Today in Supreme Court History: May 17, 1954

5/17/1954: Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe are decided.

Comments

[Malika the Maiz]

Hey, hey, what’s up with the DEI stuff, JB? You’re not going to be on that Trump advisory committee for long posting this woke stuff!

[Frank Drackman]

JB say he done' hav no money to pay dis rent, could you let him slide it on? he have it for you tomorrow, the next day, I don't know.

[Malika the Maiz]

Frank plays his pathetic made up persona as an idiot (and a big MAGA fan, natch) but this is too on the nose. Maybe a re-write?

[F.D. Wolf]

Amazingly, the federal judiciary managed to desegregate the school systems throughout this country without issuing a single nationwide injunction. Think of all the time they could have saved if the notion had occurred to a single judge back then. But I guess such ideas wouldn’t have flown with the notoriously conservative Warren Court.

[Frank Drackman]

The Federal Judiciary "Managed to desegregate the school systems"?????
You seen any Pubic Screw-els lately? My fully intergrated High Screw-el which was 50/50 Black/White my Senior Year (Mexicans? Asians? it was Ali-Bama 1980, we din need no effin Mexicans/Asians!)
Today (HT "Publicschoolreview.com")
"Minority enrollment is 99% of the student body (majority Black), which is higher than the Alabama state average of 49% (majority Black)."
Oh, and my poor Grammar Skills?
"Serving 1,592 students in grades 9-12, (Redacted) High School ranks in the bottom 50% of all schools in Alabama for overall test scores (math proficiency is bottom 50%, and reading proficiency is bottom 50%)."
Actually you can't really blame Ali-Bama Pubic Screw-els, I'd finished all my required Engrish courses in the California system, so blame them!

Frank

[A Japanese Student]

Nationwide injunctions are, by definition, issued against the federal government, not states.

[Speaking for normal people]

Many conservatgives LOATHE the Warren Court. Don't be a jerk

[Frank Drackman]

If Hillary Rodman or Ka-Malla (Keeping it Clean EV!) had won we might be facing a new "Warren" Court.
That we're not almost makes me believe in Jay-Hey

Frank

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm unsure we should look upon the courts' record on desegregating schools as totally ideal, including how "deliberate" all deliberate speed turned out to be. As Amanda Frost argued:

Well, sometimes you need to give nationwide injunctions to give complete relief because a party to the case will not be able to get that relief without a nationwide injunction. That’s true of a school desegregation case. If a single Black child sues to integrate a school or attend an integrated school, it’s no remedy to say no other Black child can attend and only you, the plaintiff, get to attend that school.

The practice was not widely used, however, at the time though scholarship on the question provides some examples.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/15/district-courts-nationwide-injunctions-supreme-court-trump-00342252

https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-133/the-lost-history-of-the-universal-injunction/

Anyway, Bolling v. Sharpe cites precedent regarding the Due Process Clause having an equal protection component. Due process traditionally included equal treatment for those similarly situated. The question then became what that meant.

The Equal Protection Clause provided an additional stronger protection (and uses the word "deny" over "deprive") but the federal government still has a basic obligation of equal treatment.

[Speaking for normal people]

IT certainly appeared a failure to outsiders

Hannah Arendt makes a key point: “Segregation is discrimination enforced by law, and desegregation can do no more than abolish the laws enforcing discrimination; it cannot abolish discrimination and force equality upon society ...”

And what did it in fact accomplish ???
Hannah Arendt reveals the tension between the individual and society. Many white parents have responded to the integration of public schools by enrolling their children in private schools. Ironically, most of them are religious private schools. But the fact remains that all children, black or white, are entitled to a quality education in public schools. How can blacks enjoy a quality education if most of the whites are attending private schools?

======================
THe real enemy of Black education was Barack Obama.
His two girls went to the hideously expensive Sidwell school

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been among the strongest voices in the Democratic Party for education reform. And yet, as they pursue endorsements from the nation’s powerful teachers unions, both candidates have avoided reform themes and instead have emphasized union favorites such as increasing federal school aid.

In a speech to the National Education Association last month, Obama focused on the need to pay teachers more and left out his past support for making it easier to get rid of ineffective teachers. And Clinton, talking to teachers in New Hampshire in March, railed that “our children’s passion is being killed” by the federal testing regimen, without mentioning her longstanding support for charter schools.

So all you liberals and Libertarians, while you had control YOU DID NOTHING. Oh, you mouthed off about equality and non-discrimination. ...I am a college teacher of 10 years, almost yearly you can see the students getting worse. Biden caved to teachers unions and kept schools closed when he had publicly stated the necessity of opening them during Covid but the teachers unions threatened and he caved. In fine, when you have the power YOU DO NOTHING except talk

[SRG2]

I don't know why you're so reluctant to provide links to your C&Ps.

Here: https://dfer.org/2007/08/07/clinton-obama-go-easy-on-school-reform-talk-approach-reflects-appeal-to-unions-for-endorsements/

This article was written in 2007.

[Speaking for normal people]

Don't miss
The Irrepressible Myth of Cooper v. Aaron
JOSH BLACKMAN
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-law-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2019/05/The-Irrepressible-Myth-of-Cooper-v.-Aaron.pdf

Now,
Cooper, which was signed by all nine Justices, represented that these
two doctrines were “basic” and premised on “settled doctrine.” Not so.
Rather, they were novel assertions [ judicial supremacy and judicial universality: the Supreme Court’s constitutional interpretations obligate not only
the parties in a given case, but also other similarly situated parties in
later cases] of judicial power that were and
remain entirely inconsistent with how all courts, including the Supreme
Court, operate.

I AGREE AND LEAVE IT AT THAT
PSJustice Alito was not involved in this case, and Justice Thomas was not a Supreme Court Justice at the time.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I appreciate we have someone "speaking for normal people" since many around here (including myself) might be deemed atypical. OTOH, ymmv as to if that person is the median either. Shrugs.

[Speaking for normal people]

Normal is not median. Nothing is more atypical than that a person on a handful of issues always comes out to match the number one spot. in 12 issues where the 80% point is normal , it would be statistically unlikely that you are 4/5 to the 12th power would be .07 or 7% in the extreme

and this stands to reason. If your friend is always reading the most popular book. going to the most popular movie and buyihg the most popular recording, suspect someone who KNOWS they are not normal and can't deal with it