Brown versus Board of Education

Cultural  

1. A case regarding school desegregation, decided by the Supreme Court in 1954. The Court ruled that segregation in public schools is prohibited by the Constitution. The decision ruled out “separate but equal” educational systems for blacks and whites, which many localities said they were providing. The Court departed from tradition by using arguments from sociology to show that separate educational systems were unequal by their very nature.

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The Brown decision had an enormous effect on education throughout the country, not only in places where segregated schools were established by law, but also on school systems in which there was de facto segregation. The federal government, in the years that followed, required many city school systems to readjust school boundaries so that individual schools would have a mixed racial population.

Example Sentences

"It wasn't a widespread trend until the Brown versus Board of Education decision in 1954, which mandated the desegregation of public schools," she told the BBC.

From BBC

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, eager to tout that Motley was a daughter of his home state of Connecticut, remarked, “She was very predominantly responsible for Brown versus Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall got most of the credit, but she did a lot of the work. Probably sounds familiar to you.”

From Los Angeles Times

He noted many smart people shared the belief of then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan that Common Core was “the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown versus Board of Education.”

From Washington Post

When judges rule on what seems self-evident common sense – be it Brown versus Board of Education or marriage equality – it often seems that way because of slow incremental changes in societal norms and beliefs.

From The Guardian

“Think about the implications for the nation if that case on Monday was Brown versus Board of Education,” he told the half-panel.

From The Guardian