Other cases showed states that promised “separate but equal” couldn’t even provide anything close to “equal" and paved the way for better-known Brown case.
Commentary: John A. Tures - Higher education at lead of desegregation
John A. Tures
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Schoolkids are required to study, or at least memorize, the Plessy v. Ferguson case and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Almost completely ignored is the way the Supreme Court took on the so-called “Separate But Equal” Doctrine when it came to colleges and universities, with landmark rulings years early than the celebrated Brown case of 1954.
It may surprise you to know that the lone dissenter on the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld Louisiana’s segregationist policy on railcars was Justice John Marshall Harlan, one of the only Southerners on the court, a former slaveholder from Kentucky, and ex-opponent of the 13th Amendment. But the unfair Jim Crow laws and the cruel opposition to Reconstruction changed him. Harlan, who rightly predicted it would be the worst decision since the Dred Scott case, argued that this kind of state discrimination against