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Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Definition:

The Supreme Court case, since overturned by Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which upheld the constitutionality of “separate, but equal facilities” based on race.

Overview:

Louisiana had adopted a law in 1890 that required railroad companies to provide racially segregated accommodations. In 1892, the state of Louisiana prosecuted Plessy, a man who was 7/8 Caucasian and 1/8 Black, for refusing to leave a passenger car designated for whites.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Brown, upheld the Louisiana law, reasoning that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution was designated to enforce the political equality of blacks and whites but not intended to abolish social inequality. Thus, the Fourteenth Amendment did not encompass segregation, and states could permissibly exercise their police power to enforce segregation as a matter of public policy. The Court also held that the state statute itself was not based on an assumption of black inferiority, nor did it stigmatize blacks with second-class status; rather, “the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”

Justice Harlan’s sole dissent argued that the law implicated civil, not just political, equality. He noted that the law was intended not to exclude whites from railroad cars carrying blacks, but to exclude blacks from railroad cars carrying whites. “In view of the Constitution, in the eyes of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved….”

Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary

U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled, despite a vigorous dissent by Justice John Harlan, that "separate but equal" facilities for blacks were constitutional, which remained the rule until Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary.

August 19, 2010, 5:27 pm

 

“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, they have 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, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate….

“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.” C.J. Warren, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, 487–488 (1954).

 

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Brown I) (1954)