 492] level, inequality was found in that specific
benefits enjoyed by white students were denied
to Negro students of the
same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305
U.S. 337 ; Sipuel v. Oklahoma,
332 U.S. 631 ; Sweatt v.
Painter, 339 U.S. 629 ; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637
. In none of these cases
was it necessary to re-examine
the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter,
supra, the Court
expressly reserved decision
on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable
to public education.
In the instant cases, that
question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter, there are
findings below that the Negro and
white schools involved have
been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula,
qualifications and salaries
of teachers, and other "tangible"
factors. 9 Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison
of these tangible factors in
the Negro and white schools
involved in each of the cases. 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. 483, 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.
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
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.
In Sweatt v. Painter, supra,
in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them
equal educational
opportunities, this Court
relied in large part on "those qualities which are incapable of objective
measurement but which make for
greatness in a law school."
In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, supra, the Court, in requiring that
a Negro admitted to a white
graduate school be treated
like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: ".
. . his ability to study, to engage in
discussions and exchange
views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession." [347
U.S. 483, 494] Such considerations
apply with added force to
children in grade and high schools. 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. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities
was well stated by a finding in the
Kansas case by a court which
nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:
"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental
effect upon the colored children. The impact is
greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating
the races is usually interpreted as denoting the
inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation
of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of
law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development
of negro children and to deprive them of
some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school
system." 10
Whatever may have been the
extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this
finding is amply supported
by modern authority. 11
Any language [347 U.S. 483, 495] in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary
to this finding is rejected.
We conclude that in the field
of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place.
Separate educational facilities
are inherently unequal.
Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for
whom the actions have been brought
are, by reason of the segregation
complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed
by the Fourteenth
Amendment. This disposition
makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates
the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment.
12
Because these are class actions,
because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the
great variety of local
conditions, the formulation
of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity.
On reargument, the
consideration of appropriate
relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question - the constitutionality
of segregation in
public education. We have
now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection
of the laws. In order that we
may have the full assistance
of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the
docket, and the parties are
requested to present further
argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the
reargument this Term. 13
The Attorney General [347
U.S. 483, 496] of the United States is again invited to participate.
The Attorneys General of the states
requiring or permitting
segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici
curiae upon request to do so by
September 15, 1954, and
submission of briefs by October 1, 1954. 14
It is so ordered.
Footnotes
[ Footnote 1 ] In the Kansas
case, Brown v. Board of Education, the plaintiffs are Negro children of
elementary school age
residing in Topeka. They
brought this action in the United States District Court for the District
of Kansas to enjoin enforcement of
a Kansas statute which permits,
but does not require, cities of more than 15,000 population to maintain
separate school facilities
for Negro and white students.
Kan. Gen. Stat. 72-1724 (1949). Pursuant to that authority, the Topeka
Board of Education
elected to establish segregated
elementary schools. Other public schools in the community, however, are
operated on a
nonsegregated basis. The
three-judge District Court, convened under 28 U.S.C. 2281 and 2284, found
that segregation in public
education has a detrimental
effect upon Negro children, but denied relief on the ground that the Negro
and white schools were
substantially equal with
respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications
of teachers. 98 F. Supp. 797.
The case is here on direct
appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1253. In the South Carolina case, Briggs v. Elliott,
the plaintiffs are Negro
children of both elementary
and high school age residing in Clarendon County. They brought this action
in the United States District
Court for the Eastern District
of South Carolina to enjoin enforcement of provisions in the state constitution
and statutory code
which require the segregation
of Negroes and whites in public schools. S. C. Const., Art. XI, 7; S. C.
Code 5377 (1942). The
three-judge District Court,
convened under 28 U.S.C. 2281 and 2284, denied the requested relief. The
court found that the Negro
schools were inferior to
the white schools and ordered the defendants to begin immediately to equalize
the facilities. But the court
sustained the validity of
the contested provisions and denied the plaintiffs admission [347 U.S.
483, 487] to the white schools during
the equalization program.
98 F. Supp. 529. This Court vacated the District Court's judgment and remanded
the case for the
purpose of obtaining the
court's views on a report filed by the defendants concerning the progress
made in the equalization
program. 342 U.S. 350 .
