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While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famous, Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947) was actually the first case in which segregation in education was successfully challenged in federal court. Finally giving Mendez its due, Philippa Strum provides a concise and compelling account of its legal issues and legacy, while retaining its essential human face: that of Mexican Americans unwilling to accept second-class citizenship. Brown v Board of Education utilized the legal theory presented in the Mendez v Westminster case.

In 1945 Gonzalo and Felícitas Méndez, California farmers, sent their children off to the local school, only to be told that the youngsters would have to attend a separate facility reserved for Mexican Americans. In response the Méndezes and other aggrieved parents from nearby school districts went to federal court to challenge the segregation. Uniquely, they did not claim racial discrimination, since Mexicans were legally considered white, but rather discrimination based on ancestry and supposed “language deficiency” that denied their children their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.226.68.12 (talk) 18:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Picture with caption "Educational separation in the US prior to Brown" is linked to a dead Google doc. Can anyone update? looks like a useful pic... 205.197.255.250 (talk) 19:30, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Dead cite [57]

Link opened, resulting in 'No page found.' User:Bootsie358 19:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. --jpgordon::==( o ) 21:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Half of this sentence should be removed

"Also, it was felt by lawyers with the National Chapter of the NAACP, that having Mr. Brown at the head of the roster would be better received by the U.S. Supreme Court Justices because Mr. Brown had an intact, complete family, as opposed to someone who was a single parent head of household[citation needed]"

Damn right "citation needed." The second half of this statement is pure, twenty-first century conjecture. The "single welfare mother baby factory" is a fairly recent demon. Without a hell of a lot more proof than is here offered, I seriously doubt that the "single parent head of household" dis-argument was ever proposed. I'd accept a decision that a male head of family who worked for the railroads would be considered their best lead plaintiff but people in 1950 were not so Rush-ized as to automatically despise any black woman as a "welfare queen". Beyond that, this statement is immaterial to the discussion. Maybe the NAACP attorneys thought a guy with a red tie looked better in court, too. Who knows ? It's not germane and doesn't belong in the article.The inference is backhanded not-so-subtle propaganda, not factual reporting.

I was alive then. This isn't conjecture by some twenty-something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.22.142.82 (talk) 06:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The unsourced half-statement in question has been removed, and should not be restored without the backing of a reliable source.--JayJasper (talk) 06:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

ABHI

Senate dominated by the South?

The article asserts that while waiting for his confirmation, Earl Warren was tight lipped about his antisegregation beliefs to appease the Senate which was "dominated by Southerners."

The Senate is the house of Congress where each state has 2 and only 2 representatives. The seventeen states with legally required segregation would have had 34 senators. The other 31 states (at the time) would have had 62 senators. A simple majority is required for confirmation. Somewhere the math doesn't add up.174.52.210.196 (talk) 20:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I changed it. I suppose it's theoretically possible that the senate was dominated by southerners at the time if a bunch of northern states had elected southern senators, but without a source I agree with you that there's no reason to believe that this was the case. Thanks for pointing it out.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
control means control of key committees and control via filibuster. Rjensen (talk) 05:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for clarification and a source for that. The sentence as it stood did plausibly sound like numerical domination. I wouldn't oppose a phrase with a source making what you're saying clear. I admit that when I changed it the possibility of a filibuster hadn't occurred to me. Is there a relevant committee besides Judiciary here, and was that one dominated by southerners?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 11:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
the Judiciary committee senior Democrats were all segregationists and they were ready to filibuster. Warren was on a recess appointment--it began oct 1 1952 but it was not permanent until the senate acted on March 1 1953 The committee chair was a Republican "wild bill" Langer of ND -- a very strange man indeed. he stalled for a while then it was passed on a voice vote. no Senator spoke against Warren (See newton's bio pp 280-92) . Rjensen (talk) 14:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't have access to the source right now. Do you want to propose a sentence or two about the issue?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I added this note to the Warren article, where the info belongs: Eisenhower gave Warren a recess appointment that began on October 1, 1952. It was made permanent when the Senate acted on March 1 1953. No serious opposition appeared and he was confirmed by unanimous voice vote.[ref]Jim Newton, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (2006), pp 280-92[/ref] Rjensen (talk) 18:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
The article edit looks good, but FYI, your dates here are off by a year (i.e. the recess appointment was in 1953 and confirmation followed in 1954). Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
OOPS -- and I always get daylight savings time wrong too  :( Rjensen (talk) 21:30, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Alexander v. Holmes Co BOE Needs to be highlighted

