Plaintiffs:- Young African Americans who wanted the court to provide them with the rights they rightly were given by the U.S. Constitution. These plaintiffs were denied the admission to the schools of their choice based solely on their race and this according to them, was a violation of their constitutional rights.

Defendants:- The board of education of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. The defendants argued that their actions were protected by the 'separate but equal' clause established in Plessy v. Ferguson and they argued that their school systems did not practice nor advanced any sort of discrimination. They argued that both black and white schools offered its students equal facilities and aid in achieving good education.

Issue: Do segregated schools, protected by the 'separate but equal' clause established in Plessy v. Ferguson 1896, deprive the African American children of equal protection of law promised to them by the Fourteenth Amendment?

Holdings: Yes

Key Facts: In making its decision, the court used the increased importance of education in the current period compared to the period of Plessy. The court also considered the detrimental emotional effects of segregated schools on black children. The court also considered the post Civil War Amendments to establish the legal status of African Americans and concluded that African Americans were the legal citizens of the United States and any form of unequal treatment to this body of citizens was repugnant to the Constitution. The court also used the findings of social scientist Kenneth Clark which showed the detrimental effects of segregation on young black children. Mr. Clark used black and white dolls to conduct his studies and found that the black children thought of the white dolls to be superior even though they related more to the black dolls.

Legal Reasoning: 'Separate can not be equal.' Even though the physical facilities of segregated schools may be equal, segregation still generates a feeling of inferiority in the subordinate group, which in this case is composed of African Americans. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides equal protection of law to "all legal persons born or naturalized in the United States." The African Americans are, with no doubt, the legal citizens of the United States and any form of discrimination against this body of citizens is illegal. The court ignored the judgment of Plessy by using two explanations. First, the court decided that compared to the Plessy period, the importance of education has dramatically increased in the present. Second, the court stated that the Plessy case did not have anything to do with education at all! It was about separate train coaches and schools were not even mentioned in that decision. So this proves that even though Brown I ended segregation in American schools, it did not end segregation in other public places and the fight of African Americans was far from over

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