On remand, the District Court found that substantial equality had been
achieved except for buildings and
that the defendants were
proceeding to rectify this inequality as well. 103 F. Supp. 920. The case
is again here on direct appeal
under 28 U.S.C. 1253. In
the Virginia case, Davis v. County School Board, the plaintiffs are Negro
children of high school age
residing in Prince Edward
county. They brought this action in the United States District Court for
the Eastern District of Virginia to
enjoin enforcement of provisions
in the state constitution and statutory code which require the segregation
of Negroes and whites in
public schools. Va. Const.,
140; Va. Code 22-221 (1950). The three-judge District Court, convened under
28 U.S.C. 2281 and
2284, denied the requested
relief. 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. 103 F. Supp.
337. The case is here on
direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1253. In the Delaware case, Gebhart v. Belton,
the plaintiffs are Negro
children of both elementary
and high school age residing in New Castle County. They brought this action
in the Delaware Court of
Chancery to enjoin enforcement
of provisions in the state constitution and statutory code which require
the segregation of Negroes
and whites in public schools.
Del. Const., Art. X, 2; Del. Rev. Code 2631 (1935). The Chancellor gave
judgment for the plaintiffs
and ordered their immediate
admission to schools previously attended only by white children, on the
ground that the Negro schools
were inferior with respect
to teacher training, pupil-teacher ratio, extracurricular activities, physical
plant, and time and distance
involved [347 U.S. 483,
488] in travel. 87 A. 2d 862. The Chancellor also found that
segregation itself results in an inferior education
for Negro children (see
note 10, infra), but did not rest his decision on that ground. Id., at
865. The Chancellor's decree was
affirmed by the Supreme
Court of Delaware, which intimated, however, that the defendants might
be able to obtain a modification
of the decree after equalization
of the Negro and white schools had been accomplished. 91 A. 2d 137, 152.
The defendants,
contending only that the
Delaware courts had erred in ordering the immediate admission of the Negro
plaintiffs to the white
schools, applied to this
Court for certiorari. The writ was granted, 344 U.S. 891 . The plaintiffs,
who were successful below, did
not submit a cross-petition.
[ Footnote 2 ] 344 U.S. 1, 141 , 891.
[ Footnote 3 ] 345 U.S. 972 . The Attorney General of the United States participated both Terms as amicus curiae.
[ Footnote 4 ] For a general
study of the development of public education prior to the Amendment, see
Butts and Cremin, A
History of Education in
American Culture (1953), Pts. I, II; Cubberley, Public Education in the
United States (1934 ed.), cc.
II-XII. School practices
current at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment are described
in Butts and Cremin,
supra, at 269-275; Cubberley,
supra, at 288-339, 408-431; Knight, Public Education in the South (1922),
cc. VIII, IX. See also
H. Ex. Doc. No. 315, 41st
Cong., 2d Sess. (1871). Although the demand for free public schools followed
substantially the same
pattern in both the North
and the South, the development in the South did not begin to gain momentum
until about 1850, some
twenty years after that
in the North. The reasons for the somewhat slower development in the South
(e. g., the rural character of
the South and the different
regional attitudes toward state assistance) are well explained in Cubberley,
supra, at 408-423. In the
country as a whole, but
particularly in the South, the War [347 U.S. 483, 490] virtually
stopped all progress in public education. Id., at
427-428. The low status
of Negro education in all sections of the country, both before and immediately
after the War, is described
in Beale, A History of Freedom
of Teaching in American Schools (1941), 112-132, 175-195. Compulsory school
attendance
laws were not generally
adopted until after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it
was not until 1918 that such laws
were in force in all the
states. Cubberley, supra, at 563-565.
[ Footnote 5 ] Slaughter-House
Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 67-72 (1873); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303,
307 -308 (1880):
"It ordains that no State
shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law, or deny to any person
within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws. What is this but [347 U.S. 483, 491]
declaring that the law in the States shall be
the same for the black as
for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand
equal before the laws of the States,
and, in regard to the colored
race, for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no
discrimination shall be
made against them by law
because of their color? The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory,
but they contain a
necessary implication of
a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race, - the
right to exemption from unfriendly
legislation against them
distinctively as colored, - exemption from legal discriminations, implying
inferiority in civil society, lessening
the security of their enjoyment
of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards
reducing them to the
condition of a subject race."