I think more emphasis needs to be given in the Brown article to the related case, Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 1218 (1969), than just calling it a "related case," as the goals and primary objective of Brown I were not fully realized to that point -- 15 years later; I'd do the edit myself, but am unsure how to integrate it properly into the main text (no pun, ;) ) Chachap (talk) 19:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

50 Years After

There have been debates on whether or not the desegregation of schools has been completely diminished. The article, Fifty Years After Brown v. Board: Five Principles for Moving Ahead by Gary Blasi, talks about the importance of what equality in education should actually mean. Blasi’s five principles are: 1) adopt the view from the bottom, 2) practice principled solidarity, 3) be a principled pragmatist, 4) follow the money, 5) address racism, in all its forms, all the time.[1] Adopt the view from the bottom, “in the case of education, this principle means adopting the perspective of the student in the system…” Blasi means that educators and all others should take into consideration of what the student sees.[2] Practice principles solidarity, means too not only be concerned with the child, but also their parents. Blasi states that, “we have to believe, and then act like we believe, that we are in this together.”[3] Be a principled pragmatist, “means keeping an open mind about ideas and possibilities, even when those ideas have troubling intellectual ancestries.”[4] Follow the money, is an interesting one to talk about. Blasi makes a fascinating point about how if the money does not mean anything, then why do wealthy people pick to send their children to the best and most expensive schools.[5] This is interesting because if all follow the money, then the majority should be available to equal opportunity. Address racism, in all its forms, all the time, this is to be able to move forward if people do not “dance” around the subject of inequality based on race. Blasi seems to have refined the way of approaching equal opportunity within the educational system.

Justice Deferred: A Half Century After Brown v. Board of Education by Thomas Pettigrew focuses on the benefits of desegregation among educational institutes. Pettigrew said that students of color who attend desegregated schools were proven to: “attend and finish majority-white colleges, work with white coworkers and have better jobs, live in interracial neighborhoods, have somewhat higher incomes, have more white friends and contacts and more positive attitudes toward whites. Similarly, whites…more likely to have more positive attitudes towards blacks…” Justice Deferred: A Half Century After Brown v. Board of Education by Thomas Pettigrew focuses on the benefits of desegregation among educational institutes. Pettigrew said that students of color who attend desegregated schools were proven to: “attend and finish majority-white colleges, work with white coworkers and have better jobs, live in interracial neighborhoods, have somewhat higher incomes, have more white friends and contacts and more positive attitudes toward whites. Similarly, whites…more likely to have more positive attitudes towards blacks…”[6]Pettigrew also states in his article the process behind the benefits of desegregation. Those points being it involves; interracial contact, erodes avoidance learning, blacks gain access to formerly all-white social networks, it teaches interracial interaction skills, and avoids the discriminatory stigma of black institutions.[7]

Misconceptions

I've removed the "common misconceptions" section. Nothing in any of the links refers to "common misconceptions"; nothing is cited to show any of the historical misunderstandings are commonplace; nothing is cited to show any ranking for these misunderstandings. I've certainly never heard or read anyone suggesting the case was only about Linda Brown; nor that it was the first case about segregation (which would have to be pretty stupid, since one of the more important facts about the case is that it overturned a previous case). Section could be returned if there are sources discussing misconceptions about Brown v Board of Education, but otherwise, there's no need for it. --jpgordon::==( o ) 16:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I am trying to add a link to help this wikipage.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/brown-v-board-of-education-1954-making-segregation.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theunknownfigure (talk • contribs) 19:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

In the first sentence in the subheading of "Brown v. Board of Education" the sentence "In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas" exists. I would like to change the hyperlink in Topeka, Kansas to another website that is more relavent to the topic: http://www.nps.gov/brvb/historyculture/topeka.htm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theunknownfigure (talk • contribs) 00:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

 Not done Please see WP:ELPOINTS #2. Also note that on Wikipedia "hyperlink" refers specifically to an internal link to another WP page. Regards.--JayJasper (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Debo

Under the subsection "Brown v. Board of education" there is a sentence I would like to add a link to. In the fouth paragraph it says "Linda Brown Thompson later recalled the experience in a 2004 PBS documentary" I would like to add a hyperlink to this statement to http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june04/brown_05-12.html which has a transcript of the interview. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theunknownfigure (talk • contribs) 00:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done External links are generally disallowed from the body of the article (see WP:ELPOINTS #2), but this appears to warrant a reasonable exception to that rule as it is a reliable source that cites the subject being referred to and it is not a term on which WP has an article.--JayJasper (talk) 03:19, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Conflicting information

The article Brown v. Board of Education includes the statement: "Separate elementary schools were operated by the Topeka Board of Education under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in twelve communities with populations over 15,000."

