Brown v. Board of Education

A plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class- action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter was denied entrance to Topeka's all- white elementary school. In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that the schools for the black students were not equal to the schools for the white students. The case went before the U.S. district court in Kansas, which agreed that public school segregation had a "detrimental effect upon colored children" and contributed to a "sense of inferiority," but still upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Segregation violated the "equal protection clause" of the 14th amendment, which holds that no state can "deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Browns case along with 4 other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education. In the decision, made on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," as segregated schools are "inherently unequal." The court ruled that the plaintiffs were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th amendment."

Sources:

https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=87

https://www.landmarkcases.org/cases/brown-v-board-of-education