1. “How Case Law Has
Shaped Our Rights”
Kassahel Augustin
2. Brown vs Board Of Education (1954)
Holding: Separate schools are not equal.
In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court sanctioned segregation by upholding the doctrine of
"separate but equal." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People disagreed with
this ruling, challenging the constitutionality of segregation in the Topeka, Kansas, school system. In
1954, the Court reversed its Plessy decision, declaring that "separate schools are inherently unequal."
Plaintiff’s Arguement: Linda Brown and her family believed that the segregated school system
violated the Fourteenth Amendment and took their case to court because the children had to cross
dangerous paths to wait at an all black bus stop to go to an all black school father away instead of
going to the all white school nearby.
3. Brown vs Board Of Education (1954)
Opinion of the Defendant: Federal district court decided that segregation in public education was
harmful to black children, but because all-black schools and all-white schools had similar buildings,
transportation, curricula, and teachers, the segregation was legal.
4. Brown vs Board Of Education (1954)
U.S. Supreme Court Decision: “We conclude that the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” —Chief Justice Earl Warren
The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Amendments used by all parties: Fourteenth Amendment
Amendments this case led to: Declared the Plessy vs Ferguson Case unconstitutional.
5. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
Holding: Indigent defendants must be provided representation without charge.
Gideon was accused of committing a felony. Being indigent, he petitioned the judge to provide him
with an attorney free of charge. The judge denied his request. The Supreme Court ruled for Gideon,
saying that the Sixth Amendment requires indigent criminal defendants to be provided an attorney free
of charge.
Opinion of Plaintiff: Gideon asked a Florida Circuit Court judge to appoint one for him arguing that
the Sixth Amendment entitles everyone to a lawyer
6. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
Opinion of Defendant: The judge denied his request and Gideon was left to represent himself.
7. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
U.S. Supreme Court Decision: “If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not
sat down in his prison cell . . . to write a letter to the Supreme Court . . . the vast machinery of
American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter, the Court
did look into his case . . . and the whole course of American legal history has been changed.” —Robert
F. Kennedy
The Court unanimously ruled in Gideon’s favor, stating that the Sixth Amendment requires state courts
to provide attorneys for criminal defendants who cannot otherwise afford counsel.
Amendments used by all parties: Sixth Amendment
8. Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Holding: Laws prohibiting interracial marriage
Virginia's statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial
classifications held to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white
man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage
violated the state's anti-miscegenationstatute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited
marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored".
Opinion of Plaintiff: The ACLU filed a motion on behalf of the Lovings in the Virginia trial court to
vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter
to the Fourteenth Amendment. This set in motion a series of lawsuits which ultimately reached the
Supreme Court.
9. Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Opinion of Defendant: The Lovings were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which
prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and
Section 20-59, which classified miscegenation as a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of
between one and five years.
10. Loving v. Virginia (1967)
U.S. Supreme Court Decision: In a unanimous decision, the Court held that distinctions drawn
according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and were subject to "the most rigid scrutiny"
under the Equal Protection Clause. The Virginia law, the Court found, had no legitimate purpose
"independent of invidious racial discrimination." The Court rejected the state's argument that the
statute was legitimate because it applied equally to both blacks and whites and found that racial
classifications were not subject to a "rational purpose" test under the Fourteenth Amendment. The
Court also held that the Virginia law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Under our Constitution," wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren, "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a
person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."
Amendments used: Fourteenth Amendment, Tenth Amendment
11. Summary
These case laws fundamentally changed our society. Although not all cases end up joyful for all
affected, their struggles paved the way for other people to live a more peaceful and just life. It is up to
we the people to help understand our rights as citizens.