There is also within this article a hyperlink to Zelma Henderson. That page says: "Kansas state law at the time required that elementary schools in towns with a population of 15,000 or more had to be racially segregated."

Only one of these statements can be true. The state law either required segregation or it did not. I'm not qualified to determine which is true. Perhaps a better scholar can correct the incorrect one.

Yerfdogj (talk) 15:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)yerfdogj

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2014

In the caption of the photo of the Supreme Court Justices, it should read:

"On May 17, 1954, these men, members of the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional."

Instead of:

"On May 17, 1954, these men, members of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional."

All that has to be done is to add a comma in front of "U.S. Supreme Court." NigeriaNoKamisama (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Done, thanks! --ElHef (Meep?) 19:37, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Spelling and Grammar Changes

One change is under the subject "Brown v. Board of Education" in the second paragraph of the subject the sentence "Separate elementary schools were operated by the Topeka Board of Education " exists. I think this should be changed to " The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools"

Suggestion: Noticed typo occuring in two places: "Unanimous opinion and consenus building". 50.135.209.86 (talk) 08:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC) Dan

"Second: The attendance of Justice Robert H. Jackson who had suffered a mild heart attack and was not expected return to the bench until the beginning of June 1954."

Correction: "... was not expected to return ..."194.96.55.20 (talk) 14:39, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 February 2015

Spelling error in last para of section 2.2 (Supreme Court review): "barriser" should be "barrister". 80.2.62.230 (talk) 16:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks! --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 October 2016

50.232.69.126 (talk) 19:08, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: Blank request Topher385 (talk) 23:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

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Under the section heading "Social implications", please change the link that says "For more implications of the Brown decision, see Desegregation" to: "For more implications of the Brown decision, see School integration in the United States ". The general desegregation article doesn't provide much information about school desegregation and the school integration page has information on what followed from the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sentient being (talk • contribs)

Done @Sentient being: Once you made 5 more edits you'll become confirmed user and be able to edit all pages under semi protection. Also don't forget to sign all your posts at talk pages.  — Ammarpad (talk) 05:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2017

As far as I can tell from the oral arguements transcrits, Thurgood Marshall did not argue Brown vs Board of Education. Robert L. Carter did. Marshall only argued Briggs vs Elliott. https://www.lib.umich.edu/brown-versus-board-education/oralarguments.htm https://www.lib.umich.edu/brown-versus-board-education/oral/Carter&Wilson.pdf Alex.posti (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Alex.posti:  Not done per the response at the other talk page. CityOfSilver 05:55, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Unanimous Opinion and Consensus Building on 27 March 2018

Under the Unanimous opinion and consensus building header, remove the sentence: "The Chief's reliance on shoddy social science is widely seen as irresponsible." in the fourth paragraph. This is an opinion and is not verifiable. No citation has been presented since the label was added in December 2017. Senuto (talk) 00:58, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

 Already done This was taken care of by another editor. Spintendo      04:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

"Brown vs." listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Brown vs.. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Hog Farm (talk) 04:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Plaintiff attorney Thurgood Marshall

It seems notable enough that Thurgood Marshall's participation in this landmark case as the lead plaintiff attorney ought to be noted in the main box on the right.

I second this. Not only did he argue the case, the entire case was the capstone of a lengthy litigation strategy running from Shelley v. Kraemer through Painter v. Sweatt and then up to Brown.Lukacris (talk) 06:49, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
The American Civil War Barnstar
Message Lovingitnow2009 (talk) 08:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

(Lovingitnow2009 (talk) 08:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC))

Big overgrown negroes

The quote attributed to Pres. Eisenhower "All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes" is not actually what he said. He said "All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big black bucks.”

