Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Brown II (1955)

The tide would eventually turn in the South, but progress came slowly and sporadically. In 1944, the Supreme Court declared “white primaries” unconstitutional in Smith v. Allwright. In 1949, Ada Lois Sipuel, a black woman, won a long legal battle to win admission to the University of Oklahoma Law School. A decade later, the Court issued one of the most significant decisions in its history, Brown v. Board of Education, reversing its decision in Plessy and ordering the desegregation of public schools. In doing so, the Court declared:

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.

Because states were slow to respond to the Brown ruling, citing a seemingly endless list of physical and economic obstacles to integration, the Court issued a second decision a year later. In what is commonly referred to as “Brown II,” the Court ordered states and local governments to end racial segregation with “all deliberate speed.” The decision also gave lower court judges the responsibility to oversee the integration of schools. In response to the states’ “practical” concerns, the Court observed:

While giving weight to these public and private considerations, the courts will require that the defendants make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with our May 17, 1954, ruling. Once such a start has been made, the courts may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner. The burden rests upon the [state and local governments] to establish that such time is necessary in the public interest and is consistent with good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date.

Gideon v. Wainwright

See "The 'Due Process of Law'" on page 26.

Miranda v. Arizona

See "Self Incrimination" on page 28.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)

The term “affirmative action” was first used in Executive Order 11246, issued by Lyndon Johnson. The Order called on federal government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” Johnson expanded the executive order in 1967 to protect women from discrimination as well. Affirmative action policy has subsequently been applied to other areas such as business, employment, and college admission.

One of the most important affirmative action cases is Regents of the University of California v. Baake. Allan Bakke was a NASA engineer who applied for application to the University of California at Davis Medical School in the late 1970s. He was twice denied admission, even though his test scores were higher than those of several minority applicants who were admitted. The school’s admission procedures reserved sixteen of the one hundred spots in each entering class for “disadvantaged” applicants — blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and Asian Americans.

In response to Bakke’s challenge of the admission policy, the Court ruled that the school must admit Bakke, but it did not ban the use of quotas if they were aimed at redressing current and past discrimination against minorities. Public disfavor with this more aggressive brand of affirmative action in California, however, grew to a point that in 1996, voters in that state passed a proposition banning the use of quotas in university admissions in the University of California system.

Several legal challenges to the proposition have failed and the policy has remained in place. Since that time, admission of minorities to some schools and programs in the state system of higher education has dropped significantly. Critics complain that minorities are now being unfairly denied educational opportunities. Supporters of Prop. 209 argue that the abandonment of racial quotas has focused attention on the real problem — inadequate inner-city high schools. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the state of California, alleging that inner-city high schools offer far fewer Advanced Placement courses than affluent suburban schools. Most universities in California (and in many other states) now consider the “unique background and life experiences” of applicants when reviewing individuals for admission.

Affirmative action remains controversial today, but not because there is widespread prublic sentiment in support of racial discrimination. In fact, notwithstanding the persistence of pockets of racism in the United States, the American public is highly critical of racial and ethnic intolerance and discrimination. Instead, the controversy about affirmative action centers on broad disagreement about the best way to fight discrimination in the present and to make amends for past discrimination.