May 14, 2021
May 17, 1954: A Defining Moment in History
Brown vs. Board of Education
On May 17, we celebrate the 67th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark unanimous decision that ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal", and therefore violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1951, a Topeka, Kansas public school district required Linda Brown to attend a far–away all-Black elementary school rather than allowing her to attend the all-white school closest to her home. The Brown Family filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka that was led by two attorneys, Charles H. Houston and Thurgood Marshall. The lawsuit stated that Black schools were not equal to White Schools and segregation of the school systems violated the “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment. This legal case would become famously known as Brown v. Board of Education.
School integration did not begin for many black children until 10 years later following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and integration and racial inequality in schools remain a much-discussed issue to this day.

Brown v. Board of Education is an important case; it was the precedent to overturn other laws mandating or permitting segregation. While racial inequality in America's schools continues, Brown v. Board of Education helped to spark the Civil Rights movement, and began a long journey for equality of the educational system in America.

Sixty-seven years since this landmark decision, school segregation is still an ongoing issue. The average Black or Hispanic student attends a school that is less than 30% White; meanwhile, the average White student attends schools that are 70% white. School segregation today is less about laws that deny access to schools and is more a result of economic and housing segregation across the country. In order to truly address school segregation, we need to confront the racial inequalities of poverty and the wealth gap.

#DEIatCTI #brownvboardofeducation #thurgoodmarshall #civilrights #schoolsegregation #socialjustice

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