The language is certainly not what one normally puts in Wikipedia, but the crudeness of the comment was part of why Warren pushed so hard for a strong unanimous decision.

Cited in an article in the Atlantic Monthtly, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/commander-v-chief/554045/

John L (talk) 20:06, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jrlevine: The other cited sources say differently. I've added an explanatory note for now.  White Whirlwind  04:59, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2020

Change "white" to "black" when article says "no buses were provided for WHITE students" SquashGuy1 (talk) 03:21, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

 Partly done: Hello SquashGuy1, thank you for pointing this out. The source, the Supreme Court opinion, does not appear to actually specifically mention bus service at all, so I've removed that part completely and switched to the more accurate wording, Unlike school districts of other states involved in the combined case, in Topeka the lower courts, while still requiring certain remedies, had found that the segregated schools were "substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of teachers." Hence with the involvement of the Kansas case the Supreme Court's findings specifically hinged upon the matter of segregation.
Merely as a point of information, the content added by the 16:36, 26 October 2020 edit, stating that no bus service was provided for white students, seems to be accurate, as it is consistent with the "filing and arguments" section in the article, describing the situation in which the named student was assigned to the black Monroe Elementary School rather than the closer white school, Sumner Elementary. Quoting specifically, the third-grade African-American student "had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe," rather than walking an additional block to get to Sumner Elementary. Presumably, white students that were "denied" bus service lived within walking distance of their schools, while the student in question did not live within walking distance of the more distant school she had been assigned to.
The text that had been added in the above-mentioned edit made it sound like white students were actually being disadvantaged by being denied bus service, when that's actually inconsistent with the facts. Fabrickator (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
I'd agree that the previous edit incorrectly made it sound as though white students were disadvantaged; but besides that, even looking at the sources on the sentence in §Filing and arguments that mentions busing, all I'm seeing is in the Encarta article a statement that Linda Brown’s white friends attended a local school only 7 blocks from her home. They did not have to ride a bus or face dangerous crossings to reach their school, rather than general statements about the busing of white students and black students in the district; so maybe it says something like that elsewhere, but based on just the sources I've looked at it does not appear accurate at all for the editor to have written that No bus service was provided for white students, who were required to walk to their schools. (Edit: I mean, if all white students really had to walk to all the white schools while there was busing for black students, I would not think that SCOTUS would have characterized the transportation within the district as substantially equal.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:57, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 January 2021

Please include Mendez v. Westminster, 64 F.Supp. 544 (C.D. Cal. 1946) in the short list of cases that led up to Brown and contributed strategically to the arguments that eventually prevailed before the SCOTUS. First para under Background. Cite is above and in reference to oral history provided by Sylvia Mendez: https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/osi04.soc.ush.civil.mendez/mendez-v-westminster-desegregating-californias-schools/#.WswVBS7waHs OCsmithlaw (talk) 21:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

checkY Done J850NK (talk) 20:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 February 2021

71.174.107.10 (talk) 17:52, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that wekipda should be fun

I agree. However this is not a specific requested edit, so I'm closing this request. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

no

no — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.44.208.3 (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 May 2021

uests will be declined. -->



}} 64.88.4.225 (talk) 13:44, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Run n Fly (talk) 13:51, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 May 2021

I intend to include additional section within response and aftermath. This will surround the international response to Brown V. Board. WallisH2 (talk) 14:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@WallisH2: You put an edit request here. If you intended to, please restart the edit request by changing answered=no to answered=yes. If you didn't, please be careful not to add the edit request when adding to talk pages. Thanks! :) --Ferien (talk) 18:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
@Ferien: I think that should be "change 'answered=yes' to 'answered=no'". Am I wrong? Fabrickator (talk) 18:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
@Fabrickator: oops, I meant the other way round. My bad. --Ferien (talk) 18:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