See also Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 318 (1880); Ex parte Virginia,
100 U.S. 339, 344 -345
(1880).
[ Footnote 6 ] The doctrine
apparently originated in Roberts v. City of Boston, 59 Mass. 198, 206 (1850),
upholding school
segregation against attack
as being violative of a state constitutional guarantee of equality. Segregation
in Boston public schools
was eliminated in 1855.
Mass. Acts 1855, c. 256. But elsewhere in the North segregation in public
education has persisted in
some communities until recent
years. It is apparent that such segregation has long been a nationwide
problem, not merely one of
sectional concern.
[ Footnote 7 ] See also Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908).
[ Footnote 8 ] In the Cumming
case, Negro taxpayers sought an injunction requiring the defendant school
board to discontinue the
operation of a high school
for white children until the board resumed operation of a high school for
Negro children. Similarly, in the
Gong Lum case, the plaintiff,
a child of Chinese descent, contended only that state authorities had misapplied
the doctrine by
classifying him with Negro
children and requiring him to attend a Negro school.
[ Footnote 9 ] In the Kansas
case, the court below found substantial equality as to all such factors.
98 F. Supp. 797, 798. In the
South Carolina case, the
court below found that the defendants were proceeding "promptly and in
good faith to comply with the
court's decree." 103 F.
Supp. 920, 921. In the Virginia case, the court below noted that the equalization
program was already
"afoot and progressing"
(103 F. Supp. 337, 341); since then, we have been advised, in the Virginia
Attorney General's brief on
reargument, that the program
has now been completed. In the Delaware case, the court below similarly
noted that the state's
equalization program was
well under way. 91 A. 2d 137, 149.
[ Footnote 10 ] A similar
finding was made in the Delaware case: "I conclude from the testimony that
in our Delaware society,
State-imposed segregation
in education itself results in the Negro children, as a class, receiving
educational opportunities which are
substantially inferior to
those available to white children otherwise similarly situated." 87 A.
2d 862, 865.
[ Footnote 11 ] K. B. Clark,
Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development (Midcentury
White House
Conference on Children and
Youth, 1950); Witmer and Kotinsky, Personality in the Making (1952), c.
VI; Deutscher and Chein,
The Psychological Effects
of Enforced Segregation: A Survey of Social Science Opinion, 26 J. Psychol.
259 (1948); Chein, What
are the Psychological Effects
of [347 U.S. 483, 495] Segregation Under Conditions of Equal
Facilities?, 3 Int. J. Opinion and Attitude
Res. 229 (1949); Brameld,
Educational Costs, in Discrimination and National Welfare (MacIver, ed.,
(1949), 44-48; Frazier, The
Negro in the United States
(1949), 674-681. And see generally Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944).
[ Footnote 12 ] See Bolling v. Sharpe, post, p. 497, concerning the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
[ Footnote 13 ] "4. Assuming
it is decided that segregation in public schools violates the Fourteenth
Amendment "(a) would a
decree necessarily follow
providing that, within the [347 U.S. 483, 496] limits set by
normal geographic school districting, Negro
children should forthwith
be admitted to schools of their choice, or "(b) may this Court, in the
exercise of its equity powers, permit
an effective gradual adjustment
to be brought about from existing segregated systems to a system not based
on color distinctions?
"5. On the assumption on
which questions 4 (a) and (b) are based, and assuming further that this
Court will exercise its equity
powers to the end described
in question 4 (b), "(a) should this Court formulate detailed decrees in
these cases; "(b) if so, what
specific issues should the
decrees reach; "(c) should this Court appoint a special master to hear
evidence with a view to
recommending specific terms
for such decrees; "(d) should this Court remand to the courts of first
instance with directions to frame
decrees in these cases,
and if so what general directions should the decrees of this Court include
and what procedures should the
courts of first instance
follow in arriving at the specific terms of more detailed decrees?"
[ Footnote 14 ] See Rule 42, Revised Rules of this Court (effective July 1, 1954). [347 U.S. 483, 497]