Diagram of How the Case Moved Through the Court System

Supreme Court of the United States (1955) Declared that schools should be desegregated with "all deliberate speed."
The case was reargued to determine how the violation of the Fourteenth Amendment should be fixed.
Supreme Court of the United States (1954) Ruling determined that segregated schools are "inherently unequal" and violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Court also rules on the companion case, Bolling v. Sharpe, which holds the District of Columbia segregated schools violate the Fifth Amendment.
Brown case is combined with others from Virginia, South Carolina, and Delaware and bypasses the circuit court.
U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas (1951) The court found that segregation has a negative effect on black children, but it decided that segregated schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because facilities, transportation, teachers, and other factors were equal.

Resources

•	About landmarkcases.org
•	Teaching Recommendations Based on Your Time
•	Background Summary and Questions • • • Reading Level • • Reading Level  • Reading Level
•	Diagram of How the Case Moved Through the Court System
•	Biographies Earl Warren Thurgood Marshall
•	Key Excerpts from the Majority Opinion Brown I
•	Key Excerpts from the Majority Opinion Brown II
•	Full Text of the Majority Opinion

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Activities
    The Case

•	Does Treating People Equally Mean Treating Them the Same?
•	Classifying Arguments for Each Side of the Case
•	How a Dissent Can Presage a Ruling: The Case of Justice Harlan
•	Immediate Reaction to the Decision: Comparing Regional Media Coverage
•	Political Cartoon Analysis

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    After the Case

•	All Deliberate Speed?
•	Case Study of Integration -- Little Rock
•	If You Were a Supreme Court Justice. . .
•	Was the Promise of Brown Fulfilled?
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	Additional Resources
•	The Smithsonian's Separate is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education
•	Mix It Up

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