New "Issues" in Decision section

@Fabrickator: Would you mind describing the new issues you perceived my edits to have introduced? I thought my edits were quite minor.  White Whirlwind  05:57, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: I will admit to having a bias to give some deference to the existing text. I think that's the right position to have. For better or worse, the smallest change (particularly to such a consequential article) is likely to be examined in some detail by a fair number of people, and just because a change appears to be minor doesn't mean that it will be easy to properly analyze its impact.
I presume that you believe these changes provide a meaningful improvement, I think this is not actually the case. So compare...
The Brown Court did not address this issue, however, probably because some of the school districts [had "equalized" black and white schools].
vs.
The Court's decision did not address this issue, most likely because some of the school districts [had "equalized" black and white schools].
What are the subtle ramifications of these two wordings? That "court" doesn't need to be qualified by "Brown"? That the justices might have actually discussed it while deciding that this discussion should be omitted from the written opinion?
In the second version, it kind of puts the responsibility on the decision itself, rather than on the court itself. Of course it's not unusual to personify a "decision" in this way, but why let the "decision" be in control when the pre-existing wording already puts the "court" properly in control?
... even hearing a second round of oral arguments from the parties' lawyers specifically on the historical sources—but to no avail.
... even hearing a second round of oral arguments from the parties' lawyers specifically on history—but to no avail.

I suppose that "historical sources" may leave one wondering just which sources, but cutting this down to "history" makes it even more vague. Fabrickator (talk) 07:25, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for elaborating. Allow me to respond. First, I now understand your argument about having the agent be the Court, rather than the decision. But why revert to "the Brown Court"? What other court would it have been? The one from Roe v. Wade 20 years in the future that time-traveled to the present? If you want to emphasize that it was the justices in the majority, surely the better change is "the Court" instead of reverting to "Brown Court". Second, regarding "historical sources", neither rendition is very good. We should probably specify that the sources the Court was examining were the Amendment's legislative history, and its goal was to see if an original intent regarding schools was discernible. I just worry about being too wordy.  White Whirlwind  08:35, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
If you'll notice, I recently (i.e. in the last day or two) made an observation on this talk page that there is no mention of Walter Huxman's contribution to the Brown v. Board decision (Huxman being the judge who wrote the opinion of the appeals court in this case). Now why do I mention that here?
It's because this is an astounding omission. The quote ascribed to Earl Warren is what Huxman included as one of the nine "findings of fact" that was incorporated into that opinion. I can't say it enough: This is an astounding omission!
And why that is relevant here is because you've bothered to make highly insignificant changes, and made additional efforts trying to defend these changes (whereas my position in objecting to these insignificant changes is that changes of this nature, changes which are highly subjective as to whether there is an improvement, and at best this is an improvement of the smallest magnitude, I'm trying to take the position of "first do no harm").
So agree with me or not about whether your own changes are an improvement, there is really (IMO, of course) no room for doubt about the vastness of this omission regarding Huxman. So please, check this out. Please add this to the article. Failing to give Huxman credit, it's not just a vast injustice to Huxman, its omission makes this whole article a lie. That is a change where you can hardly go wrong as long as you just get the facts fairly straight. Fabrickator (talk) 12:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
None of the major sources I've consulted mention Huxman at all. It would have violated the WP:DUE aspect of WP:NPOV to mention him. If you can find some good sources that mention him, we can mention him to the extent that those major sources do. Our personal opinions on these matters are mostly irrelevant.  White Whirlwind  20:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
This is no personal opinion. Here is one source: A Historical and Social Perspective on Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka with Present and Future Implications:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of the law, therefore, has a tendency to (retard) the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of-the benefits they would receive in a racialy [sic] integrated school system.

The Supreme Court opinion quotes the specific finding of fact that's included in Huxman's opinion. This is all online, if you make the effort to find it, and it's from sources you cannot dismiss, whether that's the official court opinion, newspaper reports (available at Chronicling America), or sites dedicated to reporting the Brown v. Board case (see, for instance: https://www.famous-trials.com/brownvtopeka/658-brownhuxman ). Fabrickator (talk) 22:26, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Ok, then add a brief mention. I'd personally recommend staying away from "famous-trials.com", from its name I suspect it might have WP:RS problems. I mainly stick to legal treatises, with the occasional law review article or monograph from a major journal or press thrown in. I take RS very seriously.
By the way, what "opinion of the appeals court" are you referencing? There was no intermediate appellate decision in Brown.  White Whirlwind  23:10, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

@White whirlwind:I don't want to improve on your changes, I want to discourage changes that don't even make a "subjective" improvement. We should avoid changing the text when it doesn't constitute an improvement, and we shoud obviously avoid changes that make the text worse, which is at least arguably the case with this set of changes. Fabrickator (talk) 22:21, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree, but the changes are so minor that I don't think it's worth arguing over so I'll move on.  White Whirlwind  06:13, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Mention of railway cars has been deleted

An edit comment complained that Plessy v. Ferguson was linked in numerous places in the article, why should it be linked so late in the article (Special:diff/old/1082725522), and thus removed the link.

