ABSTRACT
Fifty years ago in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court challenged the legitimacy of maintaining a public school system that was based on the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The unanimous decision ruled that state-sponsored dual systems of schools that were segregated by race were unconstitutional. The Court recognized “public education in the light of its full development” (p. 492) as a social institution that could not continue to operate under the doctrine of separate but equal. This landmark decision argued that public education is “a principal instrument” (p. 493) in preparing any child for social and economic life. Racial “segregation with the sanction of law” (p. 494), ruled the Court, was unconstitutional. Ruling on a case in Delaware in 1955 (often referred to as Brown II), the Court urged public schools to admit students on a “racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed.”
