Which U.S. Supreme Court case ended racial segregation in public schools?

The U.S. Supreme Court case that ended legally enforced racial segregation in public schools was Brown v. Board of Education.

The Court ruled unanimously on May 17, 1954, that state laws requiring or permitting racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the opinion, rejecting the idea that segregated schools could be constitutionally equal simply because facilities appeared comparable.

Brown was a consolidated case involving five lawsuits from Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The lead plaintiff, Oliver Brown, challenged Topeka’s school system after his daughter Linda was denied admission to a nearby white elementary school. The decision overturned the constitutional foundation of the “separate but equal” approach from Plessy v. Ferguson in the public-school context.

Brown did not instantly integrate every school. Brown II, decided in 1955, ordered desegregation to proceed with deliberate speed, and resistance continued for years. The ruling also did not by itself end every form of segregation in American life.