Which case concluded that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal?

• A. Plessy v. Ferguson
• B. Loving v. Virginia
• C. Brown v. Board of Education
• D. Roe v. Wade

Answer: (C)

Separating public schools by race is unconstitutional because it implies inequality and denies equal protection under the law. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka held that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, so they violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. This ruling overturned the earlier Plessy v. Ferguson standard of “separate but equal,” which had allowed segregated schools. Brown’s decision stressed that segregation itself harms students by teaching them they are inferior and cannot receive the same educational opportunities. It drew on both legal reasoning and social science evidence about the harms of segregation, and its impact was to push the nation toward integrated schools. The other cases deal with different rights—marriage laws in one instance and abortion rights in another—so they do not address the constitutional basis for desegregating public education.