I wondered what the article looked like when before all these many other links were added ... see the revision of 4 April 2005.

With the recent edit, the article does not have any mention of railway cars.

Does that matter? I'm not here to consider the philosophical question that perhaps separate but equal is less egregious in railway cars than it is in schools, but it's a relevant fact of the case, so for those who take the trouble to look at the talk page, you are now aware of this deleted fact. Fabrickator (talk) 23:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

This article is about Brown v Board, not Plessy v Ferguson. It would be outside the scope of this article's topic to add too much detail about the Plessy case. Readers can go to the Plessy article for that. SamWilson989 (talk) 23:11, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
@SamWilson989: I think your response counts as "begging the question", e.g. you have to assert that including this point of information would in fact be excessive detail. You've had most of the last 20 years to point out this alleged defect, and yet failed to do so. You can't reasonably claim you didn't have time to check this article for such excess detail sooner, since you had the time to come up with this highly dubious justification. Fabrickator (talk) 11:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree with SamWilson989. The railway cars in Plessy have no significant relevance to this article. Also, SamWilson made no mention of "not having time to check the article". I do not know why one would bring that up.  White Whirlwind  18:55, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
I figured that if the mention of the railway cars were actually irrelevant, then this should have been mentioned long before 20 years. (In other cases, I've seen people claim that a change constitutes consensus when nobody has objected to the change after a couple of weeks. Who's really right?) It is mentioned several times in the article that the court found that "separate but equal" did not apply in the field of public education. Left to their own imagination, people who don't check the Plessy case will be likely to make some assumption that's almost surely incorrect.
When they make the wrong assumption, I presume you will say it's their own fault. But this is like putting the burden on students of figuring out what material they're responsible for in a course... if you're a good student, you'll figure this out on your own. And you'd be right! A sufficiently diligent reader would realize that there was a "missing gap" and check on the details of Plessy before continuing on. But Wikipedia isn't offered up as a challenge to identify the holes in a story, it's supposed to be something which presents the material facts of the topic in a non-puzzling way, and given that Plessy had a different result than Brown, that difference would certainly seem to be a material fact. Fabrickator (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
If you think a change is needed, just succinctly suggest a concrete edit.  White Whirlwind  08:25, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
Proposed change: In the edit of 14 April 2022 (and which had been initially added in the edit of 8 January 2003), reinsert the text

which had upheld a state law requiring "separate but equal" segregated facilities for blacks and whites in railway cars

which that edit had deleted. Fabrickator (talk) 15:16, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
Oh, that's great. From your mention of railway cars and your other comments, it wasn't clear to me that you really just wanted a brief description of Plessy and its holding. I think your suggested edit would be a perfectly reasonable addition here. Do you agree, SamWilson989?  White Whirlwind  18:06, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
I support this change. I think its succinct enough to not distract from the topic of the article. Cheers, @Fabrickator. I appreciate you both waiting for my reply! SamWilson989 (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm just seeing the replies on this talk page now so I'll reply to the whole thing in a second. However, I wanted to make a point about this specific comment: "You've had most of the last 20 years to point out this alleged defect, and yet failed to do so." I think it's important to remember as Wiki editors that there is no deadline. If we see something that could be improved, it doesn't matter how long it's stayed unimproved or incorrect. And no editor is under any obligation to keep a watchful eye over every single article. You asked for comment, I gave my view. Sure, it's been there since 2003 but that doesn't matter if it shouldn't stay on its own merits. This is why AfD exists and often deletes articles that have been up for over a decade. But I digress, I'll reply to the actual discussion further down the page. Appreciate your patience. SamWilson989 (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 25 March 2023

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

WP:SNOW closed as not moved. There is no chance of a consensus to move developing, and the nominator appears to have reversed position as well. BD2412 T 21:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Joesom333 (talk) 21:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Brown v. Board of Education → Brown v. Bd. of Educ. – Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal, the title of this case should follow Bluebook format which mandates these abbreviations. Other pages have recently been moved per this guide. See Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Boston & Me. Corp.; Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc.; and Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle. Consistency is needed. See title policy (stating that topic-specific naming conventions must be followed). Joesom333 (talk) 18:52, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

International context

I think that this page could use a section on the international reactions to the Brown case. The decision was clearly made with foreign policy in mind and the decision was heavily publicised by the Voice of America radio station. I am unable to edit the page however as i am a new editor. JackJFay (talk) 15:23, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Proposed removal of claim added in 2006

The 00:55 12 January 2006 edit adds a claim that the plaintiffs asserted that the "separate but equal" system "perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment" for black Americans.

