14th Amendment
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What was the issue that the U.S. Supreme Court addressed in this case? The rule is that “separate but equal” schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. How did the U.S. Supreme Court apply the facts in this case to this rule? What was the Court’s final conclusion?
Sample Solution
The U.S. Supreme Court addressed the fundamental question of whether states could deny a former slave any of the rights granted to them under the 14th Amendment in their decision on Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 (“Plessy v. Ferguson”). Specifically, the case focused on whether Louisiana’s law requiring racial segregation on public transportation was constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (“Plessy v. Ferguson”).
In this landmark ruling, which became known as “separate but equal,” Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote for a 7-1 majority that “the object [of laws creating separate accommodations] is not to punish one caste for offences committed by another caste” (“Plessy v. Ferguson”). Furthermore, he argued that Louisiana’s segregation law did not violate either due process or equal protection because it applied equally to all races and provided similar accommodations for each group (“Plessy v. Ferguson”).
Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented from his colleagues’ opinion and argued that it established “the doctrine that negroes have no rights which white people are bound to respect,” thus nullifying any progress made since emancipation (“Plessy v. Ferguson”). He further stated that if a state can impose “humiliating distinctions and disabilities upon [a race], so long as they are conferred upon classes with substantial numerical equality,” then racial discrimination would become acceptable even within our own borders (“Plessy v. Ferguson”).
Ultimately, though Plessy won his immediate case against Louisiana’s Jim Crow laws, this decision laid down a legal precedent which would be used by southern governments over the next several decades to enact more oppressive legislation restricting African Americans civil rights until it overturned by Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 (“Brown vs Board of Education”).
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