Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Statement of facts
A considerable number of children who were the plaintiffs of African American descent were deprived of access to public schools based on their race. The litigants mainly wanted to contest the segregation doctrine applied to them in southern states and allow them to choose any school of their choice without being discriminated against racial lines.
Procedural history of the case
The 1954 appellate case is an important historical legal suit filed in the Supreme Court which involved Oliver Brown against the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas city. The lawsuit sought to contest the segregation policy which separated children along racial lines. Therefore, the case involved thirteen parents who represented twenty children in challenging the laws. The case was an appeal after the district court adjudicated in favor of the Board of Education (Warren, 1954: 483). The dominant applicable law in the ruling involved the canon adopted in 1896 by the Supreme Court in a …show more content…
An insightful argument was constructed that, the time the law came into practice; there was limited number of public schools which taught African Americans. Therefore they argued out that the historical justification for the amendment of the constitution was not essential in the case. The court profoundly argued out that during the drafting of the change of the law by Congress, they did not indicate any clause which would necessitate the combination of public schools (McBride, 2006). Therefore, the Supreme Court affirmed equal education opportunities as guaranteed in the amendment. More importantly, the court argued out that education is a public utility and thus discrimination of children in their quest for knowledge is a denial of their rights, and it contradicts the government pledge to cater for universal education to