This claim is not consistent with the statements made at trial by the plaintiffs' attorneys, and Huxman confirmed the position of the plaintiffs in the "Findings of Fact" section of the District Court ruling. Specifically, Finding Number 4 stated:

There is no material difference in the physical facilities in the colored schools and in the white schools and such facilities in the colored schools are not inferior in any material respects to those in white schools.

It is well-recognized that Huxman was extremely sympathetic to the plaintiffs, but he understood he had no authority to simply overrule Plessy and doing so would be unlikely to have the desired outcome. Fabrickator (talk) 19:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Here is another source that contradicts this claim: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas Historical Society), stating

The plaintiffs in Topeka did not charge that the schools' facilities their children attended were inferior, but that segregation itself did psychological and educational damage to black children forced to attend schools isolated from the other children in the community.

Fabrickator (talk) 23:00, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Huxman Findings of Fact

Failing to mention Judge Huxman's "findings of fact" at the appeals district level is a serious omission. Without that, things would quite likely have gone the other way at the Supreme Court. These findings included the detrimental effect of a segregated education upon the children. This is arguably the linchpin on which the Supreme Court decision was made.

This brief newspaper account mentions it. Other sources provide the full set of "findings of fact", explaining why the appeals court had to rule the way it did, while handing this case to the Supreme Court with the facts that would justify overturning Plessey v. Ferguson. Yet there is absolutely no mention of this in the article.

Adding this link to view Huxman's opinion of the Tenth Circuit Court case. Fabrickator (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

That's not a Tenth Circuit decision. It's the trial decision from the District of Kansas that was appealed directly to SCOTUS under the old version of 28 U.S.C. § 2284.  White Whirlwind  00:24, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I admit I have been confused about this. I assumed Federal cases would have to go through an appeals court before they could be heard by the supreme court? And as well, I had assumed that a 3-judge panel indicated it was at the appeals level.
So to clarify, because this case raised constitutional issues, it was initially heard by a 3-judge panel and then they could request a writ of certiorari for it to be heard by the Supreme Court. Is that right? But these are old rules and no longer apply? Am I close? Fabrickator (talk) 00:55, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
In the past, the Supreme Court had much less say in the cases it took than it does today. Many cases could be appealed to the Supreme Court as a matter of right. During the late 19th century, Congress passed a law saying that certain types of cases could be heard by a panel of three judges immediately upon being filed in the trial court. These cases could be appealed directly to the Supreme Court as a matter of right. No certiorari was involved. You can identify these cases because the prior history will say "probable jurisdiction noted" instead of "cert. granted". One type of case that could be heard this way was any action in which the constitutionality of a state or federal law was challenged. Congress removed those types of cases from the statute in 1976. Only a small subset of cases still work this way, as you can see from § 2284(a).  White Whirlwind  04:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I have previously made reference to the "findings of fact" issued by presiding Judge Walter A. Huxman in the lower court, but there have been disparaging statements made about some of the sources from which this might be obtained (e.g. the "Famous Trials" website). I therefore provide this reference:

Huxman, Walter A. (Autumn 1952). "The Topeka, Kansas Case Decision". Journal of Negro Education. 21 (4): 522–527. JSTOR 2293822.

As per the above source, Finding of Fact IV states:

There is no material difference in the physical facilities in the colored schools and in the white schools and such facilities in the colored schools are not inferior in any material respect to those in the white schools.

This finding of fact by the lower court, in conjunction with Finding of Fact VIII, effectively precluded a finding in favor of Brown that would have allowed the doctrine of separate but equal to stand. Fabrickator (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

That "journal article" is just a reprint of the district court's decision from the Federal Supplement. I fail to see why we're devoting so much attention to such a minor part of the article.  White Whirlwind  04:51, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
I only offered this particular source because of your concern about the appropriateness of citing the "Famous Trials" website.
We would have to speculate how the SC would have ruled in the absence of this finding, but it seems to be a fundamental aspect of the basis for overturning "separate but equal". Now if someone wants details on how they came up with this, they know to do further reading on the lower court case. Absent the source of this finding, the reader is likely to assume that the SC came up with this finding on its own. Fabrickator (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
I was looking around a bit more regarding the "findings of fact", and I came across The Authority of Race in Legal Decisions: The District Court Opinions of Brown v. Board of Education. Perhaps this is just somebody's draft, but the part that caught my eye was this quote:

... their final judgment of law did not incorporate the substantial testimony of social science evidence that the LDF lawyers presented about the psychological effect of racial prejudice and segregation. Perhaps as a compromise, the judges attached nine findings of fact to their decision ...

My impression is that including this finding of fact did not represent a compromise, but something the court had believed would be likely to be relevant to the disposition of the case. Hopefully this would have been reworded prior to actual publication. Fabrickator (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

add start and end date to sidebar

dates it started dec 1952 and ended may 1954 https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/landmark-brown-v-board-education/#:~:text=When%20Did%20Brown%20v.,Columbia%20starting%20in%20December%201952. and https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/landmark-brown-v-board-education/#:~:text=When%20Did%20Brown%20v.,Columbia%20starting%20in%20December%201952. Ocueye (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 17:41, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Detrimental effect of segregation

@White whirlwind: In your edits of 16 October 2023, you pointed out the determination of the detrimental effect of segregation in public schools. However, this is stated without mentioning that this finding of factwas actually part of the opinion in the 1951 trial, presided over by Walter Huxman (as mentioned in Brown v. Board of Education#District court opinion). Fabrickator (talk) 23:38, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

What is the relevance of this fact?  White Whirlwind  01:03, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, the Supreme Court does not make findings of fact. And as I asserted in #Huxman Findings of Fact, the findings of fact that Huxman provided forced the Supreme Court, if it were to find in favor of Brown, to overturn Plessy (well, at least in this context). (Otherwise, the court could have found in favor of Brown on the basis that the segregated schools were not in equal physical condition.)
In the Huxman section, I gave context to the "findings of fact" by making a "forward reference" to the Supreme Court opinion ("This finding would be specifically cited in the subsequent Supreme Court opinion ..."). When we cite this finding under the Brown v. Board of Education#Supreme court opinion, we should make clear that this is actually a finding from the District Court case. Fabrickator (talk) 01:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
I fail to see how the source of the findings would be relevant information for an average reader of this article. Also, I don't recall seeing any major source devote attention to that fact. (I seem to recall discussing this with you before.) Let's see if anyone agrees with your proposition.  White Whirlwind  04:43, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Here are some sources that take note of Louisa Holt's testimony, referenced in the findings of the trial court and cited by the Supreme Court:
Fabrickator (talk) 19:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
  1. ^ Blasi, Gary. "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Five Principles for Moving Ahead". Berkeley La Raza Journal 15, no. 1: 324–332. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check |pmid= value (help)
  2. ^ Blasi, Gary. "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Five Principles for Moving Ahead". Berkeley La Raza Journal 15, no. 1: 326. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check |pmid= value (help)
  3. ^ Blasi, Gary. "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Five Principles for Moving Ahead". Berkeley La Raza Journal 15, no. 1: 328. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check |pmid= value (help)
  4. ^ Blasi, Gary. "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Five Principles for Moving Ahead". Berkeley La Raza Journal 15, no. 1: 328. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check |pmid= value (help)
  5. ^ Blasi, Gary. "Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Five Principles for Moving Ahead". Berkeley La Raza Journal 15, no. 1: 330. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check |pmid= value (help)
  6. ^ Pettigrew, Thomas (September 2004). "Justice Deferred: A Half Century After Brown v. Board of Education". American Psychologist Journal 59, no. 6: 521–529. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: Check |pmid= value (help)
  7. ^ Pettigrew, Thomas (September 2004). "Justice Deferred: A Half Century After Brown v. Board of Education". American Psychologist Journal 59, no. 6: 525–526. PMID Search Premier EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: Check |pmid= value (help)
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